Best known for their 1980 new wave classic “Turning Japanese,” The Vapors are back with their fourth album, Wasp in a Jar. Their second album since reuniting, it sees the band continuing to evolve on their own terms. They’re not trying to recreate the ’80s, but they’re not turning their backs on the era either.
The Vapors formed in 1979 and released their debut single, “Prisoners,” that same year. Their first album, New Clear Days, came out in 1980 and included “Turning Japanese” as well as the singles “News at Ten” and “Waiting for the Weekend.” Their 1981 follow-up, Magnets, featured the singles “Spiders” and “Jimmie Jones,” which saw them return to the charts, but the Vapors disbanded later that year.
They began performing together again in 2016 and released the album Together in 2020. The current lineup consists of original members David Fenton (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Edward Bazalgette (lead guitar), and Steve Smith (bass). Drummer Howard Smith opted out of the reunion, so Michael Bowes took on that role.
With the release of Wasp in a Jar, The Vapors will be touring extensively, starting with UK dates that include shows with Big Country. In the US, they will be part of the Lost ’80s Live tour this summer.
In the following interview, Steve Smith talks about the new album and the history of The Vapors.
Wasp in A jar is your second album since reuniting. How did making it compare with your previous release, Together?
Steve Smith: Well, we got the songs together in the way that we always do. Dave has an idea—a chord structure and a melody—and the rest of us put the whole song together, and it comes out how it comes out. We don’t deliberately do songs in any particular style; each song is just treated on its own merits.
As regards the recording process, last time we recorded in quite a modern way because Steve Levine produces in that way, and I love what he did with the album. But this time, we went much more back to what we were doing when we made the first album in 1979, which is getting everyone in a room, setting up some microphones, amplifiers, and drums, and playing. Most of the backing tracks on the album were recorded live. There are just one or two little patch-ups, maybe on small bits here and there, but most of the drums, bass, and rhythm guitar were recorded absolutely live.
This album really just came about because we had quite a few songs, and an American friend of ours, Dave Meyers, said, “Hey, you guys, I really want to hear some of these songs recorded. I’m willing to put some of the money into it to make it happen.” And that really got the ball rolling. We had no plans, but then he hooked us up with a producer friend of his, and suddenly we realized that we knew a producer in America with a studio—Mike Giblin, who’s an old friend as well. And then we just took it from there. Mike wanted to do it, we wanted to do it at his place, and for me, it worked out perfectly.
Can you talk about what inspired you to reactivate the band and whether there were any challenges in doing so?
Steve Smith: Dave was working as a lawyer for the musicians’ union, and he was offered early retirement in 2016. He thought he’d quite like to take it, but his wife said to him, “Well, I don’t want you sitting around the house getting under my feet and annoying me. You better do something. If you’re going to retire from work, you need to do something. Why don’t you get the band back together?”
So Dave contacted the three of us from the original band. Ed and I said, “Yeah, we’re interested in talking about it.” Howard, the drummer, had just had a young child, so he said, “It’s not for me.” And that’s what basically got the ball rolling on getting the band back together.
I have a covers band called The Shakespearos, where we play new wave covers. We were doing a small festival, acting as the backing band for a lot of the acts on the lineup, and the organizer—Mike Bennett—kept calling me up, saying, “You’ve got to get The Vapors back together for this. You have to do it!” He bugged me so much that, in the end, I messaged Dave and Ed and said, “Look, I’m doing this thing. The organizer really wants you to come down and just do ‘Turning Japanese.’ Will you do it?”
Within half an hour, they both said, “Yeah, we’ll definitely do it.” They came down, we played it, someone filmed it, and it went up on YouTube. A lot of people saw it, a lot of people liked it, and yeah—here we are, still doing it.
Was there any hesitation in returning as The Vapors versus starting something new?
Steve Smith: I think it’s really difficult these days for anything new to take off, especially for older people. Getting something new over the line would be quite tough, I think. But there was enough interest in The Vapors, and initially, it was myself, Ed, and Dave—so three-quarters of the original band. It just seemed like the logical thing to do, really.
We found a drummer that Dave knew from a while back, Mike Bowes, who’s great. We got a rehearsal room, started practicing, and just blammed away at it. And luckily, it started sounding quite good pretty quickly.
There is obviously great interest in ’80s music and new wave. Do you see much of a difference in how it’s perceived in the UK versus America?
Steve Smith: Yeah, I think it might be a bit more popular in America, really. I mean, we’re doing a big ’80s festival tour this summer, and there are at least two of those running every year over there, whereas we don’t really have anything like that in the UK… I suppose we have the Rewind Festival. But overall, everything just seems to be on a smaller scale in the UK, really.
Wasp in a Jar and Together definitely sound like The Vapors but also differ a bit from the two initial albums. What is your approach to putting together live set lists now? Are there particular older and newer songs that you feel fit together better than others?
Steve Smith: Yeah, I mean, there are all sorts of things that affect the composition of a set list. We like to make sure we play something from all four albums. It also matters what key the songs are in. We’ve got a lot of songs in A, and you can’t really play them all back-to-back because it starts to sound too samey.
And yeah, there are fan favorites that we pretty much always include in the set. There are probably four or five that we play at every single show—”Turning Japanese”, obviously—but also a few others that are always in rotation. We tailor the set depending on the show. If we’re playing at a festival where people might not know us as well, we’ll focus on the better-known songs. But if it’s our own show, where people have specifically come to see us and we’re headlining, we’ll throw in more deep cuts—maybe some B-sides or more obscure tracks. So we really adjust the setlist for each gig based on the audience.
I think by the time we originally split up, we’d been playing some of the songs for nearly three years, and they’re tending to sound quite similar to how they were when we finished the first time around. But they evolved from the recordings up to that point.
Looking back on your early years, at what point did you realize that “Turning Japanese” was what you were going to be known for, and why do you think it has resonated so much?
Steve Smith: I dunno, I’ve often thought about this—what makes a record just a transient hit for a short period of time and what makes a record hang around for decades and become a kind of classic. And it just seemed to capture the zeitgeist.
There was a lot of Japanese culture around, especially in the UK at the time. There was even a band called Japan, and there were all sorts of visual Japanese influences in TV and films. I think it was just the right phrase at the right time.
Did you feel any pressure at the time, perhaps from the label, to reproduce that success—to come up with something that would hit the same way?
Steve Smith: Well, yeah, a record company always wants you to reproduce your big hit, don’t they? I mean, we had problems because we’d signed to one record company, and just as “Turning Japanese” was becoming a hit, that record company got swallowed up by another one, which then sacked all the people from our label.
So that just contributed to the end of the band the first time around. Losing our record company and our management at the same time “Turning Japanese” was becoming a big hit made it really tough for us.
Prior to reuniting in 2016, had there been any previous attempts or discussions about getting back together?
Steve Smith: Yeah, Dave, Ed, and I did a few rehearsals with another drummer—a different drummer. I think that was around 2001 or 2002. We did three or four rehearsals, but it didn’t come to anything. There was supposed to be a gig, but it didn’t happen—it just didn’t come together. But yeah, we did those few rehearsals once, and that was the only time.
What are your thoughts on the various covers of “Turning Japanese”?
Steve Smith: It’s always nice to hear a different version of the song. There are so many. Have you heard the Rick Moranis one? You should check it out.
How big of a focus is The Vapors now for you and the other members?
Steve Smith: We’re focusing on The Vapors pretty much full-time now. We’ve got a little “back to our roots” small club tour in the UK in March to support the album. Then we’ve got some gigs with Big Country in April and May. After that, we’re coming over to America for six weeks on the Lost ’80s tour in August and September. And then I think we may have a co-headline tour with another band in October, November, and December. So yeah, we’re actually quite busy this year.
Do you have a preferred setting for performing?
Steve Smith: It’s all about the audience, really—all about how they react to what we’re doing. You can have a fantastic gig in a tiny little club.
To get tour dates, music, and more info visit https://www.thevapors.co.uk/.
