Still doing their thing
CANADIAN BAND JAPANDROIDS HAS REFUSED TO FOLLOW THE MODEL FOR MODERN MUSIC
Japandroids, the deceptively noisy two- piece punk band from Vancouver, does not shy away from its reputation as a rock ‘ n’ roll throwback.
Since its 2009 debut LP, Post-Nothing, each of the duo’s nofrills albums has followed the same simple blueprint: barely half an hour of music spread across eight songs — “the standard template for a great rock ‘ n’ roll album,” they note, citing Raw Power by the Stooges and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen — and sequenced for vinyl, with a deliberate Side A and Side B. The plain blackand- white covers always depict the band as they are: two goofy, scruffy, everyday dudes.
They could also be called stubborn. In a digital world, Japandroids is still best known for the sweaty, scream- along camaraderie — think bro- hugs and raised fists — of its live shows. There are no viral music videos, no corporate sponsors, no flashy, cross- genre collaborations. Guitarist and singer Brian King and drummer David Prowse have almost no public profile as individuals — and not coincidentally, no personal social media — and cling to an independent ethos long since dismissed as inconvenient or irrelevant.
“It’s a weird thing, looking around, there’s not a whole lot of bands making the same music as us that are as popular as us,” Prowse, 34, said over barbecue this month. “Most rock bands I can think of that are quite a bit bigger have just been around for a lot longer.”
Yet, in spite of ( or perhaps because of ) its principles, Japandroids has become something of a unicorn in today’s musical landscape since the release of its breakthrough album, Celebration Rock, in 2012: a vibrant, self- sufficient guitar- led band that keeps growing its audience without making sacrifices, aesthetic or otherwise. Having released just a small handful of songs every three to five years, the group has also upended the supposed model for modern musicians, forgoing demands for constant output and connectivity while keeping its commercialization to a minimum.
“We have a tendency to say no to a lot of opportunities that some artists would say yes to,” Prowse said. For example, though licensing often represents an important revenue stream for bands in the post- CD era, Japandroids refuses to sell its songs for use in ads or other media. ( The band’s business solution is almost always more touring.)
King, also 34, said: “I think we’re the last generation that grew up at a time when selling out was the worst thing you could do. We’ve carried over into the new generation where it doesn’t matter.”
But Japandroids’ dogmas do not preclude progress: On its third album, Near to the Wild Heart of Life, out Jan. 27, Japandroids has evolved from a fire-hose of guitar feedback and positive vibes to a more erudite and purposeful — but still endearingly slapdash — pair of rock torchbearers. Once content to make greasy, direct and triumphant major-chord anthems about girls, drinking and other forms of escape, the band pushes deeper and wider, especially lyrically, in new songs, weighing what it means to have dedicated a life to such pursuits.
King’s recent inspirations have been mostly literary. Named for Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s 1943 debut novel, Near to the Wild Heart, which is named after a line in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the third Japandroids album represents a blossoming for a band that has willfully committed to developing a different kind of career at its own speed.
“Even if rock was the biggest genre in the world right now, we’d just be doing our thing,” King said.
The duo’s thoughtful, ideo- logical seriousness — which coexists with a persistent and polite overall sincerity that can’t help but feel Canadian — is increasingly apparent in its music, which has become more varied in sound, perspective and mood. ( Compare, for instance, the playfully scuzzy Wet Hair, from Post- Nothing, in which King shouts “must get to France, so we can French kiss some French girls” over and over to these still- libidinous lines from the new album: “Slow burning sermon, to have and hold her/ but ever since she started sleeping over/oh lord, I’m living like a holy roller.”)
While Japandroids’ recorded output could once feel like a lark — an excuse to go hoarse and spill beer at grimy clubs across the world — Near to the Wild Heart of Life was, by design, a more deliberate studio undertaking.
“The one big knock that people would make against our band was the idea that we’re a one- trick pony,” Prowse said, recalling the simplistic but not inaccurate “punk- rock Springsteen” tag that has followed the group. “We could do this one thing really well, but that’s kind of it, you know? So we were both interested in defying expectations of what we were capable of, in terms of songwriting and production and instrumentation.”
King, an unabashed student ( and fan) of rock music, compared early Japandroids with bands like the Ramones or AC/ DC — “it’s kind of all the same thing, but they’re so good at it that it works.”
But before expanding their artistic palette, the band members needed time — and space. Upon returning home after nearly two years of touring in support of Celebration Rock — including more than 200 shows across 40 countries — they took the first part of 2014 off from performing, recording and even seeing one another.
“There’s definitely something about being in a two- person band who plays as much as we do — you’re spending very unnatural amounts of time together,” King said. “And often in situations that are enough to dismantle any relationship, no matter how solid it is.”
During their break, which marked the longest period the band members had been apart since forming Japandroids in 2006, King moved to Toronto from his native Vancouver, and soon began spending time in Mexico City, as well, thanks to a new relationship.
Eventually, after the band reconnected in Toronto ( Prowse had been summoned East to cat- sit), the pair spent about a month living together in New Orleans, where songwriting for the next album started in earnest.
Transience, geographical exploration, new love and old friends all loom on Near to the Wild Heart of Life, which melds stories of a touring band’s itinerant lifestyle with the soulsearching that can result upon returning home ( or l eaving again). “Crisscrossing the continent, all aglow/ leaving lovelorn, dating destiny,” King sings with newly typical grandiosity and alliteration on the road song North East South West.
“When you’ve been living that life for so long, it becomes normal,” he said. “To just immediately adjust back to the real world can be very difficult.”
Fortunately, the word- ofmouth for Celebration Rock spread, and the group’s live success afforded it time to recalibrate before starting the cycle over again.
“When we finished touring Post- Nothing, we had all this momentum going, and everybody knew it was time to make another record,” King said. “There were time and financial pressures on us to get something out as quickly as possible, to get back on the road and keep making money.
“It wasn’t necessarily the most fun and enjoyable experience with that stuff hanging over your head. There wasn’t a lot of time to experiment.”
For its third album, Japandroids insisted on slowing the process, while also seeking a label partner with more resources than Polyvinyl, its previous home.
“There were certainly majors that were interested in signing us, but we weren’t really that interested in being signed,” Prowse said. “Maybe that’s an old- fashioned kind of distinction, but for us, that just still felt weird, and we were very skeptical about the freedom we would have.” Instead, the band landed at Anti-, a hands- off indie ( although it manages the band’s social media channels).
With firmer financial footing came the chance for risks in writing and recording, resulting in songs like I’m Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner), Japandroids’ most bare and tender track to date, and Arc of Bar, a swirling seven- minute epic at the centre of the new album. King said he wrote the lyrics for Arc of Bar before even thinking about instrumentation, a first for Japandroids.
“It’s a pretty daunting chunk of words,” Prowse said. “There’s almost as many lyrics in that song as there are on all of Post-Nothing.”
But sonic inspiration followed as the band, no longer set at breakneck speeds on tracks or in life, experimented with keyboards and acoustic guitars for texture. “The more something sounded like a song off Celebration Rock, the less we would be into working on it or the more we would make a conscious attempt to steer it in a different direction,” King said.
Still, Japandroids songs remain recognizable in their earnestness, simplicity and pure adrenaline; career growth aside, the duo maintains a palpable humility that reads more as rock nerd than rock star. “It’s very natural for us to talk about how we’re pretty normal people who aren’t geniuses, who just love music and work hard at what we do,” Prowse said.
At the same time, they’ve found something elusive — relative stability — in what’s supposed to be a reckless line of work. “There’s still a lot of movement, a lot of chaos,” King said. But, Prowse added: “We’re not as stupid as we once were. I don’t know if we can call ourselves responsible adults, but we’re getting closer.”