Tokyo Police Club

History

Tokyo Police Club formed in 2005 while playing for fun in a basement after the four had disbanded from a previous group called Suburbia. The band started to gain attention and played some small shows throughout the Toronto area. Tokyo Police Club were asked to play in the Pop Montreal festival, and soon after they signed with Toronto label Paper Bag Records; Monks and Alsop dropped out of college to become professional musicians.

Since their formation the band has appeared in numerous festivals. In 2006 they appeared at Edgefest and the inaugural Osheaga Festival; however, could not play that year due to other conflicts. In 2007, they performed at Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bumbershoot, the Glastonbury Festival, and the Reading and Leeds Festival. In 2008 the band played the Roskilde Festival, the Rock am Ring-Festival, and Street Scene. In 2010, the band played the Bonnaroo Music Festival. They also played at San Francisco's 2010 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.

In the fall of 2008, the band played on the last 6 weeks of Weezer's Troublemaker Tour along with Angels and Airwaves. In the same year, they released their first album, Elephant Shell.

Their second full-length album, Champ, was released on June 8, 2010. produced by Rob Schnapf (Saves The Day, The Vines, Sweet Thing)

On June 18, 2011, the video for "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" was nominated as best indie video of the year by MuchMusic. The video was directed by Mike Juneau and Kyle McCreight, and produced by Jesse Ewles and Chris Cunningham. In 2011 the band also released 10 Days. 10 Covers. 10 Years., a project in which they recorded and releases a new cover song from one of the last 10 years, going in order from 2001 to 2010.

In 2012, the band joined Foster the People on the North American portion of their Torches tour along with Kimbra.

In addition to his work with the band, Wright also currently hosts programming on CBC Radio 3.

On December 8, 2011, the band revealed an unreleased song "Beaches" at a live show. On December 11, 2013, the band debuted a nine-minute lyric video for "Argentina (Pts. I, II, and III)" on YouTube. Both tracks are on their new album "Forcefield" which was released March 24, 2014.

Appearances

On April 19, 2007, Tokyo Police Club made their first US TV performance on the Late Show with David Letterman. They played their single "Nature of the Experiment", along with a tambourine accompaniment by the CBS Orchestra. On April 22, 2008 Tokyo Police Club made their second appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing the lead single "Tessellate" off their debut LP Elephant Shell. On November 16, 2008 they appeared on the television show "Desperate Housewives" in the episode "City on Fire" as "Cold Splash", a band competing in a battle-of-the-bands contest. They performed "In A Cave" from their album Elephant Shell. On December 10, 2008, they played "Your English is Good" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. On June 28, 2010 they appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing the single "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" off of their second album, "Champ". On March 27, 2011 Tokyo Police Club performed their single "Bambi" at the 40th Juno Awards in Toronto, Ontario. On July 7, 2014 the band performed at the 2014 Calgary Stampede in Calgary, Alberta.

Discography

The band released its debut EP, A Lesson in Crime, in 2006 on Paper Bag Records, with Smith EP arriving the following year. During a July 20, 2007 show in Omaha, Nebraska the band announced it had signed a deal earlier in the day for Saddle Creek Records to release their debut LP. The band have also recorded two previously unheard songs for the Daytrotter Sessions, which are available online. A single, now on their album Elephant Shell, entitled "Your English Is Good" was released on July 9, 2007.

Responding to criticisms that their debut EP A Lesson in Crime is too short (16:22), Graham Wright had this to say in an interview with Ukula: "It's very quick, quick, quick, one, two, three. Some of the songs don't have a lot of space in them and the album doesn't have a whole lot of room to breathe, but I think in the case of an EP this is a really good thing".

The band released their first LP, Elephant Shell, via their new label Saddle Creek on April 22, 2008 in North America, and May 5, 2008 in the U.K. and Continental Europe via Memphis Industries. It was pre-released via the US iTunes Store on March 25, 2008.

The band's fourth full-length LP, Forcefield, was released on March 24, 2014.

EPs

Solo projects

In November 2008, Tokyo Police Club keyboardist Graham Wright released a solo EP called The Lakes of Alberta online only, available as a free download. He has also participated in a project called "Novels" with musicians Luke Lalonde (of Born Ruffians), Will Currie (of Will Currie & The Country French), Dean Marino (of Papermaps), and Jay Sadlowski (of Jay Sad) in which these musicians wrote and recorded an entire EP in 24 hours. The CDs were not released in stores, nor on the internet, but were given out to random people or placed in random places. His debut solo album, Shirts vs Skins, was released on June 27, 2010. Greg Alsop has posted comedy sketch videos online, Drumsters and Novelty T-Shirt College. In June 2015, lead singer Dave Monks released his first solo EP on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play called "All Signs Point to Yes", with two singles having been released prior to the release of the album.