Artist Interviews

Q&A: teenagersintokyo

By | Published on Friday 9 October 2009

teenagersintokyo

Hailing from Sydney, teenagersintokyo are the latest signing to Back Yard Recordings, a label famed, of course, for bringing artists like Gossip and Chromeo to worldwide attention. Currently holed up in a studio in the Welsh mountains with Bat For Lashes producer David Kosten, they released their second single, a double a-side, ‘Isabella/Long Walk Home’, this week. The mix of early eighties influences (think The Cure, Joy Division and Tears For Fears) which makes up their sound, coupled with Samantha Lim’s sweet vocals, make for some pleasing results. We cornered them for a quick Same Six Questions session.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
We formed the band in 2005 out of what, I guess at the time, was a random idea. We jammed around for bit and played a handful of shows until Rudy joined us in 2006. That’s when it all really clicked for us and it became a serious decision to pursue it as a career.

Q2 What inspired your latest single?

‘Isabella’ was one of the earlier songs that we wrote for the album over a year ago. It evolved out of us pushing ourselves to try writing something different from what we had done before and developed fairly quickly out of a jamming session. ‘Long Walk Home’ was a track that we wrote when we hid ourselves in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, for a week. It was just us holed away in a shed with all our instruments, on the top of a mountain with no distractions. I think the serenity of our surroundings influenced the vibe of this song.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Usually it happens with all five of us in a room throwing around ideas. We’re a fairly democratic band whereby all members have equal say in all the parts. Someone usually comes up with a part or idea, and then we jam it out from there. With vocal melody/lyrics sometimes it just happens in the room and sometimes I’ll take a basic structure of the song away with me to work on at home.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?

We’re all inspired by different artists individually and it’s varied across all of us, but some of our band favourites would be Fleetwood Mac, Prince, The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, Tears For Fears, Womack & Womack, Grace Jones, Liars, the list goes on…

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I would try not to say too much, actually, and let them make up their own mind.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest single, and for the future?
We’re really excited to be releasing these two songs as they are the first that anyone will hear from our album, which is coming out early next year. We hope that those who are already familiar with our music will be pleased with what direction we’re going in and look forward to picking up listeners along the way.

MORE>> www.teenagersintokyo.com



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