The multi-award winning group Birds of Tokyo have spent the last little while putting together their newest body of work. The album will reveal a heavier sound than listeners have come to expect from the Perth band, but the Birds are confident fans will enjoy the new direction. We caught up with Glenn Sarangapany the band’s keyboardist and talked carnivorous plants, the new sound, and their imminent (fingers crossed) tour.
So, Birds of Tokyo are playing a show as part of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers, tell us about that.
Yeah so it’s going to be fun, the Carnival of flowers, it’s actually one of our first shows in a long time, so it’s kinda cool that it’s going to be a slightly different festival to what we normally play. I’m a little disappointed there’re no carnivorous plants, like Venus Fly Traps, I’ve been looking through the lineup and there doesn’t seem to be any of those.
I guess it’s not the right climate, maybe?
Nah, that’s probably right yeah.
Have you played in Toowoomba before?
No, I don’t think we have actually.
Can we expect some new music at the show?
I think so, we’re actually just starting rehearsals at the moment, so everyone is building their new set ups for the shows and because we are putting in all the effort to get ready for the new cycle, I think there is a pretty good chance you guys will hear at least one new song.
You guys are just about to release the new album – do you have a definitive date for the release?No, we actually don’t have a definitive date. Tracking is complete so everyone has played all their parts and all the songs are written but we are just kind of waiting for the final mixes and stuff to come back so we don’t have anything set in stone yet. We’re all keen to get it out as soon as possible so that everyone can hear it.
I’ve heard this release is going to be a bit heavier than your previous stuff. You’ve always had rock tones throughout your music, but this album is heading more in that direction. What was the thinking behind that?
We tend to just write music the way we are feeling at the time. The five of us tend to just get together and start playing. We tend to talk a lot, like whatever music anyone’s listening to will start being discussed and yeah it just ended up being more of a riskier kind of body of work than we’ve done before.
So what have you guys been listening to this time around?
I’ve been listening to a lot of Royal Blood. Actually, our lighting guy has been working for Parkway Drive so we’ve been going to quite a few of those shows.
I’ve read that you played a lot of classical and jazz when you were growing up. Do you ever go back there for inspiration?
I love playing classical piano. Actually, the opening track on the new album is like a big 80s fantasy version of a classical track that we put together so yeah we’re still trying to weave in influences from there as much as possible. I love trying to put classical voicings into rock music. From hearing guys like Muse do that years ago it’s like, “wow this really works!” The sound of it, it sounds so big. So I love it when we can do that, so it’s still a really big influence when I’m trying to write music.
Are all five of you involved in the writing process? Was everyone in the band supportive of this new progression?
Yeah definitely, because it sort of just happened organically there wasn’t really a discussion about it. It just kind of started happening in the room and we knew that we had a bunch of these songs that sounded a certain way that sounded like a good strong body of work. So yeah, there was no real kind of discussion of what to do it just kind of happened.
Are you expecting fans to go with it? Is it very different to what we’ve seen from you before?
At the very heart of it, Birds of Tokyo is still Birds of Tokyo so it still sounds like Birds, and I’ve actually snuck out a couple of tracks to play to my friends and they are very excited to hear the rest of it. So I think we’re fingers crossed, that our fans like it. They seem to come with us on every directional change we take. It’s just part of it, it’s a new body of work for us and hopefully, our fan base is keen to come along for the ride.
So, will you be doing a tour next year off the back of this new release?
I’m not sure yet but I assume so. I haven’t actually been told any dates or anything yet but I’m assuming the start of next year if I said I wanted to go away someone’s going to go “nope, let’s just try and keep that free.” Everyone is very very much looking forward to it. We can’t wait.
You seem to play outside of the major cities a bit, is that something you’re really passionate about? Reaching out to the fans in more rural areas?
Yeah, we love it! It’s why we all started playing in bands so that we could go outside of the cities and play shows and just be able to tour around as much as possible. If it were up to us we would pretty much do that all year round. So yeah we’re at the point now where we’re all just waiting to do it all in one big hit and everyone can get their fix then. Yeah, we’ll never give that up.
