New Release – Lights of Tokyo by Katanak
Fresh indie tunes with catchy pop hooks are the signature style of emerging Brisbane (Australia) artist Katanak. Known for his infectious indie rock/pop groove-inducing earworms that fans of The 1975, The Wombats and Sam Fender will appreciate, Katanak brings colour to your world. Fresh off playing Brisbane Festival, and collaborating with some of Australia’s most highly respected emerging and established artists (Quan Yeomans – Regurgitator and Pete Murray to name a few), Katanak says don’t try to define him or his genre as he’s shown he’s able to break out and comfortably straddles genre’s grey-area of rock & pop. Katanak only cares if it’s a good song.
Katanak catapulted into 2022 with his eighth single ‘Weigh Down’. Written after spending time on set shooting the Baz Luhrmann movie ELVIS, playing Jerry Scheff – bassist from the TCB band (Elvis’ Vegas years) – it was the emphasis Katanak needed to get back into writing music. “Being surrounded by such amazing musicians on set each day just had the juices flowing”, says Katanak.
With music “oozing the charm of a 90s boy band dipped in a delicious sugar-pop sound” (Music is my Muse), the young musician shows no sign of slowing down any time soon!
His new single ‘Lights of Tokyo’ is out 3rd May. Pre-save here.
When did you write it?
“‘Lights of Tokyo’ was among one of the first lot of songs I ever wrote, back in 2016 or 2017, and it’s still my favourite track to play live. Back when I wrote this track, I was influenced by early 2000’s Australian rock and artists such as Powderfinger and Pete Murray. I’m a huge fan of The Wombats, COIN and The 1975 now and was looking to transform my original rock song to a UK modern rock/indie pop sound. I was stoked to find that both Matt McGuffie and Aidan Hogg were also huge fans of the bands I listened to, so it was easy to convey to them exactly what I wanted this track to sound like. I’m super happy with how it’s turned out.”
“I’ve had this song for nearly 7 or 8 years and have been itching to release it. It took me that long to finally get it to a place that I thought the song deserved so this is a huge time for me.”
What’s the song about? What inspired you to write this song?
“I got the idea for the song from my friend who had been to Tokyo and had met someone there. I wanted to write about not just the excitement of meeting someone new, but also being in a foreign city, not being able to navigate the language well, but a connection that transcended language.”
Is the release accompanied with a music video?
“I put the video together myself and it’ll be out a couple of weeks after release. I was trying to work out what I could do for the video, how I could afford to record it, and was coming up with absolutely zero ideas. I mean the song is about meeting someone in Tokyo and the Tokyo landscape is very distinctive with neon lights and small alleyways. Very different to what we have here in Brisbane. Then one day I came across AI video. A spark was lit and I’ve put together this very cool anime inspired clip put together with AI about ‘running wild in Tokyo’. It’s different and very fun. I’ll have it up on all my socials and will also be featured on my YouTube.”
When releasing a new single is there a sense of excitement or panic?
“Definitely panic! (laughs) I’m a one man band, working full time – not in music -, doing some producing and writing as well with some emerging artists from all over and one rather big name in Australian music. So I run very short on time to get things done. I come into this process each time thinking I’ll be better at it this time, but once again time gets away from me. The one thing that I have learned is that my music does take a while to take hold and I have people ‘discovering’ my music 3 years later. So it’s never over, til it’s over. The thing we need to remember as musicians is that once the song releases, keep promoting. There’s always someone out there looking for your music. They just don’t know it yet!”
What’s your favourite memory of writing and/or recording?
“Recording wise, everytime I’m in the studio, I’m so in the zone, half the time I come out and can’t even remember what I’ve just done (laughs). I’ve been working hard producing for a bigger name artist in Australian music and that’s been an absolute blessing as It’s really put into perspective what I need to get better at and where I need to improve as a producer. To me, my favourite memory is every single time I get to work in the studio as it’s what I love doing!”
