Just before their final tour ever, singer/bassist Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club talked with QRO. In the conversation, Monks discussed the band ending (but he’s not stopping making music), the big final TPC tour, how they’re gonna fit in all the deep cuts & bangers, how they know almost all their songs, adding dates, playing Election Day, their ‘Middle Period’ that was actually part of their younger days, the dark future of 2009, and more…
QRO: How are you right now, in the run-up to your final tour?
Dave Monks: I’m great. I’m enjoying the last kind of week of not too much going on. Starting to think about the logistics of it and stuff, getting excited.
QRO: Has it hit you yet, or are you still in that weird calm before it all ends, like the final spring of high school or college?
DM: I think there’s only so much of it that you can really brace yourself for. We played some shows this summer, so we have some under our belt, and getting a taste of it. But no, I definitely think it’s really going to hit home once we’re out there on stage, and doing it.
QRO: Do you have any idea of what your set lists are going to be like? How do you fit in a whole career each night?…
DM: Well, it’s six hours long… [laughs]
I think what we’re kind of doing is the first spot, and then I think we might have a middle spot where it’s acoustic and alternate versions, and a third spot. There’s stuff you know you’re going to play every night, and then we have spots where we can change in one or two. We’re not going to be able to give everybody all the deep cuts, but there’s definitely some stuff that we’re excited to play that we haven’t played in a while.
I think the songs kind of sort themselves out. Some of them kind of shine live, anyways, so you want to include those.
QRO: Will this upcoming tour feature any of the new songs you’ve just recently released, such as “Just a Scratch” (QRO review) and/or “Catch Me If You Can”?
DM: Yes, I think we’re gonna do “Just a Scratch”, get that in there, which is exciting.
QRO: Do you think you will majorly change the set list each night of the tour, to get in everything over the whole tour, or just stick to more of a regular set list and only change one-or-two songs?
DM: I guess I just don’t know. I’ve never done something quite like this. It’s a good question.
Like I was saying, there’s kind of ‘buckets’. At the end of the show, we’re gonna have the bangers that we kinda know we play. In the early part of the show, there will be some options for some deep cuts & stuff.
I think what will happen is we’ll dial in on a set. As we do the tour, it’ll become obvious what’s really working. And in towns where we only really have one night, we’ll do that set, that’s the most dialed in. And then towns where there’s a couple nights – or Toronto, there’s four nights – we’ll of course be rolling the dice more on other stuff, changing it up more & more.
QRO: I was actually gonna ask: you’ll at least change up night-to-night when you play multiple nights in a city, like Vancouver, Los Angeles, NYC & Toronto?
DM: Oh yeah, for sure, yeah.
Set lists do have a way of coalescing over a tour.
QRO: Yeah, I’ve noticed that with bands in general. But it’s also, not like you’re touring a new album…
DM: Yeah. I think also, you want to change it up, you want to put different stuff in, but then also, some stuff really, really works, and you dial that in more & more, and the show’s better for it. It’s about balance.
QRO: Are you prepared for all the shouted requests that you’re gonna get? I feel like there’s going to be a lot on your final tour.
DM: I think we go pretty deep. I honestly only think that there are only maybe a dozen songs that we really don’t go near. I think you can shout most stuff at us, and if we’re in the right mood, we’ll have a version of it for you.
QRO: Now you’re really going to get the requests…
DM: [laughs] Yeah, it’s out there…
QRO: There are still a few that you don’t remember…
DM: There are couple ones where, I don’t know how much people know about making records, but there’s a couple, ‘That’s not fun live.’
QRO: Or there are things you did on it that you can’t…
DM: It’s not that you can’t – we’ll use backing tracks; we’ll use whatever we need.
Or there’s another song that does that better. We have that too sometimes.
QRO: I’m gonna be at NYC, and I’m gonna demand your cover of Harlem Shakes’ “Strictly Game”…
DM: Oh, my god… [laughs] That one, we might not be prepared for.
QRO: I noticed that, other than the very first date of this tour, which is Rifflandia in Vancouver, there are no festival dates on this tour. Was that intentional, to give fans full TPC show to close, rather than the usual more abbreviated festival sets? Or was it just that there weren’t festivals happening, as it’s not the summer…
DM: This was such an organic process. In the most earnest way, we didn’t see this becoming a whole tour. We didn’t see this being four nights in Toronto and all that stuff.
Really, business-wise, it would have been better to announce this earlier than we did, so that we could get on summer festivals. There would have been more festivals, if the timing had been different. It just wasn’t contrived like that. So, this is what we were able to get on.
Festivals would be great. I think that would have been nice, just to make it so more people could see the music, but this is what we got…
QRO: I also noticed that you’ve been adding dates, both another night in the same place, or new towns like Buffalo. Have you been seeing higher interest after you announced the initial ‘final tour’?
DM: Now we’re done. That’s it now.
There were some later stuff that came in, there were some gaps in the tour that were kind of left. So, some stuff got added, because it kept coming through for a little bit.
QRO: Also, you’re gonna be touring U.S.A. before, during & after the election…
DM: Ugh, I know…
QRO: You’re playing St. Louis on Election Day…
DM: I don’t know what to expect? I’m prepared to hunker down, I guess…
QRO: I actually interviewed Graham & Josh during the 2016 election season (QRO interview) – at Irving Plaza (where you’ll be playing this November)…
At least after you’re touring’s done, you won’t have to deal with U.S. Customs & the border as much after this year…
DM: That’s true actually…
Tokyo Police Club’s video for “Just a Scratch”:
QRO: Who put together all that footage for the “Just a Scratch” video?
DM: That was our friend Vic [McEwan] in Toronto. She did a great job. She’s been helping us with internet stuff.
All that footage – I couldn’t believe how much footage there was of us…
QRO: Did you see any of the early footage and think, ‘Oh, we were so young…’?
DM: Yeah, I guess, in my mind, as we put out records – I don’t know how well you know our arc?
QRO: Oh, I saw you in 2007 at Maxwell’s (QRO live review), where Ra Ra Riot & Vampire Weekend opened for you…
DM: Wow, what a time, eh?…
So, that was 2007, so when we put out Forcefield in 2014. I had grown from 19, now I was 25. I was like, ‘Oh, this is our middle period.’ I felt old, my hair was short.
I saw some footage in that mix from of me that quote-unquote ‘Middle Period’. It’s crazy – you have this impression of yourself as so much older, and then you’re like, all that’s the baby times…
QRO: When you’re in your mid-twenties, you think you’re ‘old,’ because all you have to compare it to is being a kid, teenager, college, but no…
DM: But you’re still a kid…
QRO: I mean, you had a song that predicted the dark future of 2009!…
DM: Yeah, that’s funny. Well, it rhymes.
Actually, there is no rhyme on that song – it could have been anything, but…
QRO: I guess, if you picked anything past 2010, it would have been two syllables.
DM: That’s true – that’s as far as I could get, with it being the right syllables.
I should have just said ‘3009’…
QRO: Go the Mystery Science Theater 3000 route…
DM: Oh yeah, I love those…
QRO: You’ve already talked about it, so I don’t how much you can add about why you guys decided to call it quits…
DM: It’s kind of one of those ‘it’s time’ things. It’s just a myriad of factors. Everyone’s lives have changed & evolved so much.
We were messing around, like we put out those new songs, we were making some stuff. It slowly dawned on us that the most natural thing to do.
It’s scary for everyone to let it go. We’ve been doing it for so long, and it’s kind of a little badge we all have on our shoulder, ‘I’m in this cool band.’ I think it took us all a long time to work up the courage to be like, ‘If we look at it more soberly, we’re good here.’
I think also, it’s ending TPC, but it’s also preserving the whole thing now. It’s like we’re leaving it down, but we’re preserving the whole thing, as opposed to like adding on a weird extra chapter, or some personal difference coming up, breaking what’s really cool about it.
That’s one of the really cool parts about it, too, is that we can like celebrate & preserve what it is.
QRO: There’s no Yoko Ono coming in and breaking up the band?…
DM: [laughs] No…
QRO: I know that she didn’t actually break up The Beatles…
DM: That’d be better press…
QRO: And finally, what kind of plans – if any – do you and/or the other guys have for life after TPC?
DM: Speaking for myself, there’s a lot of music I want to make. This isn’t a ‘retirement from music’ for me…
QRO: I know you’ve done some solo stuff (QRO solo album review).
DM: I think that those projects have kind of always lived in the recesses between TPC. When TPC is taking a breath, I kind of go, ‘Well, I’ve got all this stuff,’ and then I go back. I’m just excited to be a bit more unbound with that end, sort of focus my energy a little bit more.
I’m still passionate about making music. That’s not gonna change.
QRO: For those final four Toronto nights, is that like the real deep cuts?
DM: I do think there’s some stuff. One I really want to play is “Centennial”. It’s the first track on Elephant Shell, but we never play that one.
Another one I want to play is this one “Feel the Effect”, which is the last track on Forcefield. I think it’s one of our best things, but it’s in a weird spot, right at the end of this record.
I think one other thing we’ll get to is, there’s another old song from the very early days called “A Lesson In Crime”, which is the name of our first EP. It used to be rare, but now it’s on Spotify, so it’s not rare anymore. But it hasn’t been performed much, so I’m excited to try that one out.
QRO: I remember seeing you years ago (QRO live review), and someone drunk shouted for “Bambi” the entire set…
DM: There’s a few songs that people request, “Your English Is Good”, and “Bambi”, and it’s like, ‘I don’t think we’d get paid if we didn’t play those two songs. You’re good…’ [laughs]
QRO: I think there are also fans, especially at something like this, who want to request the obscure songs. Almost to show that they know your obscure stuff…
DM: I think that’s part of what’s been exciting being in this band this time. We’re lucky enough to say that we do have this breadth of fanbase, that people get to be on the inside in that kind of cool way. It feels like a little club.
