Tokenview – Ed Prescott : Exclusive Interview

Northern Beaches of Sydney has recently produced some of Australia’s musical elite. And with the emergence of Brett Clemenson, James McLaren, Ed and Lloyd Prescott, more commonly known these days by their collective Tokenview, this myth of a fertile musical breeding ground existing has only solidified.

Looking back, however, Ed Prescott doesn’t remember any divine manifestation that brought about the realization that they were onto something special. ‘It felt pretty natural. We started it after high-school and we just kept going through with it. Sooner or later we woke up and thought “Hang on, we’re still doing this. We really like this, and it’d be good to take it more seriously”. You take it more seriously as time goes on’.

 In high-school it’s very much for fun, and then time passes and you realize that you’re still doing it. It’s not something that’s pre-meditated’.

Gradually building up enough of a repertoire and putting in more time, Tokenview were beginning to be rewarded with the fruits of their labor, managing support spots for The Foo Fighters, as well as Australia’s own The Mess Hall and Dappled Cities. Ed was none too misleading about the pride they take with their enviable resume.’The reason we put that stuff on our bio is because we’re proud of it. There’s never a gig where you don’t learn something. Even with the crappy bands you can pick out what you don’t like about them and renew your own perspective’.

And it seems this humble learning experience has followed Ed and his cohorts to the exciting times they now find themselves in currently. When asked what he thinks of comparisons in sound and concept, Ed shrugs and exudes honesty with every word. ‘It depends on the act I suppose. I think one of the consistent things with our record is that it’s quite inconsistent. We try our hand at a few different permutations of rock. Usually when we get comparisons we get different ones for each song. And usually it’s all really nice’. ‘It’s funny though, because there can be such a fine line. A bad review can say “They sounded like a version of this band”. Whereas a good review can say “This band was fantastic!” They reminded me of this’.

Unlike some others, there’s no eye-rolling or embarrassed blushing with a glowing review or favourable comparison. ‘The thing is that no two people seem to really agree. Well except recently, with the one band that we’ve been compared with more than once is Dappled Cities. But they’re such an awesome band that I have no problem with that at all. Maybe it’s because we have two singers as well, and our music is also in that weird pop vein. That’s really the only comparison we’ve had more than once’.

Recently, the boys have been hard at work touring material that comprises their highly anticipated Patience At Sea. When asked about how they were feeling about the soon-to-be released debut, Ed appeared to be eerily calm. ‘We’re feeling pretty good, man. In typical Tokenview form, we toured before the record, back in August and September. People have reacted to it in a positive way. I think familiarity really helps. We’re very much a “no-show-too-small” kind of band. We’ll play anywhere, so it tends to be mixed. That’s live music for you’.

‘I’m really looking forward to when this comes out and people own it and hopeful there is that familiarity there. We all know that when you see a band it good to always have heard the material in some form before. So in that regard, I’m really looking forward to the next tour. At the moment I’m enjoying a bit of downtime’!

The hype engulfing Patience At Sea is overwhelming, and Ed was more than happy to fill us in on some details, specifically the guest appearances from Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst, Gotye himself Wally De Backer and the awe-inspiring Megan Washington. ‘With Wally, we’d toured with The Basics a couple of times and so we got to know him through that. He’s one of the nicest people you could hope to meet. He’s a really humble and downbeat kind of guy. There’s a part in one of the songs What Can I Do which sounded completely like he might sing. So we just thought it would be fun to have him sing it. He sings the whole backing of the song, and all the high bits towards the end. It was kind ironic in a way when he did do it because he found the melody really awkward so that was kind of strange because we thought it was in that vein of something he might do himself’.

‘As far as Megan Washington goes, we saw her first solo show in Melbourne when there was like 20 people there. And she was well known for singing with Old Man River and Ben Lee. She was only really known for singing on other people’s stuff at that point. When she struck out on her own, we were lucky enough to see her first Melbourne show and she was amazing. She’s really talented. She not only sung the bits we needed her to sing. But she wrote this passage that was 16 lines of lyrics and a complicated melody in about 10 minutes, and sung in one take. She’s pretty amazing!’

‘Rob Hirst is just a Manly local. I live in Manly and I see him around quite a bit. Midnight Oil are one of my favourite bands, so he just came down one day and we went from there’.

Any thoughts of Hirst resting on his laurels couldn’t be further from the truth. ‘He’s frighteningly active. For someone in their fifties, he kind of puts a lot of younger musicians to shame. He’s in about 3 bands, as well as being an activist on several issues. He has 18 different projects on the go at any one time. He’s a pretty energized guy’.

Tokenview are not ones to take their performance’s lightly, Ed admitting that part of the reason they wanted to get others on board was to lift their own game. ‘Megan and Wally put their vocals down first before Brett or myself had done anything. And that wasn’t done for any particular reason apart from scheduling because they were going away. So they did their bit. And then Brett and I listened back to the tapes and said to ourselves, “There’s the benchmark”. That’s what we need to aim for! Just having them do their bits really meant that we could tell ourselves that it was time to step up for the record’.

And step up they did. You’ve got admire they’re methods of self-betterment, essentially running risk of having someone out-do them on their own record. ‘Some of the stuff that Megan sings she did in one take. I must have done about 30 takes on it because I wanted to get it right. I didn’t want people to think, ‘Why’s this guy singing a duet with her when she’s that awesome?’’It made me experiment a lot more with different ways with singing the song. So yeah, that really helped’.

As far as what Tokenview have planned post-Patience At Sea, Ed remained coy, saying ‘We’ve got some stuff in the works at the moment. But nothings locked in yet. A couple of bands that I really like a lot will be touring. We might be doing something with them early in the New Year’. ‘There’s a couple of bands that we’re looking at doing a co-headline tour with that I shouldn’t mention. The only thing we’ve got confirmed currently is November 15^th at the Oxford Art Factory.Then January and February we’ll be back on the road. In what form I’m not sure. That’s all being booked at the moment’.

And as far as festivals were concerned???? ‘Ummmmmmm, a couple of things in the works. Nothing confirmed yet. Maybe more festivals mid next year to allow time for the album to embed itself‘. ‘The clip for What Can I Do was the directors idea. He wanted to do a trapped-in-the-elevator video based on that guy in New York who was trapped in one over a weekend. It’s kind of a nice metaphor for some of the themes in the song’.

He was quick to dispel any myth that the clip itself represented the bands overall lack of motivation to save a fellow band mate from a broken lift.’Yes. That’s definitely what we were trying to get across (oozes with sarcasm). Actually, I think that’s probably a good metaphor in itself. We’ll do anything for the show. Even if it means leaving a band member in an elevator’

When finally  asked about what song in history he wishes he had written, it didn’t take much time to respond. ‘Probably God Only Knows by the The Beach Boys. It’s an amazing piece of pop music. And I’m not religious, so it’s funny that I’d pick something like that. The melody is so awesome. The composition is so awesome. It’s just a beautiful song’.

Patience At Sea is out November 21^st through Inertia.