The Moshville Times - Band of the Day Revisited: Tokyo Taboo

Get read for some rocking with today’s Band of the Day, following on from their introductory 2016 article…

Simple things first – where are you from?

North London baby!

How did you meet?

Dolly auditioned Mickey as a guitar player for a pop project and from there we just got rockier and more badass!

How long have you been playing as a band?

Eight years writing and playing together. Four years as Tokyo Taboo.

Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?

We love all thing Japanese: anime & manga. Love the ‘creepy cute’ style they have. I think we are both a bit creepy whilst being cute on the outside!

The ‘Taboo’ part comes from Dolly being really outspoken in her lyrics and just in general. She doesn’t mess around and says what she thinks.

What are your influences?

We are influenced by amazing performers with massive stage presence like: Madonna, Bowie, Freddie Mercury (anyone theatrical and visual as an artist!)

Musically Mickey is into his Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and huge fan of Roger Waters. Dolly has a girl crush on Lizzy Hale (Halestorm) and Debbie Harry and also loves Paramore. She loves female-fronted rock and champions women performing and writing music in general.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

Heavy rock with real hooky melodies. We want to write anthems that are dark lyrically but upbeat musically. We are unique in that no one sounds like Dolly and has her attitude and crazy brain!

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

Dolly writes about depression a lot. Our songs “Drowning” and “Self Sabotage” are about living with addiction and depression. “Whiskey”, our new single, is a continuation of this theme. Dolly used to drink heavily before shows to get rid of her anxiety but found this made her mental health worse. She’s now a year sober but at first it was a real struggle to step on stage without alcohol making her feel brave!

What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

Our show is wild. Dolly pole dances from the first song all the way until our final number. She climbs on tables, crawls between your feet, sits down on the floor and sings her head off. We win over every audience just because we have played hundreds of shows and Dolly doesn’t give a shit what people think and just acts like a crazy woman!

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

Dolly’s pole dancing is pretty wild whilst singing! It has to be seen to be believed! She drops down from high on the pole and sings a crazy high note to close our show.

When Dolly was drinking she used to get in lots of sticky situations. She once threw a mic stand off the stage and it hit a member of the audience – eek! Terrible!

What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?

Mickey plays exclusively Fender Telecasters.

Amps: Fender Hotrod Deluxe

What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?

Our new single “Whiskey” is out on the 4th of October! New exciting music video the day before!

Touring with Healthy Junkies, Yur Mum & PollyPikPocketz throughput Nov and Dec!

What are your plans for 2019?

We are heading to NYC for Mondo music conference and L.A. to shoot a video. After that we have our awesome UK Tour in November. Hoping to finish the year with more songs written so we can finish album 2!

If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be ing and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!