Tokyo Police Club Consider Selling Out 'Fair Trade' For Illegal Downloads

Posted on Mar 25th 2011 10:30AM by Anne T Donahue
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As far as Tokyo Police Club are concerned, if you illegally download music for free then don't be surprised when your favourite band are forced to commercialize their work in hopes of earning an income.

"I don't know if you can sell-out, really," frontman Dave Monks tells Spinner. "I feel like that's the fair trade; you get your music for free, you're welcome. That's the way the world works, I don't hold it against anyone.

"But if you see us doing something lame, don't get angry, because we gotta do our thing, too, and make sure we've got time to go write records, and money to come tour and bring lights or something."

Some fans don't agree, though, and after Tokyo Police Club's cameo on 'Desperate Housewives' in 2008 -- and the slew of late-night talk show appearances that followed -- there are those who feel the band have lost touch with their roots.

But Monks and co. shake their heads at the doubters. They may be up for a Juno this weekend -- an arguably un-indie honour ever, albeit in the "alternative" album category -- but that doesn't mean the band are any less DIY than when they started out.

Just consult the pages of the handmade Tokyo Police Club: The Magazine for proof.

"Say, you want to make T-shirts," says Monks. "So you get someone to make them; you tell them what you want, they send it back, and it's pretty close; it gets sent off, approved and then it goes to merch and it comes back a bit different; and it ends up being a pile of extra large shirts on the floor. It's so hard to be connected to that. The 'zine is something you can give people apart from music, like, 'I made this, I know about it.'

"It reflects us much more than something like a T-shirt," he says. "It's not as useful as a T-shirt, maybe, but I think that's a good trade."

And while some might still feel awkward about their beloved indie band rubbing shoulders with the likes of Shania Twain and Hedley at the Juno Awards Sunday night, at least they're guaranteed a Tokyo Police Club performance, so, as Monks would put it, "fair trade."