What happens when a beloved indie band decides it's time to say goodbye? Join us as Graham Wright, guitarist of Tokyo Police Club, shares the emotional journey behind the band's Farewell Tour and their highly anticipated headlining performance at Canada Day in Trafalgar Square. Discover Graham's deep connection with London and hear his reflections on past vibrant Canada Day celebrations. Get an insider's look at the spontaneous decision to embark on this farewell adventure and the mixed emotions of leaving behind the routines of touring. Plus, Graham gives us a sneak peek into his future musical endeavors beyond Tokyo Police Club.
The music industry has undergone seismic shifts, and Graham Wright is here to recount Tokyo Police Club's experiences navigating this evolving landscape. From legendary festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury to the gritty realities of being an indie band in a post-COVID world, Graham provides a candid look at the highs and lows of a musician's life. We'll discuss the transformative impact of streaming on artists' livelihoods and the intricate balance between creativity and the demands of touring. Expect a thoughtful conversation about appreciating the moment while facing the stark realities of the music business.
Reflecting on social media's evolution from a fun engagement tool to a mandatory part of a musician's career, Graham shares amusing anecdotes and poignant memories from the road. Hear about quirky encounters with other artists, the band's dynamics during the pandemic, and the introspective growth that came from this unprecedented time. As Tokyo Police Club prepares for their final tour, Graham opens up about the emotional significance of fan interactions, the evolving understanding of personal conduct within the music industry, and the heartfelt connections that make this farewell so meaningful. Don't miss this heartfelt episode with Graham Wright, offering an intimate glimpse into the life and legacy of Tokyo Police Club.
What happens when a beloved indie band decides it's time to say goodbye? Join us as Graham Wright, guitarist of Tokyo Police Club, shares the emotional journey behind the band's Farewell Tour and their highly anticipated headlining performance at Canada Day in Trafalgar Square. Discover Graham's deep connection with London and hear his reflections on past vibrant Canada Day celebrations. Get an insider's look at the spontaneous decision to embark on this farewell adventure and the mixed emotions of leaving behind the routines of touring. Plus, Graham gives us a sneak peek into his future musical endeavors beyond Tokyo Police Club.
The music industry has undergone seismic shifts, and Graham Wright is here to recount Tokyo Police Club's experiences navigating this evolving landscape. From legendary festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury to the gritty realities of being an indie band in a post-COVID world, Graham provides a candid look at the highs and lows of a musician's life. We'll discuss the transformative impact of streaming on artists' livelihoods and the intricate balance between creativity and the demands of touring. Expect a thoughtful conversation about appreciating the moment while facing the stark realities of the music business.
Reflecting on social media's evolution from a fun engagement tool to a mandatory part of a musician's career, Graham shares amusing anecdotes and poignant memories from the road. Hear about quirky encounters with other artists, the band's dynamics during the pandemic, and the introspective growth that came from this unprecedented time. As Tokyo Police Club prepares for their final tour, Graham opens up about the emotional significance of fan interactions, the evolving understanding of personal conduct within the music industry, and the heartfelt connections that make this farewell so meaningful. Don't miss this heartfelt episode with Graham Wright, offering an intimate glimpse into the life and legacy of Tokyo Police Club.
Welcome to Episode 3 of KevJet's Run-Up to Canada Day London series. I'm excited to introduce this week's guest, Tokyo Police Club's guitarist Graham Wright. Tokyo Police Club are headlining Canada Day in Trafalgar Square on June 30th as part of their Farewell Tour.
Speaker 2:It's our farewell to Tokyo Police Club playing in London party. There was one year where apparently it got so rowdy that the next year they were like you're not allowed to have Canada Day in Trafalgar Square anymore, you guys are too. It's too much and I always I felt a patriotic pride when I heard that and also I thought I really want to play that show. So I'm glad that our last ever London show not that we're going to ruin it for everyone, I'm sure they'll be allowed to have it next year, but I want to see what the vibes are like.
Speaker 1:Playing London has a special place in his heart and he tells me all about it.
Speaker 2:I've always found just being in London as well as playing in London, there's just a certain je ne sais quoi to it, a certain vibe that I've never caught anywhere else. That's always really resonated with me. I've always been the one in the band being like let's go back, let's go back, let's do it again.
Speaker 1:And yes, you did hear right, it is a farewell tour. I ask how did that come about?
Speaker 2:It just sort of snuck up on us in a way which I know. It's just the four of us, we had to do it. So it's not as though it was no one surprised us with it, but I think we kind of surprised ourselves with it. I surprised myself. It's dizzying because, like I said, it's all we wanted to do. We wanted to do it so bad, of course. But then that almost makes the idea of like what if we choose to walk away from this? The idea of like what if we choose to walk away from this? There's this like power that comes back into you and for so long you feel like you've been at the mercy of the business and of the industry and like, oh, maybe we don't have to push that rock up the hill. You know, maybe we can, gracefully, rather than trying to push it again, and every time it feels more and more likely it's going to roll back and flatten us. We can just stop at the bottom of the hill, or the top, I guess, depending on how you want to look at it.
Speaker 1:So what does it feel like preparing?
Speaker 2:to go on tour for the very last time. It's a gift really to have. Like I was saying earlier, you miss so much you don't remember to look around. It's moving too fast, you're tired, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is a chance that we know we've got this this much time and so now when it's 5 am lobby call and I'm exhausted, I want to remember that it's like yeah, but also this is maybe the last 5 am exhausted lobby call, the last time I'll smell what like a Holiday Inn lobby smells like at 5 am, with the eggs have just started cooking and no one's around yet and the tired desk person is almost ready to go home from their night shift. Next time you coil the cable and pack the trailer, it's going off into the sunset. Sitting in that van watching the world go by, I think, is what I'm going to miss, maybe almost more than anything else.
Speaker 1:So what does the future look?
Speaker 2:like for Grammrite, I'll keep making music. I'll tell you that it will have music in it. The future for Graham Wright will never not have a guitar and a notebook full of lyrics, and where that leads me, I look forward to finding out.
Speaker 1:Catch Tokyo Police Club in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, June 30th, but until then, enjoy my conversation with Graham Wright. Welcome to KevJet the podcast Graham Wright from Tokyo Police Club.
Speaker 2:It's me, I'm here. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be chatting with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very exciting. It's a new series that KevJet is doing. It's the run up to Canada Day, london, which you guys are going to headline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard about Canada Dayon years ago because I keep referring to this and I hope they're not like please stop talking about that. But uh, there was one year where apparently it got so rowdy that the next year they were like you're not allowed to have canada day in trafalgar square anymore. You guys are too. It's too much, and I always I felt a patriotic pride when I heard that and also I thought I really want to play that show. So I'm glad that our last ever london show not that we're going to ruin it for everyone, I'm sure they'll be allowed to have it next year, but I want to see what the vibes are like yeah, it was rowdy.
Speaker 1:I was there. Oh wow, yeah, so I don't know if it was rowdy as in, like, people were enjoying their alcoholic beverages and the music which led to people going into the fountains which they do not like in Trafalgar Square.
Speaker 2:The special fountains.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes so when it did happen again. There's lots of security around the fountains, which helps, because it actually stopped the show and they were like we're shutting down if people do not get out of the fountain well, that's it.
Speaker 2:There's this threshold of how nuts the show can get and it's. It's fun and fun and you're on stage and it feels very heady to be looking out and seeing people climbing trees or whatever. But if it stops the show then all the energy gets like smashes into a wall and it can get weird really quickly, and so you always want it to go to just below the maximum, but never push the actual threshold, lest your whole party get completely ruined it's going to be great.
Speaker 1:It's a great party atmosphere.
Speaker 2:What are your expectations for it? I genuinely have no idea what to expect. I don't even know if I've been to Trafalgar Square. I mean, I must have at some point in my travels, but it's conceivably. It's been 20 years and so I can't even in my mind's eye quite picture what it's going to be like to be standing there. But I've always found just being in London as well as playing in London, there's just a certain je ne sais quoi to it, a certain vibe that I've never caught anywhere else. That's always really resonated with me. I've always been the one in the band being like let's go back, let's go back, let's do it again. I don't care if we don't make any money and cooler heads have prevailed, which is sad for me but probably good for my finances, but yeah. So what I'm expecting is just to hopefully really be in like a nexus of those vibes, like outdoors, amidst the architecture, but also amidst the people and amidst the London-ness of it all. Yeah, I'm expecting it to be cool.
Speaker 1:It's very cool. I'm very excited for the day. I'll be mooching around backstage doing some interviews. Yeah, it'll be great. So I'm looking forward to having you guys over and meeting you all and just having a party, because that's what the day is about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's our, it's our farewell to Tokyo police club playing in London party. Yeah, so double, double for us, let's talk about that, Cause it's.
Speaker 1:it's like the farewell tour. What actually brought the final tour? How did that happen.
Speaker 2:Well, it just sort of snuck up on us in a way, which I know it's just the four of us, we had to do it. So it's not as though it was no one surprised us with it, but I think we kind of surprised ourselves with it. I surprised myself Because you start the band. We started the band when we were in high school and typically when you start a band, it's like because you want to be in a band really bad, and then we got to to do it. You know, we got to, the record came out and it had profile and we got to tour and we got to it became our job really quickly.
Speaker 2:And so the one thing that never happens in those days is you like decide to do it. It just the opportunity presents itself and you, it's a no-brainer. You obviously go towards and you walk through every door that's opened and then you look for more doors to open or to kick down or whatever it is. And then you blink and you're it's been 15 years, almost 20 years, and you realize that you never really made the decision to do it. And once that enters your mind, it starts to become like, oh, every time, especially now where you know, you, you write songs, record a record, release the record, tour to promote the record, do it again. That's kind of like in the business they call that an album cycle, sure, and uh, and you really go album cycle by album cycle, especially as you get older and you're a little more protective of your personal time. And so in the early days there was a lot of gradient, like you'd be touring for one album but also deeply busy writing the next album because you couldn't stop. But now it's like OK, let's take like three months, six months, go hang out with our kids. People live in different cities, blah, blah, blah. So consequently, when it comes time to start again, everyone does kind of have to like pick it up. And combine that with the fact that you know the job has changed for a million reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just what it means to pick it up again, both because we're older and our circumstances have changed, and also the industry has completely transformed since we started doing it, like it's basically unrecognizable at this point. And all of that, combined especially with the intervention of COVID knocking things even further off axis for a few years, that it just kind of we realized that we didn't have to do another album cycle, we didn't have to pick it back up. And then when you, all of a sudden, we looked at it from that angle and I think that we just kind of were struck by what, what the possibility meant and the the. It's dizzying because, like I said, it's all we wanted to do. We wanted to do it so bad, of course, but then that almost makes the idea of like, what if we choose to walk away from this?
Speaker 2:There's this like power that comes back into you and for so long you feel like you've been at the mercy of the business and of the industry and like when you get an email that says, hey, this door is open, you have to go walk through the door, because we're not kings of Leon. You know, like we can't take five years off and pay our bills, and so to be like, oh, maybe we don't have to push that rock up the hill, you know, maybe we can, gracefully, rather than trying to push it again, and every time it feels more and more likely it's going to roll back and flatten us. We can just stop at the bottom of the hill, or the top, I guess, depending on how you want to look at it.
Speaker 1:I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's pretty much going to be at the top because, looking at the tour, there's lots of sold out nights and you're adding extra dates and and it looks like you're going to be walking out at the top well, and that's not that we considered this at all and it really genuinely was a surprise to us the extent to which people responded enthusiastically and that really yeah, that really defined how it became.
Speaker 2:We initially were like, okay, let's put out the songs and we'll do one last show in Toronto at the Opera House or something which is, you know, that's like a 650 capacity venue in Toronto for any non-Torontonian listeners. And then it just took on a life of its own, which has also been so cool and narratively satisfying, because that's what it was like for us in the early days In 2006, 2007,. You'd announce some show, you'd announce some tour, and then you'd be getting phone calls that day being like, oh my God, we've got to size it up, we've got to add nights, we've got to go to a bigger venue. So we thought that was normal, which probably was not good for our brains and expectations in those days, but to get to feel that one more time is a really nice way to cap it off.
Speaker 1:Of course, and you're kicking off in Halifax, which is my little hometown, oh great. And I noticed that In-Flight Safety is opening for you, and I love In-Flight Safety, so that's very exciting and I can't wait to hear how that show is going to go. In fact, I think you've added a second show in Halifax.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're doing two nights in Halifax. Last time we played in Halifax it was the best show of the tour. It was amazing. So I'm optimistic and I love that venue and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2:I'm interested to ask on your profile it says musician and broadcaster. So tell me about the broadcaster part. Yeah, I did, um a sizable stint at cbc radio three years ago, which doesn't really exist anymore in the form it existed back then, but it was like I was really ahead of its time online streaming radio station that played only canadian indie music and like was kind of first to the line on stuff like broken social scene and arcade fire and a lot of canadian bands that blew up. They were playing when they were still, you know, totally unknown because they had a mandate to only play independent canadian music, sure, and was so cool and introduced me to so much music I liked. And then, yeah, I realized that they had a lot of band guys on doing guest hosting this. Uh, jay and chris from sloan did it. Uh, rich turf right, buck 65, who now is a permanent host on cbc radio 2, was on radio 3 at one point. Uh, nirmala from Controller Controller was on it, and so I thought that sounds like something I might be good at. That sounds like something I might like to do. I'm going to take every interview with them and really turn it up to 10 and be very verbose and really give my broadcaster voice or whatever.
Speaker 2:And sure enough, I weaseled my way in to do some guest hosting. And then I, it just went well and I kept going back and I kept going back, and I did it probably on and off for like five or six years and towards the end was doing it pretty regularly. And then it got to a point where I was like hey, can I do more stuff on bigger radio stations? And they sort of had to tell me that the thing about radio is, we people want reliability and they want to know who the host is, and so if you're going to be gone all the time on tour, that doesn't make you a great candidate for being in the building ready to come out of the bullpen, you know.
Speaker 2:And so then it kind of that I ended up going off in my own direction with it and doing the band instead, which I think was the right choice, and doing the band instead, which I think was the right choice, although now that the band is ending and I don't know what I'm going to do for a job, I do wonder if maybe I should have kept a foot more in the door. You do have the voice. Well, thank you for saying so. My grade 10 English teacher. We were like first on the first day of class we were going around introducing ourselves or whatever, and she said you have a very nice voice. No one had ever told me that before and it really stuck with me oh, very good.
Speaker 1:Um, when you look back at at the lifeline of the band, I mean you've been nominated for numerous junos, just to name a big name. So you've played coachella, balapalooza, lastenbury, uh reading and leeds festival. You're coming to play canada day, which is in trafalgar square, which is like the most amazing setting in london.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the memories that you're you have are amazing and the, the resumes is so impressive, especially when you realize now it's also been almost 20 years. Like I said, there's a lot of highlights and if you go right down to the highlights sounds damn good and it felt damn good. I wish and I'm sure everyone who's done this job, who's been on this adventure, would say the same thing I wish that I'd been a little more present in it. I wish that I'd known a lot of this stuff. You know Glastonbury, redding Leeds, david Letterman a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:I was 21, 22. And that is simply not an age where you're given to sort of centering yourself and looking around and appreciating the moment. I really I'm embarrassed to say, but I really took it all as my due. You know, we just thought like, yeah, this is how it's supposed to work, we're a good band, we're getting the due adulation. Yeah, that we that you know we deserve for putting these cool songs out in the world.
Speaker 2:So away we go, and you think it's forever. It felt like, oh, this, this go, and you think it's forever. It felt like, oh, this, this rocket ship will never stop going straight up. Uh, and so I'll appreciate it next time we play glastonbury which, of course, we never. We never got to play it again, sure, um, but I remember it. And, of course, what do you? If you spend all your time trying to cherish those things, then you're not really present at all. You're, you know, you're thinking about it after the fact, during it. So everything I remember is great. I feel like there's things just out of reach of my memory that I wish I could grasp, that are, that are even funnier. But that's life, I guess.
Speaker 1:It is. It is. Life gets in the way of things, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It has a way of doing that, but of course life is the thing at the end of the day, so you just got to look at what's in front of you how does so?
Speaker 1:how has the music industry changed throughout your band's life and what has been the most challenging change that you've had to kind of change your ways because of of progression?
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess it. I'm wondering if it's too simplistic to just boil it all down to streaming, but it kind of feels like streaming is both it explains everything and I don't know how much is chicken and egg and what came from where. You know, the music industry is really just a long linear history of people figuring out how to extract value from music and get as much of it up to the top, just like most industries as possible. And streaming was. The is the natural next step in that. Like, oh, we figured out how to do it. Everybody wants to pay ten dollars a month to hear every song ever created on demand, $10 a month to hear every song ever created on demand, and that means that if we get that $10 a month, we can make ourselves rich. There's only one problem we can't afford to pay the musicians anything. Oh well, we just won't. And what are they going to do about it? And the answer is two or more. So the material change for us has just been the fact that, like the, the material change for us has just been the fact that, like, we always had to cobble together a living, you know, as an indie band. This is how you do it.
Speaker 2:It's like people would always ask me oh, do you make most of your money from touring? Do you make most of your money from we? I don't make most of my money from anywhere. I make bits of money from touring and bits of money from royalties and bits of money from selling records and bits of money from selling t-shirts, and if someone puts a song in a TV show or a movie, you make some money from that. And those, all of those little pots have gotten smaller and smaller and especially now after COVID, touring has become really crazy and in some ways it appears more lucrative. Kids ticket prices have gone up, but also that changes how many people can access the shows, and so I guess all of that's a long-winded way of saying that it just is like for us, it just got harder and harder to say no to anything, and it's obviously this probably sounds spoiled to people who wake up in the morning and go to a nine-to job every day to say like, oh, you need to protect your time, but the truth of making art is that it doesn't happen on a schedule. That means that the lifestyle of not you know, you go on tour and that's hard work in its way and it's different hard work from like what an emergency room nurse does, but it's.
Speaker 2:I think anyone doing it would agree after a month on the road that like this is not a, it's not a breeze, as much fun as it can be. And making records is hard and writing songs is hard. If you take it seriously and we always really did, and there's part of it that's so important is just like living a life and absorbing the world, because that's the stuff that you make the art out of. And I think that, as another big difference in the industry in general is that it's just people have less and less patience for art. They don't want it to be art, they want it to be content and people can make that.
Speaker 2:You know that's like there's plenty of people who wake up and go to work at nine or 10 or whatever every day and are churning out. They sit down with Ableton and a co-writer and they can churn out pop songs with great catchy choruses and cool sounds and stuff, and I don't mean to denigrate that stuff, but I think that there is a procedural difference and there is a philosophical difference, at least to me, between art and content. And content is great if you're an executive, you want more content because that's what you sell, that's what's on spotify. But art is annoying and it doesn't happen on a timetable and it has, like, other priorities and that's nobody wants a priority. That isn't um, quick, quick returns.
Speaker 2:I've been working on this podcast that I haven't launched or anything yet, but it's about some major label debuts and you know bands that that took that step and so I've talked to a bunch of band people producers about making records and largely in the 90s because that was kind of the heyday of like all bands getting signed to major labels and it's amazing, I expected them all to have these horror stories. But the main thing is like, oh no, they used to. They would sign a band and then wait for records for them to break and they would just be, they would develop it and they would let it grow and let the band become what the band was going to become and and sometimes it really worked. And I think that that's not that kind of long-term thinking is not in the cards right now.
Speaker 1:It's very instant. It's very tick tock right now and very, of course, yeah, yeah, so like social media, and so I guess you guys have had to find your way, because when you first started there was no social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was MySpace and we were really known as a MySpace band. Okay, it was kind of to my awareness was sort of the first social media, I think. So, yeah, and so we've been there through all of them until the next one, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you, how did you adapt to that? Did you have someone to do your, your social stuff, or were you guys hands?
Speaker 2:on, we were hands on and I particularly I, was always an internet guy. I was always a real computer geek, in high school and everything. I spent a lot of time on message boards and you know I was going to say Googling stuff, but I don't even know if it was Google in 2000.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it was yeah me, neither I don't think it was. I don't know what it was yeah me, neither I don't even remember, but I really was natural for me to be like Ooh, this is. I ran the MySpace and I liked interacting with people and responding to messages and I liked I liked having a platform. I liked people listening to what I said. You know, that's a real. I like to talk and it's fun when people listen, even if you know it has less to do with what I'm saying and more to do with what band I play in. I won't beggars, can't be choosers, and so at first I thought you know, twitter, this is a what a cool thing and I get to talk directly to our fans. And Instagram posting pictures that stuff's really fun.
Speaker 2:We were really into blogging.
Speaker 2:We were really into making like little videos that we would post on the internet, and the thing that again got in the way of all that is that we were doing it perhaps not as art I wouldn't say that my Instagrams or our blogs or anything quite would qualify as that but for fun.
Speaker 2:The way that in high school we would get a handy cam and spend the weekend making a movie, some silly thing, cause it was fun, it was a way to make something with your friends, which is just what the band is. But then of course it goes into the machine and they're like ooh content. And so over the years, social media went for us or for me at least, from something that was a fun, natural, honest way to just engage with the fans and provide sort of a corollary to the music itself, just like a music video would be, or an interview or a photo shoot or whatever else. And then it of course slowly but surely becomes an obligation, and then it starts to be like it's really ideal if you do an Instagram twice a day at 11am and 4pm.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And you're on tour and it's really again. This sounds probably so spoiled, but there's something about sitting in a van for six hours every day that just makes it really difficult to do anything. Of course I'm sitting there for six hours. I can do stuff on my phone. I can do stuff on my computer. No, I can't. My brain is fried. I can stare, slack shot out the window.
Speaker 1:And being on tour is and people think it's really exciting and it's just kind of sitting around and waiting for a long time. And then the show is like 90 minutes and then you're on to the next sitting and waiting.
Speaker 2:Yep, Yep, and you're not seeing much. You know you're seeing a lot of venue backstages and your bus or your van hotel lobbies and I like that and I'm looking forward to doing it one last time. I've really come to love that lifestyle.
Speaker 1:There's something there's nothing like it.
Speaker 2:Are you? Are you guys going to document this last tour somehow? Yeah, I mean I'm, I got my camera. Uh, I'll certainly be taking a lot of pictures.
Speaker 2:We haven't discussed yet the notion of like bringing someone to to film it to whatever end, and a few people have reached out, you know, documentary makers or whatever and it's really hard to know because, on one hand, I think that it would be great to have it documented and I do think it's an interesting, not just an interesting thing that it's our last tour, but the moment at which we are doing it not, and in the music industry, and also like we're, like we're touring through the States in November. You know, like there's, we're going to be there while they have the election and so, and I think that juxtaposition of you know this sort of indie band on its last ride with this, the context is so glaringly unavoidable. I think that's really interesting. But also, when you bring someone in there to document the tour, it changes the very nature of it. You know you're, you're now, when you're on the bus, in the safe space with you and the crew, the touring party, where it's like it's just us. We're all here together. Now there's someone not just another person, but the possibility of untold other people and that changes how you experience it and how you behave and stuff. And I would not, I don't want to um adulterate our experience of the last tour, because the most important part to me is that we get I don't know that it's meaningful because it's already so meaningful. I want to get that meaning out of it and I want to be able to look back on it. It's what it's a gift really to have.
Speaker 2:Like I was saying earlier, you miss so much you don't remember to look around. It's moving too fast, you're tired, blah, blah, blah. But this is a chance that we know. We've got this this much time. And so now when it's 5 am lobby call and I'm exhausted, I want to remember that it's like, yeah, but also this is maybe the last 5 am exhausted lobby call, the last time I'll smell what like a Holiday Inn lobby smells like at 5 am, with the eggs have just started cooking and no one's around yet and the tired desk person is almost ready to go home from their night shift. And that's an experience in the world and I want to savor it. And if there's a person standing there with a video camera. I like I keep miming that they're using some gigantic video camera from 1994, but that's gonna. I don't know if that'll enhance the experience or take away from it so tbd in short interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1:How did the pandemic um change any dynamics within the band?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we're still learning about that. Canada was really strict. It was we had already by that point a couple of the guys had moved to one guy to the states, one guy to east coast canada, and so that we were already there was this newish phase for the band of being far apart, and the pandemic popped right into the middle of that which so in some ways it almost it didn't derail us at first that much because we 2020 was always going to be a light year and people were gone anyway. So, especially at the beginning, it felt really natural and one thing that we all know how to do is live with no schedule and nowhere to go and nothing to do, because between tours, you learn how to fill those days without just staring at the TV for 24 hours. Um, but I think it was kind of has to do more with what I said earlier, where it's just like the momentum was already ready to flag just because of all the various circumstances of geography and everything else, and so having this enforced stop really let the momentum like, and so it made starting it up again that much harder and therefore gave us that much more room to consider Like what if we don't start it up again, or what if we started up, but with now an end goal in mind, right For me personally, it, I, I loved it.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I'm, I feel like I had the greatest pandemic of anyone on earth. I felt so I don't want to say I feel guilty about it, because it's not like I wasn't in a castle in the Swiss Alps or anything. I was just in my tiny apartment in Toronto collecting government largesse, thank God, thank God. But having not only the time to be at home, but also with nothing on the horizon, I just found myself really doing a lot of like introspective thinking and philosophical ruminating and it, I don't know. I feel like I, I, I finally entered my thirties, belatedly. I was like, oh, okay, wait a minute, who am I and what do I want out of life and what does this mean to me, and and all these things being absent from it. So, and I have to think, I took that with me back into the band world and that's what happens. You know, we all I was just talking about this last night you grow up with these four guys. We were all together from when we were. I mean, we started the band we were 18, but we'd already been friends for years before that.
Speaker 2:But then that unit kind of doesn't. It's so locked in that you don't grow within it in the same way you grow outside of it. And so you're on these two parallel tracks where, on one hand, you're a whole human, entering the world and meeting new people and having new friendships and relationships, and people have babies and people die and all the things that happen in a life that change from when you're 16 to 36. But then, on a parallel track, is this relationship that's like in amber and this beautiful thing that doesn't grow and change in the same way, because it's like I don't know why, it's bands, there's a bands don't seem to grow and change in the same way.
Speaker 2:You build these dynamics between you and then they have their own, they have a life of their own, and this was also the longest time we'd ever been apart, and the longer you're apart, the more when you come back together you realize like, oh interesting, these clothes don't fit me like they used to, which was, uh, also literally a problem for me after two years of lockdown I think it was for everybody yeah, uh, so I I that's about as much as I can probably psychoanalyze it, but I suspect that as life goes on, I will realize more and more that it was like for everyone it.
Speaker 2:It was just like this it was the biggest thing that's ever happened while I've been alive in the world, and living through a historical moment like that is yeah, oh, it really knocks you off your axis, it really changes things.
Speaker 1:What do you think the feeling is going to be like when you play that last song at the end of the tour?
Speaker 2:I've really been wondering about that. I, I have no idea. I don't even think that I'm close to comprehending what it might feel like. I uh, cause, on one hand, I've done a lot of last shows of tour and the last song is always triumphant, and there's no small amount of relief, cause it's just like by the time you get to the last show, you've played the songs a hundred times, you've done the show a bunch of times, you're, you've coiled the cables, you've moved the amps, you've loaded the trailer, you've you've gone to the hotel, you've eaten the pizza, and it usually feels like, okay, good, I could use a break.
Speaker 2:And so I suspect, instinctively, I'll be feeling like that and then my brain will keep reminding me that, like, this isn't a break man, this is. You know that's next time you coil the cable and pack the trailer, it's going off into the sunset and I, I, I don't know if I'm gonna be, you know, just chilling up there, or if I'm gonna be like melting down, like roman roy at his father's funeral, the halfway through the second song, like inconsolable and in panicking, and I, I'm content to leave it up to fate for the time being. I guess we'll see, and I just want to do it truly. I want to. Whatever it is that happens.
Speaker 1:I hope that it happens real good Sure and I would imagine, because it's in Toronto, isn't it? So I would imagine you'll have your friends and family there and it will be. It will be a. It's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's four nights at the same venue to close it off, which is a really. I think that'll give us some, it will be able to spread out the emotion a bit, which I think is very useful, and also I imagine we'll be drained by them, because every show on this tour, for the people of Dallas, texas, or the people of London or wherever it is we go, the people of Halifax, for them that is the emotional last one it is. And so we're going to be going through that ringer night after night after night, which means the other thing that can happen and is really hard to avoid is that that emotion, that like pure sadness but not like, you know, tragedy, just the understanding of what's going away. It's going to be hard to not have that become rote and you start to perform it. You know, being on stage, you have your moves and you have your things. You repeat every night and at least for me, those have always come out of honest things.
Speaker 2:Oh, I really had fun doing a jump at that moment in that song, which I did spontaneously once, but everyone loved it and I loved it. So now I'm going to start doing the jump in that moment and then fast forward two years and you're like this is, I'm on autopilot, the jump is now it's jukebox shit, it's performance, and that's our job is to take honesty and turn it into performance, and that tension is always really interesting and productive. But now the thing that we might be performing with some degree of like cynicism almost, is one of the purest emotions that probably I'll ever get to experience in my life, and so, to keep it honest, I think is going to be probably the hardest part of this entire thing. Of course, Cool.
Speaker 1:So let's move into the quick fire round and let's see what we've got. No pressure. If you had a theme song for your life, what would it be?
Speaker 2:What a wonderful world. I've heard it on the radio this morning. It really took me off guard. I was like I'm going to'm gonna cry now it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had a funny celebrity encounter?
Speaker 2:our first bus tour ever was a summer festival tour through the uk and europe. We did that was glastonbury, reading leads, tea in the park, oxygen, and then like out to sweden and shit playing. All these festivals and it was all the same. Bands are always on the bill of these things, of course, and we were on the bus because it was the only way to get from point A to point B to point C in time. But we didn't have enough money really to have a bus, so we had like a cheap, dirty bus. We didn't have any.
Speaker 2:Usually you get one hotel room to have showers and stuff Didn't get any of that. Food was tight, just pd per diem money. So at the festivals you get like a meal ticket for lunch and a meal ticket for dinner and you're allowed to go in and have your food with your ticket and then you're out, right. But we would come back at the end of the night and if you came back at the end of the night you could usually get some. Uh, if they had a sandwich left over, they'd usually take pity on you and we'd go and basically like scrounge, like you know, like urchins and Oliver Twist, but it was when Modest Mouse was one of the bands that was on all these shows and it was when Johnny Marr you know, one of the most legendary and great musicians of all time was on that tour.
Speaker 2:And I swear to God, every single time we went to the catering tent to try and scrounge leftovers, we went to the catering tent to try and scrounge leftovers, johnny Marr would be sitting there alone eating like a huge sandwich. That was obviously the best thing that was left. And every time Johnny Marr and we never talked to him. And I don't know. I would love someday I hope I get to meet him and ask him, because surely he must have noticed at a certain point these like sad Oliver-esque you know-eyed canadians watching him eat our sandwich that we were dreaming of. We're like johnny marr, you're a rich man.
Speaker 2:Give us your sandwich buy a sandwich, give us your sandwich. Uh, and that was I really. I can see him in my mind's eye I don't know if he literally had a guitar on his lap, because some of these memories you start to mythologize yourself. You tell the story too many times but in my mind's eye he's sitting there with one knee up, big, lanky leg, beautiful jazz master sort of on his lap, just eating this giant beautiful sandwich and, um, I probably cherish that memory more than I would have ever cherished the sandwich yeah, absolutely mocking us.
Speaker 2:Dave, our singer, was once asked specifically to sign a record, for I think the singer of Disturbed, whose name I'm spacing on, is David something, I think. Sorry to him if I'm getting it wrong, but I remember being it was in the heyday, it was like 2010,. Champ had just come out and I remember it because there's a video we had someone taking video of us and there's a video of dave spelling out the man's last name as he signs this record, because the guy was like I love tokyo police club. Could the singer sign a record for me?
Speaker 2:I guess amazing uh, which I found quite amusing what's the strangest talent you possess? I'm really good at reading a Wikipedia article like cold reading it for the first time in a way that I think is engaging and dramatic. I wish people asked me to do that more often. Honestly, I love doing it. I love whipping it.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had a? You won't believe that happened moment.
Speaker 2:I feel like, in a way, my entire career has been a bit of a you won't believe that happened moment. We once had to like walk across the border with all of our instruments because our band broke down and we were like the walking border is just this little turnstile, you know, with the metal crossbars. And so we had on the bridge in Niagara Falls, america slash Canada. We one guy had to go through and then we had to all of our giant cases which didn't fit in the turnstile. We had to push them over top of it. So, on some grainy security camera at the border, they just saw these four shaggy 23 year olds start pushing giant boxes over the border. Uh, but they did let us into canada and they, they just seemed like they really felt sorry for us at that point and, frankly, we deserved it.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, what's the strangest thing you've ever found in your pocket?
Speaker 2:The one ring. No, I find bits of food in my pocket more often, especially my breast pocket. I'll be at a restaurant or something and eating a chip and whoa, it crumbled, it just went right in my pocket. Or the turnips of my jeans too, they'll collect. It's not good. I have like this mess. I make mess when I eat. I don't know, I'm almost 40 years old. I got to stop having food go in my pockets. At least you get a snack at the end of the day, exactly I. At the end of the day. Yeah, exactly, I'm saving it for later.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite part of the day when you're on tour?
Speaker 2:Well, this tour we're not doing the van, but I there's a part of me that kind of loves the drive more than anything else, the liminal space especially well everywhere, but especially in America, I found, because there's so much to see out the window the if some days, like if you're driving, particularly around the Southwest, you'll go through what looks like five different planets on one drive. You'll come around a corner and all of a sudden you're in this beautiful valley and then you come around a corner and you salt flats and there's mountains and just like sitting in the passenger seat, like I said earlier, staring slack shot out the window Over the years, the more time I've spent out there, you're staring slack shot out the window over the years, the more time I've spent out there. It's all great. I love getting the first coffee. I love the show most nights. I love after the show when you finish the show and you get, like that, post-show beers, great.
Speaker 1:But sitting in that van watching the world go by, I think is what I'm gonna miss, maybe almost more than anything else I was just thinking of another question, actually talking about the show how important is interacting with the fans going to be on this tour?
Speaker 2:Really important and I am curious and excited to see what it ends up being like because I mean, we have been. It's so hard to say stuff like this and not sound disingenuous. And it kind of gets back to what I was saying earlier about how there is a performative nature and you know, we've all worked a room and we've all schmoozed and pressed to the flesh. I'm sure you know how that feels. It can be weird with fans because they don't really like, they don't know who you are, they know the music you made and so you're not having the kind of human interaction that you'd have with, like, your brother or your, your old friend or whatever. But still you're like, okay, you love the music we made and it means something to you and you're trying to express that and that's I mean that's not to be too corny. I mean that's not to be too corny, but that's what it's all about. That's the only reason you get to do any of it. And people have already been so kind and sweet and like forthright with their feelings about what the band has meant to them and their memories. And this is something that social media can do really well. It's provided a way for people to really quickly. You know, even if it's one sentence oh, I love this show. When you played the song, it was so special they, you know no one is ever going to take the time to write that in a letter and send it to your po box, but now you get to hear it, and hearing it in person is, I think, going to be really beautiful. It's going to be a lot, you know, and there's people are going to want to tell you their whole tale and for a long time we were selling the merch ourselves.
Speaker 2:After the shows, josh, our guitar player, and I would man the merch table and sell the T-shirts that we didn't need to have another body in the van and we found it was really something to do and it was a great way to interact with fans. But we talked about it for this tour and we were like the lineup will never end because every single person is going to want to talk to us and we're going to have to be like I need to sell a T-shirt to these other 300 people, and so we're not selling the merch this time. We're just going to only devote ourselves to yakking with people and taking pictures and stuff. I think it's going to be beautiful and I think it's going to define the tour, I mean, and of course, the show itself is ultimately an interaction between us and the fans. It's more rhetorical, but that's that's the heart of it. And then everything around it is sort of the the bonus stuff and yeah, I think that's that's what's going to make the tour into whatever it becomes.
Speaker 1:Define yourself in three words Enthusiastic earnest. I hope believer describe canada in three words vast unknowable.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of one word to sum up like my mind is like mountains, hudson's bay, history present. I mean, you know, horror and atrocity, beauty and art, and I'm like what's the word for that Country? It's profoundly human. How about that?
Speaker 1:What does being Canadian mean to you?
Speaker 2:Well, for me and there's many ways to be Canadian obviously For me it's been a stroke of damned good luck. You know, I realize more and more as I get older, obviously for me it's been a stroke of of damned good luck. Uh, you know it's, it's I realized more and more as I get older. I really I I arrived in a place at a moment as a type of person who it's been a real smooth ride, even talking about covid, just I went on the website every two weeks and pressed a button and they sent me money and that was what I did. I was like, great, now I'll send this money to the beer company that brings me beer and none of my shirts will fit me anymore. And you know that's not to be glib, but that's.
Speaker 2:And with the, you know, obviously we've benefited so much from, like, the granting system and the way that the government supports Again, I feel obligated to has supported some kinds of the arts and certainly a lot of the arts that are conducted by folks who look like me. Um, and you know, I think that's all starting to agonizingly slowly change. Uh, but I I think that more and more, and I'm sure as I look back, as I get older and older I'll be like, holy shit, that's about as good a a deal of cards, as good a hand as anyone ever got dealt on day one of their life, and uh, and so I I hope I've played them with some degree of responsibility what does being a man mean to you?
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm really figuring that out.
Speaker 2:I feel like I was a boy, um, and I mean even the making a distinction between boy and man connotes certain things that, to different people that I might, may or may not actually endorse or believe, but I think it means maybe being responsible for being alive among people, understanding that you are one among many and one part, one stitch of the fabric, of this quilt that makes up, you know, your community, your city, your country, the planet, and not only remembering that and being aware of that, but understanding that that brings with it a certain responsibility to your fellow human, to, I guess, just act in a way that if everyone acted in that way, it would be a sustainable way to live.
Speaker 2:That's easier said than done sometimes, and especially in our line of work, which in some I mean doing, making art. God knows, the history of the arts is riddled with, you know, selfish assholes who I don't think behaved in any of the ways I'm describing and made great art, uh, to the point where I think there's a real, still strong, belief that the the path to making great art is via selfishness and, and I really don't think that that's true, uh, and I really think that's a pernicious lie, and I think that's also true in business and in paul, I mean in politics. It might actually be true, which might be, you know, part of the general issue with things right now, everywhere, but uh, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just it's so increasingly important to me as I get older and spend more time in the world. Just to be likemates is different than the love I have for a stranger on the street or someone I'll never meet in another country. But I think of all of those things as manifestations of like, what it means to be human beyond, like a brain and a body that walks around and eats. You know, and I think that that's whether it's a blessing or a curse, that we're the animal that has that knowledge. It's what we, we got to work with, and I think that you've got to work with it in a, in a positive way, and and work towards, you know, a better understanding.
Speaker 2:There's a um, a friend of mine went to like an artsy high school and he took a class called becoming fully human. That was just sort of, you know, a hippie, multidisciplinary thing, but the title of it always stuck with me and I feel like our task is to become fully human, or my task is, and I think that so being a man to me means trying to become fully human and and in all the ways that come, what, all the ways that turns out to mean, which is you know? I think I'm just at the beginning of understanding that what does the future look like for Graham Wright?
Speaker 2:This is the first time in my life I probably haven't had a solid answer for that question. I always knew I wanted to play guitar. I mean, since I was old enough to want to do anything, I wanted to be in a band. And then I was thinking about this. Yesterday I was just sitting on the couch and it hit me. I was like, and I got to. I mean, I wanted it so bad, I wanted it so bad, and then I did. Not only did I get it, I kind of like got it for free, it worked right away, and then I got to do it for 20 years. So I don't even know how to decide what to do next. And luckily the tour is big enough and and you know there's there's some runway for me before I have to figure it out, but I'll keep making music. I'll tell you that it will have music in it. The future for Graham Wright will never not have a guitar and a notebook full of lyrics. And uh, where that leads me, I look forward to finding out.
Speaker 1:Last question is new blues in the set list for Canada day, because I do know someone that would be very upset if it wasn't.
Speaker 2:I think it probably will be. It's in the set list. That's like the that we'll be drawing from, but it's a shorter set I don't know if it's 60 minutes or 50 minutes and new blues is like a almost a five minute or and so sometimes it does get sliced. However, I will note that it has been requested and pass that on, because sometimes that's how you make the decision by the executive of Canada day.
Speaker 1:Okay, that does seem no pressure.
Speaker 2:It is coming down from on high.
Speaker 1:So, john, I did ask the question, just putting it out there, John, there you go. I'll pass it on. Thank you very much, Graham Wright. I loved our conversation and I look forward to yeah, great talk. I look forward to welcoming you to London. Thank you so much, and I will see you in three weeks.
Speaker 2:Looking forward to it Wow.