How was the band formed? How/when did the members decide to start a band?

We started the band really via online messages. Sounds weird but Elwood (Francis) and I knew each other and each other’s bands many years ago and had admired each other’s projects. Elwood had continued to play and write in his original punk rock band The Mighty Skullhead and had recently taken over duties as bassist for ZZ Top. For those who don’t know, Elwood has been the guitar tech for them for over two decades and is part of their family. I think I might have posted something from the “good old days” in Lexington, Kentucky’s underground music scene and Elwood left a comment and I responded back that we should try and create something together “before we die.” He sent me a DM and we began to talk over ideas while he was on the road and when he got home for a break, he began to share some musical ideas and I began to write lyrics. Both Darren (Howard) and Will (Pieratt), the rhythm section, are also veteran musicians that Elwood has played with and that have been in some notable bands and it just came together so easily. The ideas really were based on this childhood love of Memphis Professional Wrestling that aired on local television in this area way back before there was the WWE or WCW or any nationally televised thing known as wrestling. Regional, violent soap operas--I think that’s what are songs are as well.

 

What helps bond you as a band?

Those 3 guys have known each other a long time and played together in more than a couple bands. I always knew of them and admired them but had never really had the opportunity to talk to them outside of the pre- or post-show acknowledgements. It’s been awesome to get to know them and to realize how much we all have in common when it comes to music we love, bizarre life experiences and outlook on creativity. We constantly talk about how easy it is to be this band. That’s a rare thing.

 

How did you come up with the name? What meaning does it hold to you?

I mentioned Memphis Wrestling. The band name is based on a character named “Tojo Yamamoto” who spent much of his younger career as a “heel” or bad guy. His character would play to the post-WW2 jingoism and hatred of the Japanese. He wasn’t a big man, so he wore Japanese wooden sandals called Geta that would boost his height about 3 inches, he would carry a Japanese flag and hurl insults in broken English. But more than anything, he would cheat! He would hide dog chains, sewing needles, salt and other “gimmicks” in his tights and when the opportunity arose, use them to incapacitate opponents. Or just use one of those wooden sandals. In reality, he was from Hawaii, a really nice guy who was a good cook and died a tragic death by suicide rather than fight the cancer and diabetes he had been diagnosed with. So to us, he was a fascinating character but also at some base level, the name just works!

 

How does your previous experience with music (your respective bands, your influence in music history, etc.) affect your creative process now?

I think we are all fans of good, outsider, experimental music. We don’t have aspirations to the be rock stars like we did maybe 25 years ago (I guess Elwood has become one in his own way even though he’s still the skateboarding punk he’s always been) and all of our musical baggage informs what we do, I guess, but now it’s just about finding things we musically dig and injecting those moments, noises and phrases into songs. Weird samples, danceable beats, sometimes caustic lyrics, fuzzed and distorted bass, guitar and even the drums get weird. The basis is kinda 90s noise rock, kinda Killing Joke inspired post-punk, we talk about Frank Zappa and Casper Brotzmann but we also talk about less sophisticated inspirational bands like Cosmic Psychos and the Nervous Eaters. I don’t think we ever discuss anything about what a listener or audience might like, it’s always about what pleases us. All the Tojo songs conceptually live in the same house but they all sleep in different rooms.

 

How do you deal with creative blocks as a band? How do you continue to come up with new sounds/ideas as a group?

Honestly, there’s no shortage of ideas at this point, when I say we talk about how easy it has been, I mean that. I think we are all still inspired by each other and by the process of seeing ideas come to life. They’re just songs, put one on, dance, bob your head, maybe, think, maybe not. For us it’s fun, most guys our age, they play wretched golf, or load up on cheap beer and watch sports on the weekends, we’re using that time to make a bit of noise…and there might be cheap beer.

 

If you could give one piece of advice to newer musicians/bands trying to get out there, what would it be / Do you have any advice for artists struggling with motivation & mindset?

Interesting question, I’m a dad, Elwood and Will are dads. We have to give fatherly advice all the time! Elwood’s daughter, Billi, she’s in the band, she sings on a couple tracks on the EP, which is awesome…advice to young bands. Create. Just do it, that sounds so cliché’ but that’s really the issue, doing it, not talking about it, not reading about it or watching it. Just finding what you want to say and that can be anything right? I am not talking politically, or socially, I mean what you want your music to be or to be about, and then trying to do it. Without sounding like an old man, it’s just easier now, it’s been democratized. You have a studio on your laptop or tablet, even your phone. You have a mechanism to deliver your material that is only limited by your own efforts, through social media or Bandcamp, YouTube or any number of outlets. You don’t need it blessed by a record label or a music insider. If the audience likes it, then the audience will undoubtably help you but regardless of that, create, experiment. Creativity is sometimes really about just starting, the more you do, the more you want to do.

 

Tell me about the creative process behind your most recent EP! What were some general goals/messages you wanted to portray through it? What does the album mean to you? 

The EP is almost a concept statement about what this band will be, if that makes sense. This is the truth, Elwood would send a demo, he would write on bass a lot, record that, then maybe add guitar, use a drum track, he might add a sample he would like, all to this demo track. He would send it, with just a title, the title might be based on the pedal he used, or just a phrase he liked, maybe from a wrestling promo or something abstract. Early on I took it as a writing challenge to write lyrics or a story based only on that title. Seems like the wrong way to do anything! But I adhered to it, just to see if I could. The demos would go to Will and Darren as well to build up, creatively, elements from the instrumental demos. Then we all got together in a small rehearsal space weekly and hashed out the songs, the room is so loud, the guys in the band had no idea really what I was singing or doing until we went into the studio to record the songs. Speaking of the studio, Jason Groves, the engineer of the record, is also an integral part of the process in seeing these songs come to fruition. He really got what we were trying to do sonically. So much so that as a live band, he’s an additional instrumentalist, adding additional bass or guitar to the wall of sound. Anyway, I think the record is a snapshot of what we are doing--but it’s really the first salvo, we’ve remixed those tracks, we continue to play with them all the while writing new songs. It’s all so new for us that we aren’t satisfied, which is, again, fun, right? And we’ve also been lucky, people seem to like it, which honestly, is surprising, we initially thought it was so personal that it would just be inaccessible. Not in a pretentious way but more in a “who cares” way. Funny thing is locally, in Central Kentucky, the old punks and music folks know us all from previous misdeeds and you would think that’s where the support might come from, but that truly hasn’t been the case. Because of the internet, Tojo Yamamoto just doesn't feel much like a local band. It’s weird seeing “The Mongolian Stomper” played on radio in Berlin, Germany, Madrid, Spain or in Seattle, Washington or on a kid’s podcast in Nebraska or on a TikTok video from someone kind enough to wave a hand on an Instagram post or something. I used to spend hours creating flyers, copying them, then on the streets covering poles. I was arrested, fined and all that hoping a few dozen might show up for a show. Now, I talk daily with strangers around the globe about these songs and that’s a pretty cool thing. Forbidden Place Records happened that way for us. I sent the tracks to literally 4 labels that I actually purchased records from in the past few months. Tony and Cale responded first in a positive way, a relationship was born, and the record was really released in record time! We met in September, we released a record in November. Pretty crazy. So yeah, the record means a lot, it also means, “hello, here we are, just wait, there’s more.”

 

You’ve all been in the music scene for quite some time! What are some of the biggest changes you’ve noticed throughout the years? How have crowds, record labels, the internet, your own work, YOU, etc. changed since your respective starts?

I mentioned how it’s democratized, that’s probably the biggest thing. I tend to think that because of that, it’s better in many ways. But with that also has come the over-abundance of options and the perception of an ever-shrinking attention span of the populace. This isn’t a history lesson, I mean I don’t want it to be --but in the 90s when we were all trying to create as members of bands, you would write, practice, play out in front of handfuls of people if you could find a venue to give you a break. You might even have to all pony up your hard earned day job cash for a few hours in a small studio to make a cassette tape that you could personally duplicate to give to a club owner to prove you could play and had songs, so you started in the financial hole as a band. But you played, probably a lot and if you were lucky, you got better, you got more aligned as a band, that vision of what the band was came together. Then you did more of the same, maybe you made enough money through shows to press a 7” or even a CD. Maybe you could find a small distributor who would take 10 of them. You would mail them to college radio stations, small record labels, fanzines, out of town venues… all hoping someone, somewhere would offer something, anything to you as a band. Write a review,

put out our record, help us get shows, put a little gas in this ragged van. You were always in the hole as a band, you were always asking someone for something that would forward the progress of what you were doing, always. Your goals were based completely on this model of the music business that was developed decades earlier and hadn’t changed and looked like it never would. Sure, underground bands had a moment, a brief one, Nirvana hit, SubPop, Touch & Go and other larger independent reoord labels were all of a sudden star makers. Major labels were going bonkers looking under the mossy rocks of local scenes to find the next thing to cash in on. My old band Ted Bundy’s Volkswagon, we had released some 7” records, a split CD and had recorded for a large indie label when we began to be approached from so many ridiculous A & R folks from labels owned by Disney, Universal, Warner, Atlantic. My response was always, “did you see the name of the band?” Most reputable bands that ended up in that maelstrom didn’t have positive experiences, lots of good books about that era, lol. So, flash forward--TikTok, makes stars by delivering background music for weightlifting videos or kids dancing to tracks made in the studio or in the bedroom on a laptop. YouTube allows musicians of all ilks to just broadcast what they do, anytime, day or night. You don’t need demo tapes, crabby venue bookers, A & R people, or regular, commercial

radio, does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Seriously, I don't know the answer. If the people like it, it’s there. Somewhere. I don’t hate that. I know it’s popular for artists of a certain vintage to bitch about how it is versus how it used to be. I personally dig how it is. I wish at times music didn’t feel so disposable because of streaming and access but if it’s good and you find it and want to engage, nothing is stopping you. And as far live bands go, the internet is a huge promotional tool. And playing live is the real way for small bands to make money, it was always that way but in the 90s, you charged $3-$5 at the door, now it’s $15-$20. Play, sell merch, play, sell merch. That’s kinda the cool, fun part of being in a band though. That’s still the same, and that’s the connection. We all dig interacting with people online but in a room, loud, face to face; that’s the thing. All this change in the business, good if you ask me, tear down the walls. Art, artists, audience… we don’t need more suits, gatekeepers and group think.

 

Anything currently in the making? - What does your future hold, what are some current goals for the band? 

Currently working on 6 new tracks over the winter, back in the studio in the new year, some shows. And always trying to create something around this project, video, film, songs, art, whatever to feed the beast internally and externally. I guess I should have mentioned, content is king, kids.