Interview: Asa-Chang

Do you have plans to tour? No.  In fact not at all.  We don't want to forget Japan.  Japanese bands are traveling a lot abroad.  I would love to go.  But first I want to do live-house performances around Japan.  It's difficult to become a top seller in Japan.  There is a large gap between the top hits players and the indies.  But I would like to strive for this.  You release comical stickers in your CDs. The word "junrei" has a kind of serious tone.  The stickers were an attempt to dispel any serious mood.  Also we designed Junreitronics to be very light so that we could perform anywhere without even a PA system.  We would love to be able to perform with a system that could deliver the strong impacts of deep bass etc.  But even without that we wanted to be able to produce quality sound.  So our goal was to deliver quality sound with minimal means. Why did you become a drummer? Because I couldn't do anything else!  I am horrible at guitar. But you even play trumpet in your performances. Yeah, well I can't even play do-re-mi, but I play if it suits the mood of the song. When did you start drumming? From junior high school to high school.  But not after that.  I had no intention of ever becoming a professional.  In you first CD there is the song Tabla Bol which has Indian traditional style of voice immitating drum.  But in you new CD, you use the tabla to follow the pattern of normal spoken sentences. Well, there is the Indian style.  But we really can't do anything in the vein of the Indian masters.  We respect the Indian tradition, but we wanted to offer something back, something different, something even Indians couldn't do.  That's how we developed the tabla-over-normal-speech style. Japanese is a very rhythmic language isn't it? Asian languages in general are short-syllabled.  The technique of using tabla over voice we found could really accent the emotions of the sentence.  So we actually think of "hana" as a love ballad. It's very sad though isn't it? Yeah.  But it also has a forward-looking longing.  Like, "Do you best for the future."  The Tabla Bol song is almost angry.  We are trying to accomplish something different, more tender with this piece. You just collaborated on a soundtrack.  Do you want to do more of that kind of work? Not really.  The sound is somewhat like a soundtrack.  But we are more interested in performing more like a regular rock band in our live performances.  Many people say that we are visually oriented in our performance.  However, this is entirely unintentional. What do you want to do from this point on? Rather than try to accomplish anything specific, I want to continue with Junrei for about five to ten years I think.  I would like to continue doing music that I could perform when I am 60 years old.  That's difficult to do in a rock band.  But I believe that I can go on developing this current style into the future.  So this desire to develop a style over a long period of time has become one of my prime motivations. What about your use of the synthesizer drum? That's an analog drum from about 20 years ago. What about your synth? We call it Junreitronics.  It has tracks, effects and a PA.  It's an all-in-one tool. Your songs seem very playful aside from "hana." What is the source of this style? Even more than hana we try to express the full range of emotions, kidoairaku, joy/anger/sadness/relaxation. What are your influences? I suppose jazz drumming along with Zakir Hussain.  I can't say that there is a specific jazz favorite.  They are all mixed up for me.  I haven't studied any of them deeply.  I want to use my own techniques to express myself.  That's my interest. Thank you. Home