TeenagersInTokyo : Interview

Teenagersintokyo are not, as the name suggests, teenagers residing in Tokyo. Actually they are twenty-something Ozzies who can currently be found treading the streets of London full of uncynical hopefulness that its musical hallowed ground will throw up similar opportunities for their band. Well it should do, because TeenagersinTokyo, supported by Back Yard Records (home of The Gossip), are really bloody good.

Think of a union between electro-pop, angsty punk and the dark side of the 80’s and you come somewhere close to the combination of sounds emerging from the musical barrage that TeenagersInTokyo are capable of hitting you with.  Atmospheric synths create expectant tension, swirling around beautifully crafted melodies, unforgiving beats and a haunting vocal delivery.  The structures are delicate yet robust and immediate enough to stir you from your 80’s induced coma, because despite the obvious era influences, TeenagersInTokyo have established for themselves a progressive style that will resonate perfectly as we move into the next decade; whatever that holds for our fickle musical ears. 

The recent double a side release of tracks 'Isabella' and 'Long Walk Home' was perhaps a defining moment in the Australian quintet’s career thus far.  The last two years for them has been a learning curve, drinking in the high profile support slots that have come their way, ironing out their flaws and working with the highly in demand David Kosten on production duty, thus bringing all their experiences into shaping the band that they have now become.  Intelligent in their processes, wholly collaborative and constantly working for the best interests of each song they write, TeenagersInTokyo are a very attractive prospect as their debut album gets set for release in early 2010.

4or The Record spent a thoroughly pleasant hour in the company of these non teens from Australia, shooting the breeze and getting reprimanded by security guards in brick Lane as we endeavoured to conduct a photo shoot. Strewth, all in a days work!

TeenagersInTokyo are: Samantha Lim (Vocals), Miska Mandic (Keyboard), Linda Marigliano (Bass), Sophie McGinn (Guitar), Rudy Udovich (Drums).

4TR: Many people in the UK might not know about TeenagersInTokyo so give us the lowdown on how the band started.

Miska Mandic: It’s well oiled story but the 4 of us girls met at high school back in 1997 so have known each other for a really long time and then we met Rudy in 2006 which was when we really got serious about the band.

Rudy Udovich: I kind of stalked them for a while on MySpace.

Samantha Lim: [Laughing] he actually did stalk us, he messaged us saying I really like your stuff, which one of you is the drummer, and we said well we don’t have a drummer do you know anyone and he writes back saying yeah I’m a drummer, so we invited him to rehearsals and he did, was amazing and never left.

Miska: As a five piece we knuckled down and got serious.  Back Yard, our label got in touch after that and we really vibed with them, so because we wanted to be closer to them and the London music scene we moved here about 4 months ago, and here we are now.

4TR: You have been compared soundwise to dark atmospheric 80’s rock, has that always been your sound, or has it evolved over time?

Miska: I think our sound is constantly evolving depending on what mood we are in when we are writing and despite the fact all our songs have a general TeenagersInTokyo blanket over them, they are quite varied.  I think most bands will say that about themselves but I really hear it in our music.

Sophie McGinn: People are like what genre are you and we don’t know [laughs] we want to be all the genres, just don’t put us in a box.

4TR: How do you approach songwriting?

Linda: At first it was on gut instinct because we haven’t come from a formal music background so it was all by ear and very organic.  We learnt to play music around each other so at the beginning we had less control over that, but the further along we have come we’ve been able to control it, realizing the ruts we have fallen into and knowing when to change it.

Miska: And I think now we try to appreciate the tug and pull between working in an instinctive organic way and having that knowledge which naturally has come through us playing a lot.  We try to negotiate a middle ground between those things.

Samantha Lim: Yeah it’s heavily technical, mechanical and instinctual.

Rudy: One of the main things that really attracted me to the girls besides the obvious was that the first thing I got when I heard their stuff was they innocently just knew what they wanted to do.  I remember going to see them and they couldn’t play their instruments all that well but they could play their songs amazingly.  Now we all write together bouncing ideas around and no one is precious about anything, it’s very democratic.

Miska: [Laughing] that’s why we are really bad at covers because the only songs we know are our own, I can only play things that I write.  

4TR: You are working on your debut album with David Kosten (Bat For Lashes) on production. Was he on your wish list?

Sophie: Yeah actually he was at the top of our wish list.

Miska: [Laughing] well he wasn’t at the top; Brian Eno was at the top.  No he was up there, the label asked us for our wish list so we said ok then, Nigel Goodrich, Brian Eno, Quincy Jones, David Kosten…

Linda: And then all of a sudden we got this forwarded email from our label saying “hey band meet David” and he was like “hey guys I love you stuff, lets have a Skype chat about working together” and we realised oh my god its David Kosten, it was so cool.

Rudy: Especially because we were all really into that first Bat For Lashes record, we thought it was such good song writing and production, so before David even came into the picture it was a big reference for our song writing and sounds, it’s such an elegant record.

4TR: How has Kosten impacted on the recording process so far?

Rudy: The biggest thing for us when we were writing the record and getting into the studio was how we would transfer our energy and vibe onto a record so people can hear it, because so much of being able to write organically needs to come across other wise it gets wasted. The beauty of working with David Kosten is he harnessed that energy, he just slotted into the band and brought together that so you can hear that on the songs; you can hear us and you can here Kosten’s touch as well.

Linda: He totally complimented what we wanted because he enhanced what we were hearing in our heads and put it to record without us having to explain our ideas. He got the vibe straight away from some pretty raw demos so the ideas started flowing and we tried loads of different things.

4TR: Has recording gone the way you expected or surprised you at all?

Miska: There are a few songs on there that as we were doing them I thought wow this is going such a different way than I thought it would go.  Not necessarily because of David Kostens’ influence but when you bring anymore people into the equation or when you take people out even the dynamic changes; so as soon as we started vibing and laying down parts and adding to things thing started going slightly in different directions and different to how I expected, which is amazing because they sound fantastic.

Rudy: Also David suggested early on in the process we should head to this studio in Wales in the middle of nowhere, with a great engineer, which we did.  I don’t think we would have got the same product if we were just stuck in a studio in London actually.  You sleep on the premises there are ghosts in the house and it’s quite creepy, plus some amazing people have been through there and it was a lot of fun. 

4TR: How different is the TeenagersInTokyo sound from record to your live show?

Linda: We love the idea of being an amazing studio band and having an amazing sounding record but being able to translate that live and have an audience in front of you is an absolute win; you’ve got to be able to do it right.

Sophie: A lot of people who have seen us play live and have heard what is recorded have found it quite different; people have said its rougher and darker live. I am so excited to see all these songs live now because we have spent so much time getting them right.

Rudy: We did like 13-hour days locked up in the studio and tried to find the balance of what was happening on the record and what we wanted to do live and mesh the two.  Obviously we didn’t want it to sound the same live as on record because that would be boring, so we have worked really hard rehearsing to work it out.  We got to work with Julian who plays drums in Massive Attack and he helped us harness what was on the record and putting it down in terms of a live experience.  That was an honour having someone of that caliber who plays with one of the biggest acts in the world to then say I like your sound so I would like to help you work it out.

Sophie: I don’t think we could have done it as efficiently if we didn’t have him to help us; [laughing] it would have been a lot more slapstick; a bit Benny Hill bumping into things and making it happen. 

4TR: What about your lyrics, are they also collaborative within the band? 

Sam: Most of the lyrics I tend to write by myself but others are collaborative. Sometimes it will be a line that someone comes up with and we work out a story from there or I will have an idea and will maybe work out a verse and then maybe ask someone for another perspective.  Like every aspect in our music the door is always open for someone else in the band to work with it. 

4TR: And what kinds of experiences are they coming from?

Sam: I remember a lot of the earlier songs that we used to write were a bit more abstract and I was personally really interested in the sounds that words created rather than writing an actual story, but as we’ve developed its become more interesting to figure out a story through the lyrics.  So our newer stuff has more comprehensive story through it, a lot of it part real and part fiction, it’s pulling together different threads, it’s a pastiche or a collage of ideas.

4TR: Your label in the UK is Back Yard Records, how did they get involved with the band while you were in Australia?

Sophie: There was this chain of people who found us on MySpace and passed on our demos to Gil who runs the label and the first email we got from him was so full of excitement that he had found this song and barely anyone had heard of us.  We were a bit modest in a way because to have someone so excited about us who was half a world away and working with bands like The Gossip and doing so well with their record was surreal.  It all sort of made more sense when we came over to tour last year and we felt part of the family.

Miska: The fact that they are a small indie label really appealed to us because the idea of being one of the gazillion bands on a label isn’t something that I think appeals to us at this stage.

Linda: Yeah and they are very passionate about their artists and we knew how closely they had worked with The Gossip and also Chromeo, so we appreciated how they put every effort behind their bands, it’s a development process and mutually beneficial.

4TR: You mentioned your label mates the Gossip who you have supported, but you have play support shows for other huge bands like The Slits and !!!(Chk Chk Chk).  For a band that hasn’t put out a full-length record yet, it must be an incredible experience playing those shows?

Rudy: Hell yeah. Playing a show like that in venues that we wouldn’t be able to play off our own steam for me feels like a kind of baptism of fire because there’s alot of room for error.  Especially when you remember that most of the people there have not come to see you, but they are such constructive shows to play as well, you learn a lot

Miska: You cant play with a band that you respect who has come a lot further than you have without taking something good and constructive away from it. You can’t play a show with a band like chk chk chk or css or midnight juggernauts and brush it off.  You watch what they do and take it away even in a subconscious manner, so we’re really excited about doing more of that with big bands that will take us under their wing.

4TR: Many Australian musicians/bands often comment on how hard it is to break it as a new band back home – have you found that to be the case? And if so why do you think that is?

Linda: Definitely that’s why we are here because there seemed to be so much more of a warm embracing new music community that is thriving and passionate about pushing and discovering new bands.  It still does exist in Australia but there just aren’t enough people, and the industry isn’t as big in comparison.

Rudy: Exactly so it’s a lot harder to get your music out there at home.  We put in a lot of effort and are really lucky that we have got people who were into what we are doing and believed in us but unless you have that strong national push you cant break that bubble.

Miska: Sophie put it really well earlier when she was talking about this exact same thing, that there is only so many boxes that you can fit in boxes in Australia to make it big, if you don’t fit in any then you are not going to make it.  But also there’s almost 2 ways of making it in Australia, one is to fit into those boxes or otherwise to go and make it big overseas and prove it to Australia and then miraculously a box appears for a new sound.  We are waiting for our box [laughs].

Double A-Side 'Isabella' and 'Long Walk Home' is out now.

Words: Francesca Strange

Images: Gareth Jackson www.jacksonfoto.com

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