Tokeo – Interview

Interview with Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views (http://petesrocknewsandviews.com)

PD: What type of artist are you?

T: We’re a 5 piece band mainly hailing from Rochdale, That’s the Singer Rory, lead and rhythm guitar Ed and Joey, the bassist Ant and finally our drummer Ben who hails from cumbria. Together we make a fusion of grunge punk and rap music.

PD: Tell us the brief history of yourself.

T: All of us have been in bands with each other at different points in our life, we were all mates but musically speaking we were all sort of loosely associated. At first Rory and Ed were jamming together naturally the band sort of formed around who out of our mates do we know that plays, (Insert instrument here). The rest is history.

PD: Who are your musical and non-musical influences?

T: As for influences there are artists and bands that really sit well with our style, groups like Korn, queens of the stone age, sleaford mods, limp bizkit etc. But its hard really to say where you get your influences from. Speaking for us we listen to a wide range of styles from jazz to heavy metal  we try to incorporate things that we like irrespective of genre its a lot of fun.

PD: What are your dreams and goals?

T: Our real goal is to do this for our job. Pursuing your passion and making it your life is why any artist does what they do.

PD: Who writes your songs, what are they about?

T: We write all of our music. As for what it’s all about I can say that the album we’ve worked on over lockdown is really a look at a life lived in northern mill towns. It’s a cathartic, angsty slice of us. Things we’ve heard and seen over the years and I think it’s something that people haven’t heard from our part of England before. 

PD: How do you promote your band and shows?

T: We promote our gigs mainly through facebook and Instagram. @tokeo_band

PD: What do you think about downloading music online?

T: If you’re talking about online pirating of music, I’d say if you can’t afford it, steal it, steal my music if you can’t afford it. its something we’ve all done at some point so But with all the streaming platforms out there now there’s really no need to.

PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?

T: Tribute by tenacious D, its basically stairway to heaven done by the fans. Its a banger we all grew up watching in the kerrangg days and it’s one of the greatest. Rock songs ever written.

PD: What are some of your pet peeves?

T: Moving amps back from a gig

PD: What is your proudest moment in music?

T: Finishing the recording of the first album

PD: So what are you working on at the moment?

T: At the moment we’re about to release our debut album Class traitor. But we’re working on a whole set of new tunes for recording next year

PD: What music have you available online and where can we buy it from?

T: Our music is available on spotify, apple music, youtube and a host of other streaming sites links are on the bios of our social media.

Tokeo links:
Band/Artist location – Rochdale England
Facebook – You Tube – Instagram –
Apple – Spotify – fm.to –
Check our page for Tokeo