Japan’s metal scene has gifted the world with a number of standout bands, always with their own unique take on the genre. The latest success story is the all-girl ‘harajuku-core’ quartet HANABIE, whose video for single Pardon Me, I Have to Go Now! went viral back in January. With a raucous blend of anime and video game soundtracks, metalcore, nu metal and a unique aesthetic, HANABIE swiftly took over the airwaves and, on their first ever overseas tour – the entirety of which sold out – we sat down with vocalist Yukina and guitarist/vocalist Matsuri to talk about the band’s origins, aims and what makes them such a unique proposition.
It’s a cool, air-conditioned bus we’re sat on, a far cry from the oppressive heat and the overwhelmingly sweaty show they’ll play in just a couple of hours, and speaking through their tour manager and translator, the duo are in high spirits seeing the huge turnout for their show at Camden’s legendary The Underworld. “When we were looking at social media and seeing all the comments, we could tell a lot of fans were excited. But after we got here, we found the passion and excitement was so much more than we expected,” Yukina smiles.
To understand why people are so excited, it’s important to understand firstly just who and what HANABIE are. Friends since they were in school, they formed the band while they were still in their teens; “Matsuri and I both have a common interest in another Japanese band, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE,” Yukina enthuses, “so we started a copy band of them!” Musically, there’s certainly a lot of influence from them; you can hear in in the sometimes scattershot approach to genre, the wild blends of disparate worlds under a unified vision, but HANABIE are clearly also their own entity.
The name itself is tied into the four original members of the group; “[Yukina] and our bass player Hettsu were born in the spring,” Matsuri explains, “and our original drummer was born in the winter. In Japanese when the weather or temperature in spring changes from warmer to cold, it’s called Hanabie. We wanted something with Japanese meaning to it, and we definitely wanted something using Japanese characters.” While it does accurately represent the members of the band, as well as an expression that’s very Japanese in origin, it doesn’t begin to sum up their music – and that’s where ‘harajuku-core’ comes in.
As they explain it, they didn’t actually coin the term themselves, but found it in a YouTube comment under one of their videos. Yukina explains, “we found it and said, wow, this is really original, and we were looking for something that could describe our music and our look.” Matsuri agrees; “we thought it was perfect. It’s a pop word, it’s catchy, it’s colourful, and it’s not just our sound it describes, but our style too.” Harajuku refers particularly to a fashion subculture in Japan (“just look at Hettsu’s wardrobe,” they both laugh), while the “core” is, naturally, metalcore.
“We started introducing other elements [than metalcore] probably on LCG from our first album,” Matsuri explains. “We all love games and anime, and are obviously very influenced by Japanese culture, so we wanted to incorporate those other essences into our music.” Those other sounds are anime and gaming soundtracks, or at least inspiration from them, but it’s the Japanese culture that they address in new ways that has brought in so many fans at home for them, and while the message they spread through them might take uniquely Japanese forms, they want people to be able to apply them to their own lives, too.
Take for instance, the viral smash it お先に失礼します (Pardon Me, I Have to Go Now!) from January. Both their eyes light up when we mention that it refers to something uniquely Japanese; the phrase itself. The use of it, as she explains, stems from the difference in Japanese culture to that in the West. “Japanese people are very sincere, we don’t like to offend people. So there’s a lot of situations where people feel compelled to be somewhere they don’t want to be, or have to leave.”
In the music video for it, Yukina gets in a boss’ face and screams it at him, but “that’s an extreme portrayal of the situation,” they laugh. While it’s something that rarely gets used, “we want our generation to feel more comfortable using it, and not be so tied up in staying somewhere they don’t want to be, like work, or if they’re too sick to be somewhere,” Matsuri reveals. That desire for relatability extends to all their lyrics; “a lot of them are based on real life,” Yukina states. “A lot of the time when we use wordplay it might seem silly, but we’re always trying to portray a positive message.”
The bright, colourful clothes and aesthetic, abrupt shifts in genre, clear roots in Japanese subcultures as well as a tongue-in-cheek approach to lyrics that have more serious underlying messages have clearly struck a chord. Before they left for tour, a couple of shows had sold out; by the time they were on the road, the whole thing had. “It doesn’t feel real until we play them,” exclaims Yukina, “we’re so thankful for everyone that comes, we can’t believe there are so many. We can’t wait to come back, and together, let’s create the HANABIE world!”
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