In one of our first interviews ever, we interviewed Graham Wright of Tokyo Police Club to talk about their last album and any new ones coming up.

CS: I see there’s a huge amount of kids following Canada and it’s music scene. I’m not sure why, but-

Graham: -I’m not sure either.

Well, I guess I know why. It’s got pretty great music. That and I guess a lot more people are becoming socialist and ice hockey’s becoming more popular.

Finally. It’s about time.

Well, what do you think about the scene that’s come about from Canada?

It’s always weird to see who gets the scene or who gets to be the next big thing because if you go to any given real city at any given time ever there’s gonna be good music. They were making good music in Canada before and they’re gonna keep making good music after. Just the same way that when Athens, Georgia was ‘en vogue’. There’s still bands in Athens making great music and there were bands before that, but that was their year.

What’s the first noise that you ever remember hearing?

That’s an excellent question. I don’t even remember what doing is. My childhood memories are sketchy.

Well, you wouldn’t think so. You’re music has a childlike feel to it sometimes.

Yeah. Well, that’s Dave. He probably has a better memory than I do. It’s weird because you read books, these epic novels that span people’s lives, and their childhood is rendered in such detail.

Well, an easier question would be: what’s the first song you heard as a child?

Probably would have been something weird that my parents were listening to when I was a kid. I think the earliest song I remember being part of my life is by Genesis or Phil Collins. It went [singing] “seeeee how I miss you.” I don’t know what it’s called. Look it up [it’s by Bruce Cockburn on the album World of Wonders]. I guess it was my dad’s favorite song or something because he would always play it and we would always dance around the living room.

What song first made you pick up a guitar?

The first song I ever learned how to play, I think, was Brain Stew by Green Day. I don’t know that that was necessarily the reason I picked up a guitar, but it would have been a mixture of Green Day and Blink 182. When I first started playing guitar, I would download tabs from the internet. I have a 3 ring binder, probably 2 inches thick, of just tabulature. It’s in the order of when I got it, so you can trace the progression of my musical taste. It starts with Green Day and when it ends it has Radiohead and Sparkle horse and stuff.

So, what’s the whole story on you guys from when you met to now?

It’s lame, but where we come from there’s this thing called the “Gifted Stream”. You would take all these tests… and all this crap (it wasn’t if you were smart, it was if you learned it differently). They put you in this special stream that went to a certain school. Dave, Josh, and I were in the same grade in that and Greg was a couple years ahead of us. We weren’t friends the whole time. We knew someone who knew each other and kind of swapped around. By 8th grade we all started to become friends and that’s when we started to play music. Josh and I and another friend all bought guitars and said: “We’re gonna make a band. Let’s buy some instruments.” Of course, we didn’t make a band, but we would say: “Let’s rehearse today!” “Do you know how to play your instrument, yet?” “No.” “Well, me neither. Let’s watch TV”. But out of that was born that idea…

When you guys first started out, you had a kind of robot theme that you now seem to have dropped. Was that intentional to carry that or are you trying to shy away from the original theme?

When we made our EP, A Lesson in Crime, we had that one song: “Citizens of Tomorrow” which is about robots and all that stuff. You know, we were in twelfth grade. We were 18 years old, just writing about anything that we thought was funny, ya know? We were in high school and the year after high school when we wrote that stuff. That was one of many silly subjects that we wrote about. And then when we finished the EP and we sequenced it, we looked at the way it went and we go: “Oh… we totally made a concept record about robots by mistake.” None of those songs are about it. They have nothing to do with it. It was just the way that it lined up. Then, the guy who did the artwork caught onto that. And it sort of became this [thing]. Then, we did a photo shoot and the photographer brought in a robot. And all of a sudden we had this robot-y gimmick. We kind of rolled with it because you kinda need a gimmick; anything that people are gonna remember about your band is good. Then, we made that video. Again, the director obviously listened to the lyrics of the song and came up with what he came up with. But we’re through with that now. We feel like we kind of used the gimmick for what it’s worth and we’re done with it.

What do you have to say about what people think the genre of your music is?

None of that makes sense to me. I remember writing the bio for the band and putting down post-pop as the genre. I don’t know… post-pop. Pre-post-fun-era-circa music. And people always say: “Hey. Post-pop. That’s a good description.” I just thought: “We’re pop music, but we’re kinda not. So, let’s throw post in front of it and let people draw their own conclusions. I don’t think anybody knows what it means. I think everybody just draws their own conclusions in their head and they got with what they think. And that’s fine with me ‘cause I hate categorizing our music, anyway.

What made you guys pick a word like “australopithecine” to rhyme with?

That’s really a question for Dave. [laughs] I don’t know. What does he rhyme with?

Hospital machine.

Yeah. [laughs] I don’t know, man. I mean… It’s funny. You look at the line before that and it’s like seven syllables and then “australopithecine” randomly. All the syllables are followed by this one ridiculous word. It’s given us this reputation of being this very verbose literary pop band. It’s just a word. It’s not that bad. People complain that we’re over clever sometimes.

If you woke up on a random planet and had all the tools to create a habitat. What would it look like?

Hobbitown from Lord of the Rings. It’d look like “Bag-end”.

I was reading that audiobook before I got here.

Yeah? It must be a pretty big file. I once saw an audiobook of the Bible done by James Earl Jones.

If Elephant Shell were turned into a cartoon. What would it look like?

There was this particular cartoon called “Shazaam”. Anybody remember that cartoon?

Yeah.

It’s that old “Scobby Doo” like cartoon style. Like on TV funhouse when they have Ace and Gary. That weird, old look.

If you could pick three artists or bands to collaborate with, who would they be?

Well, one would be Radiohead… I don’t know what I’d do after that. I’d be so worn out. Uh, I’d really love to do something with Sigur Rós cause their live show is so fantastically awesome. Lastly, I’d have to say Tokyo Police Club [the music swells up] because it’s my favorite band to play with.

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