Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)

Album: This Modern Glitch (2010)
Charted: 23
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single by indie rock band The Wombats from their second album. It was produced by Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Lostprophets).
  • Vocalist Matthew "Murph" Murphy told The Sun it had nothing to do with vampires or other bloodsucking creatures. He added: "It's an angst rebellious song about everything. There are also no guitars - just synths. I got bored at looking at guitar amps."
  • Murphy explained the inspiration for the track to The Sun: "The song is about the need I personally felt to better Let's Dance to Joy Division and to not be pigeonholed by it.
    Time will tell if I was successful or not. The first time we went to Tokyo, we ended up in this crazy little bar called Edge End. I've since wanted to re-live that night over and over again and that's the bar I'm referring to."
  • Murph told Spinner UK about the song's music video. "We shot this video in L.A. over two days," he said. "It was shot in the Geisha House on Hollywood Blvd. After the first day of filming, we all went out and had a massive night out. Ironically, after first thinking that perhaps the concept of the video was a little inaccurate in its a depiction of a night out with the Wombats, they didn't need to use much makeup to make us look rough the following day..."
  • Murphy explained in an interview with Billboard magazine why the band added synthesizers and dance-flavored beats to their sound for This Modern Glitch. "That was born out of necessity rather than choice," he said. "Drums, bass and guitar just wasn't cutting it for us anymore. We wanted to kind of explore a bit more and go down a different road. It just happened synthesizers allowed us to do that. It could have been anything; we were looking for whatever would give us the best kind of creative vibe, I guess, and people seem to like this course we took."

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