Kevin Bronson on August 6th, 2009

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It occurred to me Wednesday night at the Viper Room that there ought to be a club in Los Angeles called the Major Label Refugees. Card-carrying members could get a discount at Guitar Center, or half off breakfast at Mel’s, or something. We could mount an annual Major Label Refugees Festival. “You’d have enough bands for week’s worth of shows,” somebody laughed.

That came to mind watching the gripping set from London to Tokyo, a new quartet fronted by English transplant Simon Steadman. He had a quintet called Steadman on Elektra early this decade for two albums, the latter of which, “Revive” (2003), rather famously got an endorsement from Paul McCartney. Steadman married an American girl, settled in L.A., wrote music for movies (“The first time I made money as a musician,” he says with a smile) and, eventually, missed being in a band. “I missed being in a gang – that’s what being in a band is,” he says.

• ||| Download: “The Anthem” and visit Steadman’s website to download the entirety of the band’s catalogue, as well as the never-released album by Steadman’s previous band, the Dharmas.

London to Tokyo’s new five-song EP began as a garage collaboration between Steadman and drummer Justin Butler. But after toying with the idea of going it as a two-piece with backing tracks, the pair decided “that this was rock music and rock music deserves a band,” Butler says. Bassist Curtis Roach came aboard, and ex-Steadman guitarist James Board (since returned to England and replaced by Martin Estrada) played on the recordings.

The results? Quite good. London to Tokyo’s muscular Britpop is not a far cry from Steadman’s gauzy melodicism – imagine, if you can, an optimistic Oasis. “S.M.S.” makes a nifty single, and “The Anthem” is just that, a capacious number with ringing guitars. “When I wrote it,” he says, “I imagined playing it on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.” He doesn’t have stretch his imagination, though – with the Dharmas, he played that very stage.