2005–2007: Formation and early years David Monks (born January 21, 1987), Graham Wright (born February 16, 1987), Josh Hook (born May 11, 1987), and Greg Alsop (born March 20, 1985) grew up and attended school together in Newmarket, Ontario. In high school, the four played in a band called
Suburbia which eventually disbanded. In 2004, the group informally came together again to form Tokyo Police Club; the name of the band comes from a 2000s-era online Band Name Generator. and soon after they signed with Toronto label
Paper Bag Records; Monks and Alsop dropped out of college to become professional musicians. The band released its debut
EP,
A Lesson in Crime, in 2006 on
Paper Bag Records. The recording was less than seventeen minutes long, and some of the songs were quite short. That year they appeared at
Edgefest and the inaugural
Osheaga Festival. The
Smith EP was released in 2007. During a July show in
Omaha,
Nebraska, the band signed a deal with
Saddle Creek Records which would release their debut LP. The single "Your English Is Good" was released in July and later included on their album
Elephant Shell. That year the band performed at
Coachella,
Lollapalooza,
Bumbershoot, the
Glastonbury Festival, and the
Reading and Leeds Festival.
2008–2012: Debut record and successful follow-up In 2008, Tokyo Police Club released their first album,
Elephant Shell, first via the US
iTunes Store on March 25, 2008, and then on their new label Saddle Creek in April in North America, and in May in the U.K. and Continental Europe via Memphis Industries. In the same year, the band played the
Roskilde Festival, the
Rock am Ring-Festival, and
Street Scene. In the fall, they played on the last six weeks of
Weezer's Troublemaker Tour along with
Angels and Airwaves. In 2010, the band played the
Bonnaroo Music Festival. They also played at San Francisco's 2010
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival. Their second full-length album,
Champ, was released in June; it was produced by
Rob Schnapf. That fall the album appeared on the !Earshot National Top 50 Chart. On March 27, 2011, Tokyo Police Club performed their single "Bambi" at the 40th Juno Awards in Toronto. In June, the video for "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" was nominated as best indie video of the year by
MuchMusic. The video was directed by Mike Juneau and Kyle McCreight, and produced by
Jesse Ewles and Chris Cunningham. In 2011, the band also released
10 Days. 10 Covers. 10 Years., a project in which they recorded and released a new cover song from each of the previous 10 years, from 2001 to 2010. In December 2011, the band performed an unreleased song "Beaches" at a live show. In 2012, they joined
Foster the People on the North American portion of their
Torches tour along with
Kimbra. While continuing to work with the band, Wright also hosted programming on
CBC Radio 3.
2013–2018: Forcefield and TPC in 2014. After a prolific period, the band was relatively quiet from late 2012 until December 2013, when the band debuted a nine-minute
lyric video for "Argentina (Pts. I, II, and III)" on YouTube. Both "Beaches" and "Argentina" are on their album
Forcefield which was released March 24, 2014. In July the band performed at the 2014 Calgary Stampede in Calgary, Alberta. The band also recorded two songs for the
Daytrotter Sessions, which were released online. In 2016, the band released their
Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness project, consisting of two companions EPs titled
Part One and
Part Two. The two were later combined and formally released as a full length LP of the same name. The EPs celebrated a more spontaneous recording ethos, similar to their early albums. With this same celebratory nature, the band also released an expanded tenth anniversary edition of
A Lesson in Crime that year. Tokyo Police Club continued to record in 2018 in preparation for a fourth album. They released
TPC on October 5, 2018 and received a Juno nomination for Alternative Album of the Year. A companion EP titled
TPC DLX was released in October 2020, made up of tracks from the
TPC recording sessions and acoustic versions of songs.
2020–2024: Reissues and disbandment In December 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a special tenth anniversary edition of their album
Champ, slated for release in March 2021. With this announcement, the band released the single "Hundred Dollar Day." In March 2023, the band announced that they would be releasing a special fifteenth anniversary edition of their debut album
Elephant Shell, slated for release on 5 May 2023. On January 23, 2024, the band announced their disbandment. They performed their final four shows at
History in Toronto in November 2024. Prior to their final performances, the band released their final single, "Just A Scratch" / "Catch Me If You Can", on March 12 that year. ==Television==