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"I guess we were lucky," Greg Alsop muses as he reflects on how far his band Tokyo Police Club (TPC) has come in less than three years.
"We were definitely overly hopeful about it all, but things happened to work out really well for us. Those festivals can really work effectively as showcases for bands."
The TPC drummer is speaking in particular of the 2005 Pop Montreal festival that seemingly overnight brought Alsop and his teenaged bandmates out of the basement and into the spotlight. But we could as easily be referring to anything from Coachella to Lollapalooza to Glastonbury -- all festivals conquered by the young men with the snappy pop songs.
"I don't know what exactly brought people to our show," he says of the band's big break. "We'd had zero press coverage, but I remember the room selling out. But we were all 18, so we were positive that this was the next step for us, and that it would continue to build from there."
Overly hopeful, perhaps. Cocky, certainly. But dead on as it happens. And luck has been less of a factor in TPC's rapid rise than an utterly infectious guitar-keyboards-bass-drum sound showcased to perfection on the quartet's 2006 Paper Bag release A Lesson in Crime. That short, sharp EP was followed by another last year. Next week, TPC will unveil its debut full-length release, complete with a bonus disc of remixes.
Expectations are understandably high.
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"It was impossible for us not to feel pressure," Alsop admits. "We sort of went through this phase of trying to steer clear of it, then just realizing that it was omnipresent and that we had to overcome it.
"When we wrote the EP, we wrote when we could and we didn't when we couldn't. There wasn't really much hard work involved. But for this record we really learned about our dynamic as a band and about how we can create even when we've been on tour for so long and we're tired and there's this pressure and stuff.
"But we wanted to make a good record. And the only way to make a good record and to be sure of it is if every song is good. If you try and make every song on the record good, you will come somewhere close to a decent product."
Of course, that's if you're lucky.