@alpaca.presents
by Brandon van der Berg @vdb.brandon
I sat down with 5-Piece Math-Rock band Tokyo Toy Company to have a great chat about their music. Find them on Instagram or Spotify For Fans Of Brothers Moving, Delta Sleep and Chinese Football. Read Below.
You guys enjoy the occasional pint, where’s your favourite place to drink in Bristol?
(Rhys) For me, Kingsdown vaults. It’s a good pub, I like it.
(Ryan) The Star, Fishponds. Best pub in Bristol.
(Rhys) Oh, The Bell’s pretty good.
(Alfie) The Bell is good.
(Connor) The Bell is very good.
You guys have just launched your first line of T-Shirts. If you could release any other Merch right now, what would you like to do?
(Connor) Thimbles!
(Rhys) what?
(Ben) For sewing?
(Connor) Yeah!
talking to Ryan
(Rhys) what would you make?
Did not hear the question and was in deep thought elsewhere
(Ryan) What?
(Rhys) What would you make?
very confidently
(Ryan) OH! I’d make us that dollar.
(Rhys) What.
(Alfie) Funko Pop!’s for Clive?
(Collectively) Oh yeahhhh!
You recorded your new single “No Hesitation” over at Western Audio Studios in Swindon with the incredible Claire Sutton, how was your first time recording in a professional studio as a band?
(Rhys) Cool as f*ck.
I think we were all tired as sh*t
(Connor) Claire and the studio are just-
(Ryan) Incredible.
(Rhys) Claire Sutton is the best person.
(Alfie) We’re definitely not the kind of band that wakes up early to do stuff on the regular and we had to wake up, what was it like 6 am? To get there on time.
(Rhys) The alarm went off and we were half asleep AS SOON as the bell goes off he’s like “RIGHT GUYS GET UP LETS GO”
(Connor) Like a dad. He’s like a dad, a little dad.
(Ben) Yeah, but he has to because NONE of you will get up.
Because of your music, the more refined your sound becomes, do you think anything is becoming more challenging?
(Rhys) I think just disagreements about the sound sometimes, we all have a similar idea but there are times specifically with me and everyone in the band where we have different views so it's just like, creative differences?
(Alfie) Working out how to compromise.
(Rhys) We’re now getting better at it but initially, at the start of it, it was-
(Alfie) Something we had to work on.
Ryan and Alfie I know you guys go way back, what’s your favourite musical memory of you guys before you came to Bristol?
(Alfie and Ryan) Oooo!
(Alfie) Oh, our headliner at O2?
(Ryan) Oh yeah we headlined O2 Academy
(Alfie) That was our first kind of ‘big venue gig’
(Ryan) Our band's name was in big letters as well.
Do you think growing up in Coventry, which is the second most dangerous city in Europe, has made it hard to adapt to any areas of Bristol life?
(Alfie) For me, definitely at first. I noticed how much more friendly and emotional people can be. I came down after Ryan for like 3 weeks so he made friends as I came down here and most of them just came up to me like ‘Oh hello! (Never met me before)’ Come up and hug me and all that. It’s something I found a bit strange at first but it’s something I really like now.
(Ryan) You don’t even talk to people on nights out in Coventry. You dare not.
*Collectively laughs*
(Ryan) You just dare don’t, I don’t know why but people just don’t like it. You go up to someone random and speak to them like, it’s going down.
Alfie, you’ve also been playing Math-Rock specifically for a really long time, what first attracted you to it? And what made it stick?
(Alfie) Ryan.
Ryan was the one who showed me. Me and him were in our old band, I remember we were at our old guitarist's flat, I think it might have been after a practice, we were all drunk and all that and Ryan starts whacking on some stuff that looks like weird ring tones and I was like “Oh my god I love that”.
He was like “Yeah it’s well easy”
I was like “You can do that on guitar?”
Man just pulls out his guitar and starts tapping it and like we’re in a metal band I’ve never seen anything like this before so I was like “Oh, damn.”
Ryan, you first learned to play on a guitar that was a present from your grandad. To what extent do you use guitar as a way to engage with yourself emotionally?
(Ryan) I don’t know, it destresses me more than anything. Writing is my favourite thing by far, just composing tracks. It’s really satisfying when you get all the parts together and it works.
Whether it’s hairstyles, dress codes or band members, you guys are always changing. With the music being quite niche, what pressure do you feel to try to stand out?
(Rhys) I think we’re all very flamboyant people anyway so I don’t think it’s a pressure.
(Connor) One of the main things is like loads of bands try to do something specific like “Oh we can’t do this because we’re this”. Just do whatever you want.
(Rhys) It’s lack of sh*t giving.
(Connor) Yeah, we really do not care, at all.
Rhys, I hear you have some pretty unique tattoos, can you walk me through some of-
Too excited to wait
(Rhys) I got mah cheeeese!
I got my lovely cheese, I’m getting a cheese grater soon but I spent too much money on alcohol so I can’t right now.
I got a big ant because my dad’s name is “Anthony”
I got “Scum” because that’s my shed from back home
I got a weird little smiley face, a bowl of soup and a little peanut man that I want to make into one of those spinny things so that if I spin fast enough, he moves.
Where most of the band is very heavily influenced by Math Rock, you aren’t Rhys, when you first started the band, collectively was there any kind of sense of imposter syndrome in the band?
(Rhys) Yeah. Initially, my plan for the band was to leave in a week, because I was like “Ah! They’re all very good musicians and I’m still starting out as a vocalist. It’s kind of completely gone now.
(Connor) ‘Cause it was only supposed to be for that one BIMM Live (A University showcase). That was the whole plan, you’d come and do that song and then leave.
So how come you stayed?
(Connor) Because it was f*ckin’ sick!
(Rhys) I think because we did ‘Little Time’ and then Ryan came in with ‘West-Mid Emo’ I was like “Yeah, I’ll give it a go” and then it was like “I don’t want to leave, this sh*t is cool as hell.
Connor you really like The Beatles, who’s your favourite Beatle?
(Connor) Paul McCartney or maybe George Harrison. Probably Paul McCartney.
How did growing up in a small Welsh town influence your exposure to music?
(Connor) I was exposed to 90’s indie rock, all the time, Stereophonics and sh*t like that. I used to write songs like them but I always tried to make it different to anything I’d heard. I think it helps being in this band now, there’s quite a different… ya know… thing.
Ben, predominantly you’re a punk bassist and play in bands like KNIVES also here in the scene, how have your roots in that genre influenced your writing for Tokyo Toy Company?
(Ben) They kind of don’t intersect. When it gets heavy I’m like “Oh, I know what I’m doing.” And then during the rest of the songs, I’m like damn I gotta rely on my SCALES. I’m using modes n shit. I gotta bust out some nice little harmonies. I’ve built up quite a strong knowledge of my scales and modes I just never used them because there wasn’t a place to.
Do you all feel that way as well?
(Connor) Yeah, for sure. Like-
*Alfie wretches violently*
(Collective hysteric laughter)
(Connor) With my other band, It feels like we’re just going on stage and jamming because I know we’ll just stay in that one key for a little bit. But with this band, I need to know all my parts like Me and Ryan’s parts are so intricate that we need to be on top of it.
There is Math-Rock all around the world, who are some of your favourite Math-Rock bands from different cultures?
(Connor) Delta Sleep
(Ryan) Kafuka
(Alfie) Chinese Football, American Football, all the footballs.
*Group Laugh*
(Alfie) TOA and TTNG are probably some of my biggest influences drumming.
Obviously, with Math-Rock you’ve got really technical parts. But the drummers that keep it simple but you still question what they’re doing. So instead of ‘big blast chaos god knows what he’s doing’ you’ve got these really tight gentle melodic parts which I really roll to.
Do you have any specific drummers that influence you?
(Alfie) Yeah, the drummer from TTNG, Delta Sleep but there’s probably yet to be a celebrity one within Math-Rock. Might go on American Idol next year, ya never know.
You’re about to play with 'Let's Swim, Get Swimming'. Which is going to be your first tour as a band, as Ryan, I hear you’re not going on the tour. Why’s that?
(Rhys) ‘Cause he’s a stupid little dum dum who wants to go on holiday instead of coming on tour with the boys. We got Ollie coming from-
(Connor) Sunshine Blues Band!
(Rhys) From Sunshine Blues Band. He’s very good and-
(Alfie) Been a friend of the band for years. Not years-
(Rhys) Years? haha
(Alfie) Year. For the year we’ve known him. The whole year.
How does it feel as a band for your first tour to not be with him?
(Connor) Sad.
(Alfie) I can imagine it being quite strange to be fair. It’s a big leap for the band and it’s gonna be weird having one of the most key members of this band not there. But I think it’s probably something that all bands come by at some point. People have things they want to do in life and we can’t stop them from doing that, we respect Ryan doing what we wants to do.
(Rhys) It’s annoying as f*ck but it is what it is, essentially.
(Ryan) I don’t doubt Ollie Armstrong’s ability to completely, perfectly play my guitar parts.
(Connor) It is gonna be weird, we’ve never not played with Ryan before.
When it comes down to just being friends, what are your favourite parts about being in a band with each other?
(Connor) Bold of you to assume we are friends.
*Group Laughs*
(Rhys) Pub.
(Ryan) We go pub, we play in fields and that.
(Rhys) We basically live the life of a 9-year-old together.
Do you have anything you’d like to promote?
(Rhys) ‘No Hesitation’ Out todayyyy. The 9th of June.
(Ryan) Merch.
(Rhys) We got merch, it's £15, it’s cool as f*ck, it’s our logo writing.
(Ben) We’ve got a tour coming up, end of June, what date’s the Bristol date?
(Rhys) Errr 25th is Cardiff, 26th is June, 27th is-
Sarcastically
(Ben) The 26th is indeed in June. Haha
(Rhys) haha, The 26th is Bristol, the 27th is Swindon and the 28th is (SOMETHING)
(Ben) Is it Bristol Exchange?
(Rhys) Yeah, Exchange Basement.
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