Very good year for the Japandroids
Success of sophomore album makes 2012 ‘a very good year’
Fireworks. There’s no better way to end the year.
Especially when the past 12 months are something worth celebrating, as 2012 was for Japandroids.
“We’ve certainly had a very good year, yes, I agree,” says drummer David Prowse, onehalf of the Vancouver duo.
It’s all thanks to their sophomore release Celebration Rock, which also begins and ends its brief, combustible brilliance with the sound of sky rockets lighting up the night. The success of that record included a Polaris Prize shortlisting and Top 10 album-of-theyear placement in both Rolling Stone and Spin, and band- of-the-year designation in the latter.
“Obviously it’s very flattering, but to be completely honest, just because we’ve been on tour for the last while, I think we’re existing a little bit in the bubble,” says Prowse, who hits the Starlite Room Wednesday with fellow Japandroid, guitarist-singer Brian King. “A lot of that stuff takes a while to sink in, you know. But certainly it’s very flattering and very exciting.”
Making it all the more so is the fact that Prowse considers the year that went into recording the album — pretty much all of 2011, in fits and starts — as one he describes as “rough.” As effortless as the CD may sound, making it was a long, drawn-out process. He says they were both incredibly conscious of the spotlight that was on them, thanks to their 2009 debut Post-Nothing, which came after a few years in which they toured, broke up and then finally cemented themselves as an ongoing entity.
The reception weighed them down as they attempted to follow up their debut.
“I think we thought we could make a strong record, but we felt like so many people had a strong emotional connection to Post-Nothing and really loved it. We didn’t know if we could match that. Just because there are so many bands that I love where one record hits me in a very specific time in my life and that record means so much. And the next record can be really good, but it just won’t have the same effect on me.
“Being music fans, we were both very aware of how arbitrary popularity can be at times and how much of it relies on timing and stuff.”
He continues. “It took a year to make an eight-song record and one of those songs is a cover — that shows you how much time it takes.”
Prowse says there’s nothing like the energy of a massive audience, such as the ones they’ve played for during outdoor festivals, but he also thinks the duo is a little more at home in the smaller clubs they’ve been playing in Europe. As for the mid-size venues they’re currently gracing in North America, while it is a thrill to be playing storied halls such as the Fillmore in San Francisco, it has taken a little getting used to not being able to see every face in the room giving immediate feedback on new tunes.
And as for their own history, Prowse said it’s hard to pick a highlight of the last year.
“It’s honestly been an endless series of highlights,” he says. “It’s a very, very inspiring and exciting time to be in this band.”