Black Japan makes kickass industrial noise music. I recently sent Craig from
BJ some questions via email. this is what they had to say.
Icon: You have a new record out, is it going in a different direction
than machines that crush bones, or is it going in somewhat similar territory? Has a lot changed since you first started the project?
Black Japan: So far the recording for our upcoming album has gone pretty good. We're more focused on the direction of where we want it to go and sound like, whereas M.T.C.B. was very, well, let me give you a little history first. Me and Mike started Black Japan in September 2003 and recorded Machines four months after that over four Saturdays. Neither of us had any experience with much electronics or how songs should sound or whatever. It was like alright I got this beat and we'll add noise and then do vocals. No need for lyrics either, just sing a couple lines over and over! So it was more or less just putting down everything we came up with and putting it out. Everything was first take without a second thought about anything. So obviously there is no structure or anything. It's really funny to think that it got such a good response because we were totally learning the whole time. I think we're both a little embarassed listening to some of the songs off it now because our sound has gotten much more harsher and a little more structured and more where we want it to be. There are a few tracks that we have reworked that will be on the upcoming album though.
Icon: You guys have gotten a lot of support recently from KMFDM. How did you get in touch with them? You’re both doing completely different things musically, it seems like a pretty odd match. How much has the affiliation with them helped out?
Black Japan: Mike hates telling this story but I'll tell it for him. He used to be in a bowling league on a team called the Strykers and Sasha and this dude Donny were on another team, I forget the name right now. Anyways Mike kinda knew this Donny dude and Sascha was impressed with Mike's bowling enough to take us on tour and sell our stuff on their website. As far as musically, early KMFDM was pretty primitave, much like our stuff. Beats, noise, vocals. Same formula. It's cool to get support from them for what we are doing and it's been really helpful. Like when you play a show and everyone thinks you suck at least you know, hey, KMFDM likes us. But as far as gaining fans. Forget about it. People hate us. But it's cool. We'll still rock a basement for 10 kids.
Icon: Black Japan have a pretty unique sound. What artists (Musically and otherwise) have most influenced you?
Black Japan: Musically speaking, there really isn't anyone that influences our sound. I don't really listen to noise at all. Mostly indie rock or whatever, but Wolf Eyes is cool. Mike's been listening to these Swedish symphonic metal cd's that he got from the library. But movies are cool. David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman are my favorite directors. "Lost Highway" and "Hour of the Wolf". "Persona". We both like horror movies. Anything with zombies, especially "Dawn of the Dead". I think some of that creeps it's way into the music. My goal for our album would be to create something you could play along as a soundtrack to a horror flick.
Icon: Were either of you involved in any projects before black japan? If so, could you give some details on that?
Black Japan: Before Black Japan me and Mike were in an ill-fated guitar noise type thing called the Rake's Progress. We can't play guitar so it mostly consisted of us dragging guitars on the ground or banging them around, feedbacking it and looping it through a delay pedal or whatever and try and convince a friend to play drums to it. We did like four shows and people hated that too. We were listening to a lot of Bad Moon Rising at that time. This was like 2 years ago.
Icon: What are your feelings on the industrial/ noise “scene”?
Black Japan: There's actually not really a noise scene at all here. But even as far as that goes we don't have a problem hooking up shows because most people are cool. As far as an industrial scene, I couldn't tell ya.
Icon: You’re pretty big on releasing live recordings, do you think they capture a more raw version of the band, or is there another reasoning behind it, or is it just a preference?
Black Japan: Well for me it's all about documenting what we're doing. It's kind of an extention of my skateboarding days. Back when I was in high school we'd go out and film or hours, like, just skating a curb. No one was really doing anything but it was just cool to be able to go home and watch it and now I have a whole stack of videos of all those times. It's just nice to have that. So it's kind of the same thing. Plus we want it to be available to people who want it. It's fun to make packaging and stuff too. The downside is you're stuck with a box of 'em you couldn't get rid of on tour! I think we're gonna chill out on that though because now we kind of have standards.
Icon: What’s the average response to your stuff (if there is one)? I know alot of people hated you at the KMFDM shows.
Black Japan: For the most part people are open to it and will give it a chance. Unless you're on tour playing for hundreds of douchebags and a small handful of cool people. We got booed a lot on tour. A lot! Have you ever heard a room of like 400 people booing! It's totally awesome that you could do something musically to evoke that kind of negative response and piss people off enough to threaten you bodily harm. We kind of like the booing though. Better than a courtesy clap anyday. It just makes us play louder and noisier. We compiled all the shit talking we could find online after our tour and put it on our site. Funniest comments ever. It makes for good reading content especially when there's only so much news you can report.
Icon: Is there anything else you’d like to add (anything goes)?
Black Japan: Don't believe everything you read.
To find out more about the mightyness that is
Black Japan go to their website:
http://blkjpn.com/
