JapandroidsThe beat of the drum, some tearing guitar chords and a passionate howl; Japandroids' music comes from little but delivers a hell of a lot. The Vancouver duo's 2012 record, Celebration Rock, is exactly what it says on the box – a burning-hot serving of howling tunes that doesn't relent. Listening to the LP, you can practically see the sweat coming through the stereo.
Fast-talking guitarist/vocalist Brian King is at home in Vancouver; he's keeping an eye on a hockey game, resting and trying not to do very much. When you're in a band like Japandroids though, nothing still means something.
“I had the day off in the sense that I was not on tour – I didn't have to play a show,” says King. “But I spent most of the day doing logistical stuff and getting things ready for the next tour that we're going to do. A band our size, we don't have some army of people working for us to take care of stuff; Dave [Prowse – drums/vocals] and I mostly do everything ourselves still. And it's not like a regular band where you can split things up between five people; everything is split between two or three people, between us and our tour manager we have to take care of this worldwide touring operation, so there's a lot of work behind the scenes that people don't see – work that goes into touring different parts of the world for several months at a time.
“You have to get all these visas to all these places, you have to get all your equipment sorted out, you have to get your flights and transportation sorted out, all your merch has to get from here to there, and we're still practicing to make sure we are tight for all the shows. It's like a full-time job when we're not on tour, just getting ready to go on the next one.”
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And get ready they do, for when Japandroids take the stage nothing else is significant. Their shows could be described as a visceral explosion; well-oiled chaos that seems simultaneously teetering on the edge while remaining totally in control. When the Canadians perform they don't massage your soul; they kick you in the arse. They amplify your enthusiasm for every facet of your existence and make you want to be the best fucking human going.
The guys have been slogging it out solidly on the road for a year or so now and are almost ready to start working on album number three. But not before the touring is complete. For as King explains, the band, unsurprisingly, like to keep things simple, and even though they may currently be putting ideas down, little riffs and the like, they're not going to really focus on new music until the road is in their rear vision.
“We're a pretty black and white band in the sense that we don't work seriously on writing songs or writing a record when we're in the middle of touring. We care a lot about our live shows and we tour so much that it kinda occupies all of our time and energy when we're doing it. Our last record that we did, we basically wrote that entirely after we finished touring our first record [2009's Post-Nothing], and a lot of stuff that had been written along the way got left behind and we kinda started from scratch when we got home.”
