The Boys Are Leaving Town: The Final Days Of Japandroids

Brian King will consider 2024 a success if Fate & Alcohol is the third-most important thing that happens to him this October.By then, the Japandroids frontman hopes to celebrate one year of sobriety, a milestone as hard-fought as you’d expect for a guy who wrote – and fully embodied – “The Nights Of Wine And Roses” and “Adrenaline Nightshift.” And, as fate would have it, the due date for the fourth and final Japandroids album is the exact same as that of his first child.

These are standard talking points for a 41-year-old who has spent nearly half his life in a rock band.I imagine a glimpse into King’s personal life would endear fans who might otherwise be skeptical about a Japandroids album with a song called “Upon Sober Reflection.” But early sobriety and new fatherhood are special, fragile things of which anyone would be protective.

Especially for someone like King, who is described by anyone who truly knows him with some variation of “intensely private.” If alcohol and lust were the lifeblood of Japandroids, it only stands to reason that serenity would be the death of them.But if anyone cops a resentment over King’s healthier, happier life, just know: You’ve been grieving a version of Japandroids that hasn’t existed for over a decade.

Fate & Alcohol is the stage of acceptance.If it were totally up to King, I’d be discussing all of this with him and drummer/vocalist David Prowse in the same room.

But besides being logistically difficult, getting the boys back in town might be technically illegal.In 2023, King’s wife secured a faculty position at the University of Michigan and the couple moved to Ann Arbor.

Lest this sound like a very un-Japandroids turn of events, their courtship loosely followed the plot of “Fire’s Highway” – a northern soul (the Canadian-born King) in southern lands (specifically, Austin) found his way to southern hands, namely, an Oklahoman transplant who ended up joining...