Japandroids : Interview

Providing us with a high voltage outlet upon which to decipher the finite music coming out of Vancouver are Japandroids; neither Japanese, nor android but 100% fuzzed-out garage rock enthusiasts who play their musical barrage loud as if their lives depended on it. 

Forming off the back of a burgeoning university friendship, David Prowse and Brian King’s musical ideals started initially as a creative outlet for post-teenage angst.  Two critically acclaimed EP’s and the debut album Post-Nothing later and we have a Pitchfork championed love-in for these lo-fi, distortion aficionados, whose no-frills production and tearing enthusiasm is infectious.

Japandroids recently embarked on their first shows on UK shores, where they showcased wild percussion, intense guitars and their raw dual vocals in visceral and riotous furor.  The hard to satisfy London crowds liked it, subsequent reviews were loaded with praise and now as a result of this tremendous year 2010 is to be welcomed in with a European tour and multiple shows at SXSW. For a Canadian band who were only ever making music for themselves things just got a whole lot more serious.  

We spent an hour in the company of the jet-lagged Japandroids during their whistle stop stint in the UK, to bring you an introduction to a duo that we are confident you will be hearing a lot more of next year.

4or The Record: 2009 was the year that brought Japandroids onto the radar of the UK music industry as well as at home in Canada and in the US.  But you have actually been playing and making music at home since 2005 right?

David Prowse: Yeah, well Brian and I met each other when we were at uni in 2000 and we didn’t actually formed a band until after we had finished, when Brian moved to Vancouver which is my home town.  So we started playing in about 2005, but really started being like a real band and taking it more seriously in 2006.  After that we put out a couple of EPs ourselves and toured a little bit here and there, but it has been Post-Nothing, our new album, which has been heard by alot more people and which has generated a nice kind of buzz.  And so now here we are in London.

4TR: You self released your first 2 EP’s but this year you decided to put the album out through Polyvinyl.  What made you change tact and go with a label?

Brian: Well originally we were always going to put out Post-Nothing ourselves but it got picked up by Unfamiliar Records who put it out in Canada and as a limited release in the US and that’s when we started getting quite a buzz going.  After that Pitchfork gave us a really good review which grabbed the attention of a whole load of other people.  So one of the labels that got in touch with us after that buzz started developing was Polyvinyl who seemed like really great people and it felt like we were on the same page, so because of that we decided to work with them.

4TR: Post-Nothing is an album made up of short, sharp bursts of raw garage-rock fuelled intensity.  But it encompasses so much more besides – was this velocity of sound something you always intended when you started writing with an album in mind?

Brian: No, I don’t think there was ever much of a conscious choice to sound like anything, but we were limited with what we had to work with; we had drums and guitar and that was it.  When we started we weren’t even singing, we were just playing instrumentally together and it was kind of a mixture of all the different kinds of music we listen to.  So a mix up from 50s and 60s garage rock to classic rock to post punk to punk to alternative grunge; all these different kind of musical genres that we listened to and just mashing them all together. 

But you know everything we’ve done from our first EP to the second to the album has sort of changed and maybe become refined.  Now we have identified where our strengths are as a 2-piece and what works and what doesn’t, so when you listen to this record it’s clear that we know how to make the most of us.  Having said that who knows what we’ll sound like from here on, because it’s obvious that we are changing with each record.

4TR: You have always utilised the DIY ethic in terms of recording and production, and subsequently releasing your music.  Do you think that has added to the sound and your ideas about what the band should be?

Brian: We are responsible for the way the record sounds because when we made this record it was long before anyone knew who we were so at the time we were just a local band making local records.  You self-produce because you don’t have money to hire a producer and you don’t really have producers interested in molding your sound, so you record your own record and make it sound the way you want. We are heavily involved in controlling the way the band sounds and is presented and I think that will always be the case.  Nowadays when someone famous decides to self-produce their album that may mean something, but to us it’s just normal.  It’s the only thing we knew how to do.

4TR: With that in mind you must be thinking about future recordings - with more available to you now after the success of Post-Nothing where you are going to go with production and recording? 

Brian: Absolutely we’re thinking about it.  Everything we have done and recorded up until this point is fairly innocent, we didn't have reviews or press or an audience in mind when we were writing those songs so we were just doing it for ourselves.  There was no pressure or expectation, whereas now people are going to be looking for our next record when it comes out; so you now have an audience and an expectation of what you sound like.  It will be a totally different experience trying to put together our next album and figuring out how its going to sound, so in a sense I guess we’ve lost some of that innocence which means its going to be really interesting in the future.

4TR: I read in your press release that you always intended for Japandroids to be a trio, but ultimately realized you could do everything you wanted with just the 2 of you.  What made you change your minds?

David: Well the big thing was that neither of us felt very confident about singing, so we initially wanted to find a singer, but at a certain moment we just started doing it ourselves.  I think we realised looking for a singer was holding us back, because we’d written all these songs instrumentally so we had the first EP and were looking for someone to sing over them.  But we were really eager to start playing shows and record, so we decided to try it ourselves just to keep going.  There was definitely a time where we felt having someone sing as well as we could play would make the band stronger and it’s still probably true [laughs] but we’re managing to do ok for ourselves.

4TR: You both sing and produce, but do you also collaborate with song-writing?

David: I guess yes and no at times; like as time has gone on we have both become more comfortable as vocalists but Brian has become more comfortable singing lead, so on Post-Nothing for example there’s only one song where I wrote all the lyrics which is ‘Rockers East Vancouver’, and the rest of the songs lyrics Brian wrote on his own.  

It’s become a bit less collaborative compared to our earlier stuff when neither of us knew what the hell we were doing and now its kind of well I have got an idea, or Brian has an idea and then on a few it was kind of lets do this together.

Brian: In the beginning we were just trying to have songs; like we’d written all these songs instrumentally and were trying to come up with something we could sing over them, but as times gone by we have become more focused on writing a good song from scratch.  Now its become more about what is the best thing for this song, what fits into this album etc, so its about trying to write good songs and how every song requires something different vocally. Through that process I think we came out with a much stronger product with Post-Nothing. We both feel that every time we record we’re getting better at writing good songs because when we started we didn’t know what we are doing.

4TR: With Post-Nothing being very lo-fi and also self-produced, would you say it has been easy to translate the music for the live environment?

David: Yeah for sure, our recording is almost exactly like being at a show because we didn’t do much besides put microphones in front of the stuff that we play and then played our songs.

Brian: Yeah there’s no fancy studio work or anything, so its very raw because we didn’t have a lot of money so not a lot of time in the studio.  So we just went in and played our songs and recorded them.  That’s something else that will be interesting in the future is now we probably have the time and money to not have to record that way if we don’t want to, so it will be interesting.

4TR: That has definitely added to the record’s charm, because although it’s not a live concept album, it is a live record in a sense.  Do you think that is an identity that will be hard to move on from?

Brian: Well that’s something we’re struggling to figure out; its kind of the Catch 22 because you don’t want to try and recreate the same thing you already did, but at the same time do you want to change the thing that made people like you in the first place.

David: Plus it was what we felt comfortable doing, so we need to feel comfortable in what we do in the future too.

4TR: Moving away from the music I have to ask the obvious question, but Japandroids is quite a name.  Is there a story behind it?

David: [Laughing] its funny because when we came up with the name we didn’t think we would have to answer any questions about it, but it was done as kind of a make shift compromise because we both had ideas what we wanted to call the band but neither of us liked each others idea.  I wanted to call the band Japanese Scream and Brian wanted Pleasure Droids, so we just mashed them together basically and got Japandroids.

4TR: America obviously gets a huge share of the focus and attention when looking at music, but how does the music scenes or industry relate back home in Canada?

David: Well Vancouver is not really known as a hot spot for music so it was a real challenge for us getting our name beyond Vancouver. It’s a beautiful city but in terms of getting your music out there and playing shows its not great.  There’s a lot of trouble in keeping venues open, plus the city has very restrictive liquor laws especially with clubs that stay open late and have live music, the local media isn’t super supportive either; but actually there are a lot of great bands in and around Vancouver.  We wouldn’t have really gotten anywhere if we hadn’t played outside there where there are more people interested in music and putting records out for bands and writing about them and stuff.

Brian: There's really only 2 “music scenes” happening in Canada and that’s in Toronto and Montreal, both of which are very far from Vancouver.  It’s difficult to do anything in different parts of Canada and get known unless you are either a part of one of those city scenes or are constantly going there to play.  Nobody really watches Vancouver like they do in London or Brooklyn for example, where you can start a band and play a few gigs and soon someone will have an eye on you if you are good. 

David: For a band in there you really have to get national press interest or something big to get any attention.  Or maybe its even down to luck!

4TR: So you have to go away to make your name.

Brian: Exactly, but the other thing is its very difficult for bands to cross the border into the US to play, especially after 911 the border security is so tight that you require special visas essentially to play music in the States.  That's very expensive so most Canadian bands who are young and starting up cant really afford legally to even drive 3 hours to Seattle to play a show, so they don’t have much of a choice other than to tour in Canada.  

David: Plus if you try and jump the border to get into the States theres a ban for several years.  You Say Party! We Say Die are from Vancouver and are well known in Canada, but they got banned from the US for 5 years for doing that, which is a life time for a band trying to succeed.

Brian: Just imagine being in a band from London and the only way you could get known was to play in Berlin so you have to drive to Berlin to play a show; it would be nearly impossible for most young bands starting out to do that, but its what we had to do.  That’s the difference over there!  

4TR: But on a positive note the pick up on Post-Nothing and Japandroids has been great over here, so you must be pretty chuffed with that!

David: Chuffed? What is that, what does that mean?

4TR: Well it’s a way of saying you must be pleased!

David: Hey that’s a new one on me, but yeah its pretty amazing how positive everybody has been in the US as well as the UK, so its pretty great, we are chuffed [laughs].

Brian: So everyone go buy our record.

Words: Francesca Strange

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