The members of the Ontario quartet Tokyo Police Club have done almost nothing with their adult lives but play in the band they formed two decades ago, when all four were in high school. And that’s all coming to an end at the close of this month.

“The ending of this band feels monumental to all of us,” keyboardist Graham Wright said this week “I was 18 when we started, I’m 37 now — Talk about two very different periods in tour life. I feel changed by the band, and I think the band has summarily been changed by me. We were so full of beans when we started out — Playing fast and frenetic with a lot of hopping around onstage. As time went on we allowed ourselves more leeway to luxuriate in it. And I can see all this because I’m probably the world’s number one nerdy listener to Tokyo Police Club.”

The Paradise show this Saturday is one of their three final U.S. shows; they then swing up to Canada and play the last show in Toronto on Nov 29. They’re not breaking up for any of the usual reasons: Their popularity was still solid, at least at home in Canada; and the musical ideas were still flowing. And at first, doing a farewell tour was just another one of those ideas.

“After the last album cycle wound down, we took a breath and started to discuss the next direction — which could be a song, an album, or a producer you want to work with. And then this new idea (of a farewell) popped up — and we came to the conclusion that was the most exciting and creative direction we could go. The band’s not in decline so it’s almost crazy to break up now; it may not be that advisable from a career perspective. But we can walk away from it voluntarily, with our heads held high.”

The breakup announcement naturally brought fans out of the woodwork; their four Toronto shows are long sold out. “We don’t feel taken aback by all the attention it’s getting — personally it just convinces us that we were making the right decision. In the past we’ve maybe felt that the records and the shows could have been bigger than they were.  We’ve been on tour for awhile now and things have been pretty tight — but the Toronto-ness of it all, the finality of it, may change that. We’re feeling the pressure to ‘big it up’ in some way; whatever we do onstage that night will probably be a surprise.”

From the start they had a fresh take on alternative rock, with Wright adding novel sounds on keyboards and synthesizers. “I’d say we’re not influenced by the bands people always name, but by the bands that they influenced — so it’s Bloc Party instead of Gang of 4, Radiohead instead of the Pixies. I always considered it a compliment in the early days when people thought our guitar parts were keyboard parts, and vice versa. When something is a little perplexing sonically, it makes you listen that much harder.”

Tokyo Police Club famously took its name from an online band-name generator, but all these years later, Wright isn’t completely sure that really happened. “The mythology of this band is so deep and that’s a story we’ve always told, but I don’t know for sure if I was there. I can close my eyes and see us sitting around the website in Dave’s basement (bassist Dave Monks), like it just happened. But it’s also possible that I invented that entire story.”