Tokyo Police Club Finally Pony Up Full-Length

Two years have passed since A Lesson In Crime was released, but Tokyo Police Club seem more or less the same. Their international status, on the other hand, isn't.

Elephant Shell's April 29 release is set to propel the group into the stratosphere. You can read all about the record's pained birth and the quartet's banner 2007 in the cover article of April's issue of Chart. Here are some tidbits that didn't make it into the magazine, followed by the Canadian dates for the band's spring tour.

ChartAttack: The media really started pushing for the full-length in the middle of 2007. Were you aware of that when it was happening?
Josh Hook: I guess, yeah, we were aware of it, but I wasn't too intimidated by it or pushed by it. We could have rushed something — well, no, we couldn't have. But if we could have rushed something, then I don't think it would have been good. Anyway, you take your time and when you're ready to release something that you're happy with, hopefully everyone's still on board.

Was it difficult writing Elephant Shell?
Dave Monks: Yeah. We wanted to get it right and we're a pretty self-aware band, where we know when we're on and we know when we're off. And coming out of doing the EP, of course we were at the tender age of 19 and hearing that kind of stuff about your record is like, "Ah, shit!" So we really wanted to not fuck it up. So all these songs have seen many different lives, and we got them just where we like them. It came in bouts. I think just right at the end, we totally got our feet and we were able to get it all to fruition last November.

Do you think some of the struggle came out of trying to please everyone with the full-length?
DM: I think your initial reaction is like, "OK, people really like this song or that song," and we started to analyze our own writing process.
JH: Like, how can you duplicate it?
DM: Yeah, you try to figure yourself out — you try to outsmart music. And then we learned that was totally impossible, and the way the songs turned out well was to just let go and say, "Well, this is how we think the songs should sound, and if it's not what you were expecting, that's fine." It did affect us, the idea of trying to please people, but we didn't succumb to it and we were able to realize what was happening and go, "OK, hold on."

Given when it was written, the song "Juno" can't possibly be about the character in the movie, right?
DM: That's kind of an irritating thing.
JH: I'm glad you knew that, because a lot of people don't. They're just like, "So it's about the movie, what is it about the movie?"
DM: My grandpa had a Juno keyboard in the '60s, and some words really resonate with me phonetically.

Coachella seemed to really raise your profile last year. What was your experience at the festival like?
JH: It was a big crowd, that's mostly what I remember. We'd gotten a lot of press and this was the first time we were able to see it. It was a big tent and we thought we wouldn't fill it. But there was a lot people there, so you could really see the results.
DM: All your friends from the industry and people you know from other bands and people you've had beers with at meetings, everyone's at Coachella and no-one is working, so it's a really good environment.

You guys tried working with Peter Katis (Interpol, The National) on the album, but ended up going back to Jon Drew and Chemical Sound. What do you like about Jon's production style?
JH: He really knows how to get a good performance out of you without making you feel like you're repeating yourself.
DM: He's not a slick guy. He's doesn't course your guitars or resample the drums. He just gets you to play it right, which is good, because he gets the best out of you. Where, before, Greg would play the drums, we'd be like, "That's excellent." And he'd be like, "OK, these bars, you have to hit the snare harder." I remember we had a sign on the drum kit that said "Hit the drums with no mercy," so that Greg would physically beat the shit out of the kit.

What does Elephant Shell refer to? Is it a made-up amalgam of words?
DM: It is something. It's in "In A Cave," and I don't want to tear away at it. "In A Cave" was called "Elephant Shell," and we didn't want to have a name for the record that had previous connotations. We didn't want to call it American Dollar Bill or something. You say Elephant Shell and no-one knows what you're talking about until you listen to the record, and then you're like, "Oh, that's what it means."
JH: Or this is what it means to me.

Here are Tokyo Police Club's tour dates:

April 18 Ottawa, ON @ Barrymore's w/Winter Gloves and Ruby Coast
April 19 Montreal, QC @ Cabaret w/Winter Gloves and Ruby Coast
May 2 Toronto, ON @ Opera House w/Winter Gloves and Smoosh
May 3 Toronto, ON @ Opera House w/Winter Gloves and The Coast
May 8 Winnipeg, MB @ Garrick Theatre w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 9 Saskatoon, SK @ Louis' Pub w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 10-11 Calgary, AB @ Warehouse w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 12 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 14 Kelowna, BC @ Habitat w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 15-16 Vancouver, BC @ Plaza Club w/Smoosh and Attack In Black
May 17 Victoria, BC @ Sugar w/Smoosh and Attack In Black