Face Time: Japandroids
    Japandroids-FT-1.png

    Go directly to the video

    "Kiss away your gypsy fears", sings Japandroids' Brian King on "Fire's Highway", one of the many exilhirating tracks on the band's new Celebration Rock.  This is a band that's had no trouble adapting to the gypsy life. In fact, if anything, as you'll hear in this week's  Face Time conversation with King and David Prowse, it's settling down again that is now the challenge. 

    Japandroids became such road dogs thanks to the runaway and yet gradually-building success of their debut album Post-Nothing that once they did return to Vancouver for a long stretch, ostensibly to work on that challenging second record, their hometown just wasn't the same. They tell us that after spending most of '09, nearly all of '10 and a good chunk of '11 on the road, the city that so inspired that first record didn't have the same spark of inspiration anymore. In search of a jolt, Prowse explains, the duo drove to Tennessee last fall, rented a house, and the new songs came much more readily. What emerged, says King, is an album about movement, as much as Post-Nothing was about being in one place. King also explains that choice of a title--Celebration, Rock-- one that met some resistance from others, including his band mate, but that he was determined to stick with.

    It certainly feels celebratory, with no shortage of fist-pumping, "whoa-whoas" and power chords--and that was part of the point, for a band that has over time discovered its live shows to be very audience-participatory affairs. "We were well aware," says Prowse, "that 'Young Hearts Spark Fire' is the strongest song on Post-Nothing, and we just wanted to have every song be as strong as that one on this record." 

    It's definitely a rush, and it's great to have them back for their third interview appearance on Noisevox. This week on Face Time it's music and conversation from Brian and Dave of Japandroids. 

    Artist Tags: Japandroids