Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival: Tokyo Police Club
The line-up for the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, has been announced. The festival will be held from Thursday, June 10, through Sunday, June 13.
Tokyo Police Club is a Canadian indie rock band from Newmarket, Ontario, consisting of singer and bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist Graham Wright, guitarist Josh Hook, and drummer Greg Alsop.
Tokyo Police Club formed in 2005 while playing for fun in a basement after the four had disbanded from a previous group called Suburbia. The band started to gain attention and played some small shows throughout the Toronto area. With a buzz forming in Montreal, where the band stayed together in a single McGill University dorm room, Tokyo Police Club was asked to play in the city's Pop Montreal festival, and soon after they signed with Toronto label Paper Bag Records. According to an interview article: "The band’s Pop Montreal performance was a pivotal moment, even if they didn’t know it. Tipped off by another of their roster, Paper Bag Records checked out TPC’s performance, but the young band didn’t know what to expect. “assumed that would see you once, bring a contract and a blank cheque, and say, ‘You guys are great! Now you are stars!’” Wright says. “So when they left before we were done we thought they hated us because they didn’t sign us on the spot.” The record deal came eventually, but not before Monks and Alsop told their parents they were dropping out of school to pursue their dreams." In an interview, Graham said, "playing Pop Montreal was the only thing that made us be a band. In all seriousness, if it wasn't for that Pop Montreal festival, we wouldn't have done anything. Ever. I cannot overstate the importance of Pop Montreal."
Since their formation the band has appeared in numerous festivals. Notably, in 2006 they appeared at Edgefest and the inaugural Osheaga Festival. In 2007, they performed at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, at Lollapalooza in Chicago, at Bumbershoot in Seattle, at Glastonbury Festival and Reading and Leeds Festival in England, in 2008 at Roskilde Festival in Denmark and at Rock am Ring-Festival in Germany, and Street Scene in San Diego.
In the fall of 2008, the band played on the last 6 weeks of Weezer's Troublemaker Tour along with Angels and Airwaves.
In terms of writing songs while on the road, Wright said in an interview: "We're really bad at writing on the road. We've been trying to write new songs since the summer, and just because we've been touring so often and everything's been so busy, it's been a struggle to find that time and find that groove that we have to get into to successfully write songs."
Tokyo Police Club has been nominated for a Canadian Juno award for their 2008 album, Elephant Shell.
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