Japandroids: How a Canadian Two-piece Made the Biggest Sounding Record of the Year

While there hasn’t necessarily been a lack of guitar rock over the last two decades, there does seem to be a lack of enjoyment in the whole thing. The 90s had some great guitar rock in the grunge movement, as well as the more noise orientated bands, but as great as some of those bands were, they were a bit serious. Then in 2000 the garage rock revival (the “the” bands), came on strong, but faded just as quickly into fad neverland.

Fast forward to the end of this decade and it seems to be coming on strong again. And even more amazing is how many are pulling it off as a two-piece and seem to be having a hell of a time doing it. Whether it’s the Black Keys, No Age or a host of others, they’re creating sound as big as most four or five piece bands. The best at the moment is the Vancouver band, Japandroids.

Formed by college friends Brian King (vocals, guitar) and David Prowse (vocals, drum), Japandroids started out looking for a female singer to fill out the band, a la The “Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” but quickly grew frustrated with it and decided to keep it as a duo.

“We originally were gonna look for a lead singer and not sing at all, but we played for so long and didn’t find anyone that worked so we just decided to sing on our own,” David Prowse said in a recent phone interview. “Neither of us wanted to sing that much at first ‘cause we didn’t really feel it was our strong suit. I guess its part of our charm that fact that neither of us can sing.”

In April their debut full-length, “Post-Nothing,” was released and the band was ready to take over the world on their first big tour when Brian underwent emergency surgery for a life-threatening perforated ulcer. While recuperating though, the album started picking up a lot of steam even in the U.S. where it wasn’t released until August. After a long recovery the band was able to start up the tour again earlier this summer even though the doctors had warned against it.

“The spring was a little weird, but the summer has been great,” Prowse said. “We got to tour for six weeks all over Canada and America and we survived. With Brian we didn’t really know how things were going to go because he kind of jumped the gun a little bit and the doctor didn’t want him to go on tour so soon, but we went anyway and he didn’t die, so it was good.”

Released in April in Canada and the States in August, “Post-Nothing” is packed with loud guitars, rolling drums, passionate vocals and the anthem of summer, “Young Hearts Spark Fire.” And not only that, the self-produced album is one of the best sounding records in recent memory.

“The thing with the record is it’s simply recorded,” Prowse said. “It’s us playing live instrumentally, no overdubs, and then we came back and sang over everything. There aren’t all these guitar tracks that we loaded on, it’s Brian playing through his series of amps he uses at every show.”

And as amazing as it is for a two-piece to create that big of sound in the studio with no overdubs, it becomes even harder live. It’s a very common thing for bands to create layer upon layer of sound in the studio and then to have trouble recreating it live. A lot of major acts even have musicians off-stage to help fill out the sound.

“I think that’s the really cool thing and thing I’m proud of with the band. There are so many records you listen to and they sound so amazing and then you see them live and its totally underwhelming. The thing I like most about our band is when you hear us live it’s the same thing you hear on the record.”

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Who: Japandroids

Where: The Aquarium

When: Saturday, Sept. 12, 10:00pm

Cost: $7