“These are amazing times we live in” - Japandroids Interview

Good afternoon Japandroids, please state your location, desires and state of mind.

I'm sitting in my living room back in Vancouver, listening to the new Arcade Fire album. I feel tired in a good way - just got home from tour a couple of days ago.

You're almost continuously on the road at the moment - US, Europe and back again. Do you get dizzy, and if so, is it an enjoyable dizziness?


On the last tour we took about 15 different flights, which is pretty awful for the environment but was an amazing trip for us. It was strange to be playing a show in Mexico city and realize we had been in Slovakia a week before. Honestly though, most of the time you're too busy having a good time to think about how absurd your life has become.

When a band walks offstage at a festival, to the audience they just dissapear back into rockstarland. What really happens after you walk offstage though?

We're usually only offstage long enough to grab a drink and catch our breath, and then we head back on stage, grab our gear and talk to fans. The backstage rockstarland isn't usually as amazing as most people imagine, though it does have free alcohol, which is nice.

You're using your breaks between touring to record a series of 7" singles. Is it healthy to play around with the album / single formula and break a few rules?

Yeah having this single series is nice because it gives us a chance to do some recording before we work on the next album. With singles you have a bit more freedom to keep making different kinds of songs and experiment with different sounds, whereas with an album you want to have it sound like a cohesive group of songs.

Who, in your opinion, is being most interesting at the moment at sculpting new ideas with regards to the relationship between the internet and record releases?

I suppose file sharers in general are the most interesting people in terms of shaping music's relationship with the internet. Obviously there's a downside to downloading but there's also a huge upside to bands like us.

We were able to get attention very quickly - for example, we were able to do a full US tour before the record was even available in US record stores. Plus we've gotten to play all kinds of places where the album isn't even available - Mexico, Russia, Poland, Costa Rica. Without the internet, that would have been pretty much impossible.

We have some friends in Costa Rica who play in a band called Las Robertas. They've been able to get some attention on a bunch of blogs in the States and they've never played a show outside of Costa Rica. Now they're getting label interest and are planning a tour in the US. Pretty amazing times we live in...

If the next 24 hours go perfectly in every possible way, what's going to happen (roughly)?

Hmmmm... A perfect day would go something like this...

I would find out that Television were playing "Marquee Moon" in its entirety for free at Spanish Banks, which is the most beautiful beach in Vancouver. I'd grab a case of beer and ride down there on my bike and meet all of my friends. Then I would find out that Bruce Springsteen was going to play "Nebraska" start to finish and Neil Young was going to play the same set he played at Massey Hall back when he recorded his live album there. Then I would spend the entire day and night listening to great music and catching up with my friends at one of the most beautiful spots in the entire world.