Dave Monks branches off from Tokyo Police Club and releases his second solo album. PHOTO CREDIT: spotify.com
To accompany his long and successful tenure with indie rock group Tokyo Police Club, Dave Monks has released his second solo album, “I’ve Always Wanted to Be Me.”
The album is the second full length LP he’s released as a solo artist after 2020’s “On A Wave Goes Wild,” but his third project overall. It was described by Monks as much different from his other works, fitting the theme of trying to be oneself.
“It just kind of popped into my head,” he said on the name of the album. “A lot of people have thought they don’t feel like themselves and are a bit unsure about, like, ‘am I being me?’”
Tokyo Police Club, the Canadian Band which Monks fronts, has been actively releasing music since 2006 and has appeared on television shows such as “Late Show with David Letterman” and “Desperate Housewives.” Monks said that the idea for solo work was to expand to a new audience that was a different kind of music than fans of his band would be used to.
“I think I just wanted to be more adventurous,” he said of the album. “I wanted to be weirder.”
That is shown on the first song, “Love,” which is chock full of lyrics, and offshoots in random directions that may not be the first place someone’s mind would go. It sets the tone for the continuing uniqueness of the album.
Monks said he grew up listening to music icons like The Beatles and U2 before he began to listen to indie rock bands like Razorheads and The Strokes, with their influence being prevalent in the album as well, most notably in the song “Stuck.”
The album also includes lead single “Wild Like Me,” a rather catchy song that showcases a talent for the more straightforward pop rock that Monks grew up with.
The album is not just solo music, with a feature from rapper Shad included in the fast paced “Don’t Get Pushed Around” that is followed immediately by “Vagabonds,” featuring his longtime partner Alyson Mcnamara, which is a much slower song that is completely different from the previous track.
While he has performed with McNamara in the past, the Shad collaboration came from him feeling as if there was a hole in one of his songs.
“I had a song that I was working on and it had a huge blank spot and I asked him ‘do you want to do the song with me,’” Monk said.
The rest of the album is also very unique, ranging from acoustic ballads like “Girl of Mine,” to songs like “Can’t Put the Fire Out,” a garage rock revival song that harkens back to the days of grittier pre-punk rock that influenced those bands of the early 2000s and inspired Monks.
Overall, Monks said he wanted to make an album that showed his uniqueness as a performer, and showed him in a different light than his previous audience in Tokyo Police Club would see him. In that regard, he succeeds. He also succeeds in becoming more than a one-genre-artist, with songs ranging from folk to legitimately hard rock throughout the new album.
If the interest bug catches you and you would like to check out David Monks and his work, both solo and with Tokyo Police Club, his music is currently available on all streaming platforms. Monks is currently on a United States tour with his band. Information about upcoming shows and tickets can be found on the Tokyo Police Club website.