Interview with Pistol Valve

Pistol Valve is an unique band, made up of 10 girls that play an interesting kind of music: a mix of rock, pop, hip-hop, ska, jazz, blues and so on. In March this year, the girls performed in the USA and at the SXSW festival they gained quite some attention. In July they expanded their activities in the USA with the release of their debut album Tsunamic Girls From Tokyo. JaME took this opportunity to ask the ladies a few questions about their activities overseas, their debut album, and more!


First of all, we would like to ask you to describe the band for readers that aren't familiar with you yet.

Pistol Valve: We're a 10-piece girls rock band, formed in Tokyo in October 2005. We are... ANDO! (Tenor Sax & Vocal), cotton (Alto Sax & Vocal), tommy (Euphonium & Vocal), Jenni7000 (Violin & Vocal), Yoko Brooklyn (Tenor & Baritone Sax), Ram-Asuka (Trombone), Corina (Valve Trombone), M-chan (Trumpet), Misaty (Trumpet), and DJ ♮ Lilya (Turntables). We want to play music that girls in this generation feel "HOT!"

Earlier this year, you held a short tour in the USA, "Japan Nite 2007". How did that go and what was your favourite memory from that tour?

Pistol Valve: We've played in big cities such as New York, Philly, Chicago, Austin and Los Angeles. We were thinking "how we can make the audience excited?" because their reaction will be more honest compared to a Japanese audience so every night we tried to put some ideas together. As a result, we grew from every performance, the band obtained a lot of good things from that tour. The best memory was to perform at SXSW because it's a stage that we had been aiming for so we could show our true power and could possibly receive great feedback.

You recently released your debut album Tsunamic Girls From Tokyo in the USA. How would you describe it to someone that hasn't heard your music before?

Pistol Valve: Our music is in a new genre of music called "Girls Horn Rock Band"!

The album is a compilation of your previously released songs. Why were these particular tracks chosen to be on the album?

Pistol Valve: We collected all songs that have been previously released in Japan and we newly added My Generation, which we played during our US tour and became popular. This album has a lot of power along with our own charm, so we think it's suitable as a USA debut album.

When you originally created these songs, which was the hardest? And on the opposite end, which was the easiest?

Pistol Valve: The hardest one was My Generation because this song isn't our original but rather The Who's classic so we had to really think about how to perform the arrangement to expose the band's taste. However, we also can say My Generation was the easiest because the song and lyrics were already there, we didn't need to worry about writing a song.

Can you tell us something more about each track from the album? What each is about, what inspired you to initially write the song, how it was created and anything else you would like to share with us?

01. Western Girls
Pistol Valve: As you can see from the title, we imagined cow girls in America.

02. Pull The TRIGGER!
Pistol Valve: This song is from our first work and it's hip! The lyrics tell a story of a girl who confesses to a boy, which becomes the comparison of shooting a gun.

03. Flap Up Elephant
Pistol Valve: We want the listener to see the image of an elephant flying in the sky by it's big ears.

04. Fo-Fo
Pistol Valve: "Fo-Fo" is a 44 Magnum gun. The lyrics are about a girl who is a bit lewdly, but please listen to the English words and imagine it yourself.

05. Tube Tune
Pistol Valve: It's a song that tells of a tragic love in London underground (subway).

06. My Generation ~Respect to The Who~
Pistol Valve: We dedicate it to respect The Who. The lyrics fit to the feelings we have today.

07. Sit At Cow Char Nail
Pistol Valve: This is a very important song for us. It expresses the frustration felt by young people in the lyrics.

08. The Best House
Pistol Valve: The song is adopted as a theme song for a television program in Japan, so this one is very popular in Japan.

You appeared in the music video for the song Black Cherry by Acid Black Cherry; how did you get this cameo opportunity and what was it like to work with Acid Black Cherry?

Pistol Valve: yasu already knew us and he contacted us directly, we're so glad about that. yasu's Janne Da Arc has been well-known since our childhood, so being fans the offer from Acid Black Cherry we felt deeply honored. To work with Acid Black Cherry was great, we had a lot of fun, learned many things during the session. They were very kind and interesting during the music video shooting, so that we were able to enjoy ourselves during the performance. Their performance is very cool, so we felt like "we can't lose it" and played more aggressively than usual (laughs). Playing with other musicians to make bigger connections, that's wonderful thing.

Did you also participate in the recording of the song? How was it to work together with these musicians from a completely different genre than yours?

Pistol Valve: Yes, we did. yasu showed up at the studio for our recording practice, we recorded together, he gave us some advice. We talked about a lot of things, so we were inspired by him. Again, we've learned a lot, because we usually play our songs our own way, but this time he Acid Black Cherry asked us to play their way and at the same time we tried to put Pistol Valve's color into the song. Pistol Valve plays horn rock, Acid Black Cherry plays visual-kei rock, both of us playing the same kind of "rock" so we all got into the song and we felt comfortable with what we were doing. We are honored that we were able to play with Acid Black Cherry.

What can we expect from your future activities and do you have any plans to perform overseas again anytime soon?

Pistol Valve: We'd like to perform live all over the world. We have a tour scheduled in Japan from February to March 2008 and we're expecting to do some shows in Europe or the USA as well.

Please give a message for your overseas fans.

Pistol Valve: We want to play live in your country! When we come to your city, you definitely need to come to the show to listen and feel our music.
Thank you all! We love you!!


For more info on Pistol Valve, check out their official site or their MySpace profile.


JaME would like to thank Pistol Valve and Rightsscale for the opportunity for this interview.