Rockers Birds Of Tokyo survive US label stoush to reclaim the ARIA charts with Playlist
THEY had a hit on US radio with Lanterns when label politics stalled their momentum. Now Birds of Tokyo have come home to record and play live.
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IN case you missed them, Birds of Tokyo spent the majority of the past two years following the success of their biggest selling song Lanterns.
The 2013 single reached top 3 in this country, partly due to its use as the soundtrack for the promos for the second season of TV drama Revenge and caught the ear of record and radio executives in the US.
As the buzz built for the Australian band in the US, Birds of Tokyo decided to take the leap and base themselves in Los Angeles.
“Lanterns did its thing. It just wouldn’t go away. It got the right pushes in the right places and the right things fell into place at the right time,” guitarist Adam Spark told News Corp Australia.
“It was largely people in the industry paying attention to airplay and the charts.”
Frontman Ian Kenny adds: “We’re not on the cool blogs. But basically having Lanterns on radio over there gave the band a reason to go and live and work there.
“We were living between families with nice picket fences and Mexican gangs.”
The five-piece, including bassist Ian Berney, keyboardist Glenn Sarangapany and drummer Adam Weston, did the hard yards required of any band hoping to conquer the world’s biggest music market.
They jumped into vans and hit the radio stations, television circuit and festivals, anything to maintain the momentum of the song as it found its home on alternative and rock airwaves.
The strategy appeared to be working, with Lanterns from their fourth album March Fires, rising
to No. 11 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Chart.
And then everything came to a crashing halt.
“At the same time we had a top 10 radio song, there was a big falling out between our label and the heads of Universal and our management extricated us from the deal,” Spark explains.
“The word on the street was they put the brakes on all the artists who were on our label, Loma Vista, because the big guys were fighting and us, St Vincent and all these smaller artists just got caught up in it.
“We built up all this support and just as we were about to go on tour, everything got pulled.”
At that point, after four albums and more than a decade of hard work to build their career in Australia and score a shot at the US, Birds Of Tokyo could have been forgiven for calling time out on the band.
“I think it’s a testament to the way our relationship as a band works that after 13, 14 years we can take the hits and deal with it,” Spark says.
“It’s life, move on. Nothing like that was going to make us say “I’m done.’”
The band came home two and a half years after releasing March Fires to work on their fifth album and reconnect with the loyal Australian fans who “support and feed us.”
One of the first songs ready to share was I’d Go With You Anywhere, the gold-selling single from their first “hits” compilation album, appropriately titled Playlist.
While the song works for lovers, it is also a statement of solidarity.
“It’s about the idea of what’s possible, of us trying to do whatever we can with what we’ve got. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with the creative side of what we do,” Kenny says.
“How far can we take this band? How far can we take ourselves as people. There’s so much more road ahead.”
As Playlist graphically illustrates, Birds Of Tokyo are not your conventional rock band. Their song structures vary wildly and while they present themselves as rockers with a sound that appeals to alternative music fans, they have an innate pop sensibility which makes them palatable to commercial pop radio.
Take Plans. Another triple platinum release, the 2010 single from their self-titled third album was the most unlikely Australian hit of the year and crossed the band over from alternative heroes to ARIA Song Of The Year nominees.
“There’s no chorus, it’s in a weird time signature, it didn’t fit in with the musical landscape of the time whatsoever,” Spark says.
“The good and the bad thing for this band both here and overseas is we have never fit into a lane. We’re too alternative and guitar-y for the pop world and we’re too uncool for the cool world, whatever that is.”
Playlist , which hit number one on the ARIA album charts, buys the band time to finish off the songs for their next album and gives fans another song to sing along to when they perform at the upcoming Falls Festivals.
“I think the album has a look at what we’ve been and points to what’s coming next,” Kenny says.
“I think where we are going next is completely different.”
Birds of Tokyo perform at Falls Festival, Marion Bay, Tasmania on December 30, Lorne, Victoria on December 31 and Byron Bay on January 1 and Southbound Festival, Western Australia on January 10
Originally published as Rockers Birds Of Tokyo survive US label stoush to reclaim the ARIA charts with Playlist
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