(September 2010) BOOM BOOM SATELLITES is among the handful of Japanese bands to achieve cult fame in the United States. Because of their English lyrics and distinctive fusion of electronica, rock and jazz, they’ve toured with Moby, collaborated with Flo-Rida and Tahj Mowry, remixed for Garbage and contributed a song to The Dark Knight. Unlike their peers, who established their careers in Japan before testing the Western market, Boom Boom Satellites debuted in Europe in 1997. Kawashima (guitar, vocals) and Masayuki Nakano (bass, programming) will perform at Irving Plaza on Oct. 10/2010 for the Far East to East Showcase, an annual display of cutting-edge Japanese music. The performance kicks off a nationwide tour to promote Boom Boom Satellites’ best-of, Over and Over, which came out Sept. 14.
Via email, Kawashima and Nakano shed light on the challenges of fighting J-pop stereotypes and creating albums that command attention in an era when people tend to treat music as background noise.
Translation by Yurie Yamamoto.
Igloo :: Previously you’ve said you always intended to work in the U.S. and Europe. Why is this?
Boom Boom Satellites :: J-pop has not conventionally been regarded as international music in Japan. But we saw Japanese musicians, especially who create instrumental music like techno or hip-hop, gradually became more active in the overseas music scene since around when we were in university. We felt honored as Japanese, and it certainly influenced us. Then we thought we would hope to have Japanese music heard more throughout the world.
Igloo :: What do you like specifically about the American music industry?
BBS :: The American music industry seems to have more opportunities. How can I put it–the scale is vast, isn’t it? Many people are there, where various cultures blend, and such place where music has been in a good sense consumed, we feel we have a chance to have our music heard by people there.
Igloo :: Although the Japanese and European music markets are among the biggest in the world, there’s still a perception that musicians haven’t “made it” until they’re famous in America. What do you think of this?
BBS :: We think what “success” means is different from person to person, but every artist wants their music heard by as many people as possible. Here, the country just doesn’t matter, though we admit America is one of the significant ones definitely. America has always been the center of the entertainment industry, so we can understand that people want to find it a special meaning to have their music heard there.
Igloo :: You’ll be appearing at the Far East to East Showcase, a display of Japanese bands, and the convention New York Anime Festival. Your songs have also been released by the J-pop label Tofu Records. How do you feel about being perceived as a Japanese band foremost?
BBS :: It’s a bit of a shame that all kinds of Japanese music are categorized as “J-pop,” but we believe listeners can tell the difference between them once they listen. Just like in America, there are various kinds of music in Japan. We might have to accept that it’s inevitable to introduce Japanese music as J-pop nowadays though. Either way, we are sure that people understand what we are once they see our live show.
Igloo :: What kind of show are you planning to put on at the Showcase?
BBS :: We hope to do the live just like we normally do in our home town – we dare not to make it special for America, but the live should definitely be the extreme fun. We guarantee to blow you away!
Igloo :: Your latest album is To The Loveless. What was your goal in making this album?
BBS :: We tried to bring out the best of what the CD format can do; in other words, we tried to show people the most we can express with music. For example – it’s something beyond a movie or other audio-visual entertainment. Now we are in the era of music downloads, where we can buy instantly whatever song we like. But we believe music can be more deep and complex, and we are trying to create such music.
Igloo :: To The Loveless is a cohesive album, and its songs are lengthy. Were you trying to make a statement against modern preferences for singles rather than albums?
BBS:: We know we can’t resist what’s in today, so we don’t mean to fight against it. In creating this album, we just hoped that we could create a very good album to pass onto future ages. We feel this age is the last age and last chance given to us where artists can leave their work as something that can be remembered for the coming decades – something people in the future can remember like, “That album was an awesome masterpiece!”
Igloo :: What do you think about the recent shifts in music listening, such as people only listening
to their favorite songs on an album rather than the whole collection or using songs as ringtones?
BBS :: As mentioned previously, people can’t resist what’s convenient and what’s in today. It is sad that the artist’s creativeness is impaired by people doing it, though. We do feel that music is listened to more casually these days. So, our mission would probably be to draw such people more into music, or to create opportunities for them to face the music and listen to the depth of the music. Every artist feels that live performance is the key these days, right? We also think all the time about what we’re going to do and what music we should create and perform.
Igloo :: Electronic sounds have made a comeback in Western popular music. What do you make of that?
BBS :: …Do you think so? It feels like pop music has been always together with electronic sounds. We have just been listening to electronic music all the time, so probably we can’t just sense that electronic sounds had been absent from scene for a while.
Igloo :: You toured with Moby in 1998. Can you tell us more about that experience?
BBS :: In Moby’s tour, we felt how large America is. The culture is different in different states, like different countries combine to make one huge country. Apart from the other small things, this is how we felt back then.
Over And Over is out now.
