Interview with Tokami

Tokami were recently joined by a new vocalist, stabilizing the line-up after several changes, and JaME took the oportunity to interview the band about this and other topics. After a short introduction of JaME, the interview started with four of the members, since the guitarist Shige was running late, and after he joined we continued with the full line-up.


Please introduce your members.

1000: I'm the drummer 1000.
Agato: I'm the vocalist Agato.
Ichika: I'm Ichika on bass.
K: I'm the guitarist K.

Since this is the first time for you to be featured on JaME, please introduce the band to our readers.

1000: Since the start our concept hasn't changed much; unchanged is the tuning or the song making process, which was inspired by aggressive overseas Heavy Metal, and it is fused with the unique beautiful melodies of popular Japanese songs. We aim to create music that is violent but also shows the beauty of melody. Since the time that Tokami was created in 2005, our visual concept has gradually changed slightly, however musically we haven't changed much.

The band concept is "Shock rock of the darkness", what exactly does this mean?

1000: What, is it grammatically incorrect? (laughs)
When we started I liked Alice Cooper, and rather than aiming at Japanese visual style I wanted to do a kind of performance whose impact would make the viewer gasp, so "Shock Rock". Rather than light and radiant things, I like something more along the lines of the enemy bosses in Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, something dark, so I made it to be "Shock Rock of the Darkness".

When did you decide to start making music?

Ichika: I started doing visual kei 3-4 years ago; before I used to do punk and such. I thought Japanese visual kei was interesting in an enchanting sort of way, and it was fun to do, so I decided to do it myself. Rather recently.
K: When I was 14, I was inspired by the guitarists of The Yellow Monkey, B'z and HIDE of X JAPAN, so I bought a guitar. Although I'm left-handed I bought a right-handed guitar, because surprisingly I could do left-hand fingering on it very easily.
Agato: I started in middle school. A senpai that I liked was doing music, so because of that I started doing music in middle school. I liked LUNA SEA and X JAPAN so that's how I gradually started going into visual kei.
1000: I bought a guitar first, around the time of 3rd grade in high school. The reason why I started playing drums is because I couldn't play guitar well (laughs). I started drums when I was 20 or 21.

You said you like X JAPAN and such, but could you tell us more about what kind of music influenced you?.

Ichika: For me it's Kuroyume...My Kuroyume...For me it's just Kuroyume (laughs). Apart from that...there's nothing else (laughs).
K: Well the trigger to start playing guitar was the Yellow Monkey and X JAPAN, but from then I started liking old hard rock, such as LED ZEPPELIN and DEEP PURPLE, then I also like German metal style; listening to Halloween, Gamma Ray and such I started liking their roots the Scorpions, and their guitarist Ulrich Roth is the guitarist who I personally respect most. Now I listen to bands related to Jimmy Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and Ulrich Roth.
Agato: I was mostly influenced by Malice Mizer in a very shocking way. Around the time when I was a 2nd year in middle school they appeared on TV, I saw them and thought "What's that!?", I thought "What's going on with that band!?". I'd never heard about visual kei before then. So the roots of me starting visual kei were Malice Mizer. Because of that I started listening to X and LUNA SEA and such, but I think I can't do such kotekote visual kei myself. So my influences are mostly Gackt or Malice Mizer.
1000: If we talk about visual kei, there's this Japanese band called BUCK-TICK. I'm a BUCK-TICK fan. And then there are things like "Shock Rock" overseas, then it's Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and such, there is no such genre in Japan that's so joking and interesting, I thought. For aggressive music I also like Strapping Young Lad or death metal. So my roots are BUCK-TICK, Strapping Young Lad and then Ozzy Osbourne.

Tokami's image looks kind of like old school visual kei, why is that?

Agato: We get told that often.
1000: My image of Tokami is visual kei with a bit of an old feeling. The image we had before was because we didn't really know what visual kei was, so we did our own thing, thinking it was visual kei. We were a bit ignorant really, it's like the axis slipped away. Recently my knowledge piled up, and the new members knew what visual kei is, so we all realized that what we liked was more of an old thing rather than the recent styles. Nowadays it's something like hosts? Rather than beautiful, brilliant and fun things, we want to transmit a taste of unreality, and the members thought it'd be nice if the costumes were elegant, so I think that's how it came to be a sort of older image.

So who designs the costumes?

1000: We all do them ourselves, right?
Ichika: When it comes to design, everyone chooses what they like independently, but finally we adjust them to make the costumes more compatible, like the ornaments and the colours. But originally we all think of our costumes ourselves.

What do you want to achieve as Tokami?

1000: (thinks for a while) Is it world peace after all? (laughs)
Agato: It's "Love and peace", isn't it! (laughs)
K: Right, with this sort of sound (laughs)
Agato: Singing like WA- (growls), "Love and peace" (laughs)
1000: My personal objective, the objectives of others, the objectives that the band carries as an entity all differ, so it's difficult to answer.
Agato: Well I think, everyone has a respective path that they follow, a goal that they are aiming at. The aggregation of them is one shape, which is Tokami. So the previous vocalists Kanae or Kaito, even when the members changed, what each of the goals aimed at individually is what makes up Tokami, the aggregation of them is Tokami. It's like a "Tokami" brand (laughs).

How do you create your songs and lyrics?

1000: Basically we can all make songs, so having composed the instrumental body we give it to Agato, then he writes the words. We also adjust the melody so that it's easier to sing for Agato, and then arrange it. Since everyone can compose songs, we give Agato what everyone else has written.

And then you write lyrics last?

1000: There are also times when we write lyrics and give them to Agato to sing. It seems like Ichika had some lyrics the other day. Some parts of the lyrics are used, other parts are changed. So there's really no decided pattern. And Ichika writes songs by singing to his own bass accompaniment (laughs).
Ichika: Yes, since I don't have a guitar (laughs). So just bass and metronome (imitates metronome and bass sounds, everyone laughs). Well if I write it using a bass I can come up with interesting bass lines. And then K does the arrangement.

I suppose from now on Agato is going to have more chances to write lyrics, what sort of themes do you want to write about?

Agato: In everyday life there are problems and times when I get irritated, times when I think "what the hell" because I'm human, if you write about such feelings directly it's easy to do and also easy for the listener to understand. But if I write such lyrics for Tokami it's going to become a band with a splendid image but diluted songs and lyrics, so I want to write about human feelings and thoughts in a more figurative way.
1000: Generally there is a theme for the lyrics according to a song. It's not like the words we use now, it's more like digging in deeply.
Agato: One song is like one story, isn't it.

It's written in your blog that 1000 has a recording studio in his house, why have you decided to get your own studio and make songs that way?

1000: When I was a student I used to work part time as an engineer. Nowadays in the indies world it doesn't take time or money for recordings. If you have a simple recording set and can use a PC plug-in and such, you end up making them yourselves. I want to use a real analogue echo that would cost 10,000 yen (around $100) for just one time, but with the way it's done nowadays I thought you can do it at home, can't you. So in a room sized six tatami mats I made a room of five tatami mats, so that the sound won't escape to the outside. That way I don't need to worry about the time and cost it takes, I just need to cut my sleeping hours. The basis is music, so I wanted to put time into the creation of music and songs so I created a studio in my house.

1000, you are the only member that is left from the original line up. How do you think Tokami has changed through these years?

1000: At first we didn't plan to do this seriously, the vocalist at that time had a nice voice and we had a light-hearted feeling about the band. His voice was suitable for visual kei, so we thought if we do visual kei maybe we could get pretty popular. It was an "If we could do one live per month that would be nice" sort of thought. We set an objective of playing a oneman at ON AIR WEST (also known as Shibuya O-WEST, one of the popular and rather large live-houses) some time. But we could only fulfill about half of the objectives that we put up for ourselves so the members at that time quit.

When I was alone I thought about whether I wanted to do music, and I realized that I wanted to continue Tokami after all. When the second period of Tokami started, like "Yeah! Let’s do it!", at that time the vocalist left the band...From then on the current members came together, members who wanted to do music seriously. From that point we looked for a vocalist for 3-4 months, we looked for Agato, and this is how we became the Tokami that we are now.

Agato: When 1000 found out about my previous band splitting up he came to chat me up (laughs).
1000: The timing of Agato's previous band's disbanding was just right, I'd been checking him out when I found out about the disbanding (laughs).
Agato: I was in the band called Rutiru before, and when they disbanded 1000 kept coming onto me. "Agato-saaan, join uuus" (laughs).

So what did Tokami receive from the current members?

1000: There are so many things I don't know what to say...
Ichika: Previously 1000 wrote all the music, but now everyone can write music so now we can show many different things as a band, right.
1000: Previously no matter who made the songs, no one could do the arrangements so I did all of that myself. So it tended to turn out one-patterned, but the current members can do arrangements, and they have a long experience of doing music, so musically everyone creates their own characteristic performance. Of course the previous members also brought in their personal elements into making songs, but the current members contribute more of them.

Before Agato joined and even when you didn't have a vocalist, you had lives with support vocalists and even did recordings with them. Was there never a point when you felt like giving up?

Ichika: We produced an event on May 10th, and at that time Shige and K joined. And just a month later the vocalist quit. We'd been feeling like "From now on let's go on a tour, lets do it for real!", so we wondered why he quite right at that time. We had a meeting to decide what to do from then on. Only 1000 had a sudden shock (laughs). We were thinking, isn't it better to just look for a new vocalist and continue moving forwards? I never thought of giving up.
1000: I felt like "what should I do from now on", I had a real shock of the heart, but everyone else was absolutely fine (laughs).
Agato: Right, only 1000 had "Shock of the heart" (laughs).
Ichika: Yeah, we just did the recording, the mixing...And we couldn't perform the songs that we'd just released on CD.
1000: But...I didn't give in! (laughs)

As I mentioned, you had support vocalists before for lives and recordings, but how did it happen that Agato was the one who joined the band?

1000: Since I have a recording studio at home, it didn't take much money anyway. After the vocalist left there was no chance to allow people to listen to our music, so with support vocalists or with something else we had to declare our intentions of continuing Tokami, for which we had to release a CD. And the support vocalists who helped us were planning to join another band, but they were so kind and said, "Sure we can help Tokami!", so even if for a short time, we thought, "Let's do what we can".

So how did it come to the current line-up?

1000: Well that wasn't really nanpa, but... (nanpa is picking someone up for the night)
Agato: Oh yes it was nanpa! It was like "why won't you jump into my open car" (laughs). At the time when my previous band split up, 1000 came to see the live, and on my way back he pulled up in his red open car and went "Hey Agato! Want a ride?" (laughs) I got in and we went to China (laughs). Well I'm like a scout.
I met 1000 at the time when my previous band split up and he came to watch my live. "Don't you think Tokami would suit your atmosphere?" he said. At that time Ichika was also there, so I talked to Ichika first, 1000 was there but I didn't notice him... "Ah Ichika-san, nice to meet you," I introduced myself, he answered "Nice to meet you", then I asked Ichika, "Where is 1000?", and at the time 1000 was standing right next to us (laughs). That's how we met.

What about the others?

1000: Tokami has been going on for a while, so from the circle of acquaintances some members approached me when they heard about the recruiting. "Let's try it once for the time being" became my favorite phrase. I knew Shige from his previous band so I asked him, "at least as support, but please join".

A couple of questions unrelated to music now, but what do you do in your free time? What are your hobbies?

Ichika: When I'm free I go to manga cafes (laughs). I don't have a computer at home so I can use the internet and read manga. This manga called "Kaiji" is really interesting. I just went to one before I came here and there was all you can eat soft cream . (to K) Let's go to the pair seat some time! (laughs)
K: I'm not coming with you! (laughs) I don't have much free time. What do I do...I practice guitar (laughs). That's all I can think of, I also read novels sometimes.
Agato: Usually when I'm free I create silver accessories, read novels or go to places I've never been to. In my everyday life I also like to spend time in different places. Like using a road I don't know, going somewhere I haven't been to, I do that kind of thing often.

Have you been anywhere interesting recently?

Agato: I go to roofs of office buildings. You can't enter them unless you show a pass so at that time I take a Tokami live pass, show it to the guard quickly and enter (laughs). Then I go onto the roof and sit on a bench and space out until the evening.
1000: I really don't have any free time. I'm an old man so I want to go to hot springs (laughs). I drink alcohol (laughs).
K: You made it your stage drink (laughs).
1000: Yeah, it was like that a while ago, but then the musical performance got messed up because of it so I stopped. In the past when I had free time, I'd go to a music shop and buy some instruments.

(At this point the second guitarist Shige arrived and readily jumped into the conversation)

Shige: I also don't have much free time, but if I have half of a day free, I don't touch my guitar once. I go to Don Quixote (a discount store) or a supermarket and see whether the meat there is cheap and stuff like that (laughs).
1000: Isn't the expected answer more like "I go clothes shopping at the back streets of Harajuku"? (laughs). You're not supposed to talk about meat (laughs).
Shige: Oh, I go clothes shopping at Uniqlo (a cheap but rather fashionable clothes store) (laughs). If I have free time, I spend half of it doing what I want, and the other half on music. But I get asked to play support by some people, so a lot of time is devoted to that. Well... I go to Don Quixote! Don Quixote has cheap rice (laughs). Don Quixote equals Rock (laughs).

Your shows are quite lively, has anything funny or embarrassing ever happened during them?

Shige: Apart from instrument trouble nothing really.
1000: I wear a headset with a microphone, and once I've forgotten that it was still on, I finished the last song, swung my arms violently and wanted to leave the stage, but the headset was still plugged in so I... (imitates falling backwards)
Agato: I had my nose bleeding once (laugh). I received a cross necklace from a fan, it was rather large, so I was wearing it and headbanging and it got into my nose (laughs). It ripped my nose and it started to bleed. But I kept going and continued singing while sniffing my nose (imitates singing and sniffing). That was the most embarrassing thing that happened to me.
Ichika: I had my costume rip once, it was really exposing (shows a part of his thigh being exposed). My costume is made of easily ripped material. Oh and I knocked over Shige's guitar when I entered the stage once.
Shige: Yeah, I tuned my guitar before the live, then it started and during the performance I realized the tuning was completely crazy (laughs). It went "pyo~n!?" (mimics the sound of a badly tuned guitar) "What!?" I thought, but I continued playing that way. It was in Narciss so every time we play in Narciss I still warn Ichika "Please don't knock it over" (laughs).
K: I had nothing embarrassing happen to me.

A while ago you distributed a DVD at your lives, it contained a PV but also a furitsuke (choreographed dancing that people do at lives) tutorial on it. The furitsuke at Tokami's lives is very fun, but it's a typically Japanese thing and not something that people usually do overseas. What do you think about it?

Agato: You don't have it overseas, do you.
1000: I think Japanese are a people that like doing the same thing. Like parapara or bonodori (traditional dancing at Japanese festivals). Minor bands like us want to become one with their audience and be able to do something together. Of course we want them to listen to our songs, and lives consist partly of listening, but if we can become one and achieve something together we can have fun, and we can get something from it. If we can become one in a part of the song that we let people listen to, we don't get tired of it. We make noticeable sudden stops when people listen, there are varying parts I think.

Agato: Varying between being quiet and dancing in a live, playing together, doing one thing with the audience and the members is fun. You get a sense of unity, I think. I suppose we only have this in Japan.

Yeah, overseas it happens that some people don't even listen to the song and scream during the performance.

Agato: Maybe it's only me, but I find it really cool how foreigners scream like that. I'm happy if they scream listening to our songs.

You often talk to your fans in the hall after the live is over, don't you. What do you get from this communication with them, I mean mentally?

Agato: Energy.
Shige: K gets pudding, doesn't he.
K: Yeah, 8-pack pudding and cola(laughs).
1000: I get beer (laughs).
Shige: It's about mental things, not what kind of goods you receive from fans (laughs).
Agato: I get energy, the energy to continue and do the next live.
Ichika: When we talk and receive their thoughts about the live, if I hear "It was nice!" or "It was fun!", I think "Ah, I'll do my best for the next one" or "I want to play this song again next time" and such. We adjust the setlists for our lives each time according to the audience's opinions.
1000: I want to make a more fun time out of the restricted 30 minutes, so if I see that the audience's reaction wasn't good, I ask them what was wrong.
Shige: I don't receive opinions in person, but I read the questionnaires. I read them with a grin on my face, but if I read "It was fun", "It was good" or "You were cool" and stuff like that, I get a bit excited. I watch the audience's response in each live. Did we manage to do a good live? Did we not? Sometimes I feel that a live didn't go well, but if the fans' impression was good, I feel rescued, "Ah, it was good".

You have some fans outside of Japan as well, have you received any fan letters from them?

1000: There are some foreigners who come to our lives, but since there's no address to which you can send things, we haven't really received anything. But we do get fanmail online. We've never done lives overseas so I wonder why...
Agato: Lately I've gotten quite a bit of fanmail from Russia and America. I received things like "I read your blog every day" or "Tokami are cool, good luck!".

So would you like to play overseas some time?

K: I want to do Hawaii first (laughs).
Agato: European tour, like sightseeing (laughs).
K: Korea and Taiwan tour and such (laugh). And then Hokkaido.
1000: Isn't Hokkaido in Japan? (laughs).
Shige: If there is a chance we would like to go overseas, but first we should do Japan, right?
1000: I can't imagine what happens if we go overseas yet, we can't really deal with it. I'm scared (laughs). When I watch German metal festival videos, there are many people who go like (imitates loud growling and violent behaviour), I think if we do a live there we might get killed (laughs).

Now some questions about your future plans. You released your first CD with Agato in the beginning of December, and it contained both new and old remastered tracks. Are you planning to release any more remastered material?

K: We aren't, are we.
1000: The next release will consist of basically new songs. We plan to continue releasing songs that we created after the new vocalist joined. Since the live-house limited CD we released was sold out immediately, we decided to record both new and old songs and release them together all around the country. Maybe this CD will contain remastered tracks as well.

Coming up this spring is your 4th anniversary. Do you have any special plans for that?

Agato: There's nothing to do but perform at Kouhaku Utagassen (an annual singing contest, held on New Year's Eve), right? (laughs)
Shige: It's spring, spring (laughs).
1000: I alone will be wearing red and white (traditional festive colours). Well it's 4 years for me, but for the Tokami as we are now it's just our first year, I think that's more important. Next year's 10.10 is going to be Tokami day ("To" in Tokami means 10), that's more important.
K: And 5.10, that's God's day (laughs).
1000: The 10th of May and 10th of October are the anniversaries for us. In April I will probably think to myself "Good job", "I made four years"....(laughs).
Shige: Alright, so in April during a live we'll say "It's our fourth anniversary today!" and finish with that (laughs).

What are Tokami's other plans for the future?

1000: In March 2009 we have a tour around Nagoya, Osaka and Sendai. We have decided on a CD release, so in accordance with that we would like to broaden our activity range.
Ichika: It would be nice if we left something behind that shows like "Tokami did it!". For example to have songs in karaoke... If you continue the band and nothing is left behind you would be sad, right?
Shige: When I have children, my child would find my CD and go "Dad! What is this?! You’re wearing make-up!" (laughs). That would be nice (laughs).
Agato: In the future I want us to become an influence, like "If it weren't these members, it wouldn't be as great". I would like us to become this kind of band.
Shige: I want there to be copy bands of us in middle schools. And because no one can play K's part, everyone would only play my part (laughs).
Agato: I want people to cosplay us.

Lastly, please give a message to our readers

1000: Having adopted things that we like from overseas, since we are Japanese there is a Japanese element present as well, please wait for these two components united in one. I think if we could have an effect on you all with this it would be nice.
Shige: If you say artists you want to perform with, maybe they might see it?
1000: If I say something like Megadeth I think I might get killed (laughs). Alright, some time I want to perform with Megadeth. And I would like to make it more accessible by putting a video on youtube.
Ichika: From now on Tokami is going to steadily broaden the range of our activities, so in the near future I would be happy if I could stand in front of everyone. Please look forward to seeing us live.
K: Wait for us covered in gore, see you in hell (laughs).
Agato: Now is the time when little by little we can do what the members want to do, what only Tokami can do, so if there are people interested in Tokami, I want them to listen to our music and watch our videos as much as possible.
Shige: You're going to be head banging more than you think, so make sure to train your necks! (laughs)

Thank you very much!

Tokami: Thank you!


Thanks to Tokami for this opportunity. Thanks to Mari and Yuki for technical assistance.