Tokyo Police Club recently took on the ambitious project of covering
10 songs from the 2000s, from Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone"
to LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" - all in 10 days.
The "Covers Project" was the brainchild of their label, Toronto's Mom
and Pop Music. "'All My Friends,' by LCD Soundsystem, is one of my top
10 songs ever - which would definitely put it in the category of too
revered to cover," frontman David Monks told Rolling Stone backstage
at the L.A. 101 Festival. "But what we found when we were working was
that it was way better to just work on a good song and do a good job of
it. You start in the morning and by seven o'clock if you're not putting
vocals on it you're kind of f**ked. So choosing things that were gonna
be solid was pretty important."
At one point they planned on doing Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Zero," but it
just didn't fly. So Harlem Shakes' "Strictly Game" won out. "It was fun
doing a friend's song," said Monks. But the most controversial choice
was Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone." "A lot of people were genuinely
bummed out that we covered 'Since You've Been Gone,' and I feel like
there might be a certain age where you're not appreciating that song as
just a great pop song and it's still sort of like the enemy to you."
But Monks' favorite - Queens of the Stone Age's "Little Sister" -
came as a surprise; originally it was his least favorite track. "I was
so hungover that day. After that day I was like, 'Okay, no more drinking
for the rest of the covers," he said. "But I listen to that one now and
I like it a lot."
They have a few more shows coming, including Christmas dates in
Brazil, but that's not going to stop them from starting to work
seriously on the follow-up to 2010's Champ.
"In a week we'll start Monday to Friday practices and writing," he
said, which will come out "hopefully mid-2012. It depends on the
recording process now, 'cause it took us so long to record the last one.
It'd be nice to do a snappy recording, but spend a lot of time writing
it."
For the moment, they're concentrating on the new material. But there
could be more covers in the future. If they were to do another decade,
what would be his choice? "I'd pick the Nineties, that'd be super
awesome," he said. "It'd probably be a little more shameless."
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