Considered from above, the well-known pedestrian crossing outdoor Tokyo’s Shibuya Station resembles the sector’s biggest and best-organised wall of dying. Stand at its centre level as hundreds of Tokyo citizens and wide-eyed vacationers hurtle around the intersection from each imaginable attitude, and you’ll revel in true sensory overload.
The blur of human visitors is accompanied through a dizzying, actually deafening collage of sounds. The relentless metal clinking from the district’s Pachinko arcades clashes in opposition to the bubbling beats of the most recent J-pop and Okay-pop hits bleeding throughout from the SHIBUYA109 mall, the sector’s wildest, loudest division retailer.
Promoting jingles blare out from the large neon displays overhead, and loudhailer-wielding boulevard distributors yell enthusiastic exhortations to include the fun of consumerism. It’s a jarring, disorientating, nearly overwhelming revel in, but additionally exhilarating, intoxicating and weirdly life-affirming.
This rush of sensations mirrors the feelings stirred whilst paying attention to town’s newest breakout band Hanabie, whose joyously chaotic, thrillingly intense, hyper-kinetic 2d album, Reborn Celebrity!, launched in the summertime of 2023, used to be heralded in Hammer as signifying “the coming of Japan’s subsequent nice crossover steel stars”.
Such predictions don’t faze Hanabie in any respect. In a up to date interview, when requested what the longer term holds for her band, vocalist Yukina used to be even bolder, declaring, “I need to transform the sector’s primary lady band.” We’re no longer conversant in listening to Eastern bands specific such bare ambition, however Hanabie have 0 passion in conforming to stereotypes.
This used to be made abundantly transparent 365 days in the past with the attention-grabbing video for (Pardon Me, I Have To Pass Now), which noticed the quartet – highschool pals Yukina, Matsuri (guitar/vocals) and Hettsu (bass), plus 2023 recruit Chika (drums) – rebelling in opposition to misogynist company tradition, and violently rejecting assigned gender roles. Similarly, their track defies categorisation, melding influences from metalcore, punk, electronica, J-pop, and anime soundtracks, into thrillingly intense, ultra-modern Gen Z steel anthems.
In contrast to Babymetal, there’s no mysterious svengali directing Hanabie, no stylists manicuring their symbol, no in moderation plotted profession arc mapped out for them. Within the tightly policed Eastern track scene, they’re an anomaly, which would possibly give an explanation for why they’re already gaining a fiercely faithful fanbase, each at house and across the world. “The Hanabie circle of relatives is rising at all times, each day,” Yukina tells Steel Hammer. “It’s thrilling for us to consider the place we cross subsequent.”
Remaining June, Hanabie performed the long-running Dynamo Steel Fest within the Netherlands as a part of their debut Ecu excursion. On a invoice that featured the likes of Megadeth, Trivium and Biohazard, they stood out. All over their set, Yukina used to be dismayed to identify a tender boy within the crowd weeping uncontrollably and so, afterwards, she sought him out to determine what had disenchanted him.
It became out that the boy used to be visiting from america, and had in fact been crying tears of pleasure. He defined to Yukina that Hanabie had been his favorite band, and that he had persuaded his folks to fund a circle of relatives vacation to Europe so he may see them play reside, figuring that they would possibly not find a way to excursion The united states. So crushed used to be he through his first revel in of seeing the gang reside that he started crying.
“We’ve heard an identical tales since from different grade faculty youngsters who satisfied their folks to take them to look us play, however that boy used to be the primary one,” Yukina says. “I’m so glad that we’re ready to inspire those sons and daughters to have enjoyable and pursue their desires, simply as different bands have impressed us.”
Hanabie’s personal adventure started within the spring of 2015, when the 4 individuals weren’t a lot older than the boy in query. It used to be initiated through the briefest of exchanges between Yukina and Matsuri in a hall on the all-girl Tokyo highschool each attended.
“We had been in fact in junior highschool in combination, however we weren’t too shut again then,” says Yukina. “However sooner or later in highschool I heard from a mutual buddy that Matsuri likes loud track, and so I went as much as her and stated, ‘I heard that you just like Most The Hormone and Babymetal: is that true?’ That used to be the catalyst for the whole lot that has came about since.”
Whilst Babymetal want no creation, Most The Hormone have a decrease profile outdoor their local Japan. Large cult stars at the nation’s ‘Loud Rock’ circuit and regularly likened to Machine Of A Down for his or her irreverent, quirky humour, Most The Hormone punctuate their alt steel with parts of ska, funk, hip hop and punk, and feature a name as one among their nation’s most tasty reside bands.
Yukina and Matsuri freely admit that Hanabie had been little greater than a Most The Hormone tribute band of their earliest days, however their sound temporarily developed as they absorbed influences from anime, videogames, synth-heavy ‘vocaloid’ pop, homegrown rock acts (A Crowd Of Rebel, Tokyo Incidents, SiM, Just right 4 Not anything, Hysteric Panic) and global dying steel and metalcore artists.
Matsuri credit Alabama ragers Gideon for “opening the door” to Western acts. “I began paying attention to brutal dying steel bands,” Yukina provides. “I as soon as learn an editorial that stated that brutal dying steel is helping you chill out prior to going to sleep, so I began paying attention to it as background track once I went to mattress.”
The duo additionally namecheck Gaku Taura, the drummer with Eastern metalcore outfit Crystal Lake, for encouraging them to push their track into extra experimental, much less officially structured territories all through early studio recording classes. “Hanabie now’s no matter we would like Hanabie to be,” Yukina says merely.
(Symbol credit score: Genki Ito)
What Hanabie need to be at this time is what they name ‘Harajuku-core’. The identify explicitly hyperlinks their brash, daring, forward-facing sound with Harajuku, Tokyo’s maximum colourful and vibrant district. A space famend for its state-of-the-art boulevard type, it’s the non secular house of town’s early life tribes, from sharp-dressed bikers and pallid goths to extravagantly dressed steampunks and the sassy, putting Ganguro ‘gals’.
The latter, with their darkish faux tans, bleached hair and minimalist clothes are celebrating within the video to the only Be The GAL ~Early Summer season ver.~, Hanabie’s admiring salute to their individuality, fearlessness and self-confidence.
“We need to put out sure messages even if the track is its maximum brutal,” says Matsuri. “It’s OK to be who you might be, and prefer what you prefer, and reside lifestyles your personal method. The ones women are an inspiration to us as a result of they don’t care what someone else thinks.”
Reborn Celebrity! used to be conceived as a space-themed thought album, with its opening tracks Blast Off and Hyperdimensional Galaxy suggesting that Hanabie’s track is being beamed in from a special measurement. But the band don’t seem to be afraid to deal with extra common Gen Z issues, such because the dangerously addictive attract of courting apps (Reiwa Courting Apps Era) and the anxieties inherent in keeping up a completely on-line social media presence (Caution!!).
Their movies and reside performances exude a in a similar fashion uncontained character. From the cartoonishly competitive but trendy movies for (Pardon Me, I Have To Pass Now) and TOUSOU (Run Away) to the explosive gig on the Camden Underworld in the summertime that marked the top in their 2023 UK/ Ecu excursion, Hanabie come over as sensible, self-possessed, fun-loving and proudly unbiased younger ladies.
It’s a disgrace, then, that these days’s interview is performed over Zoom with the cameras became off. An interpreter sits in at the name (vital), as do control representatives (much less so). Given the instances, it’s laborious to get a real sense of Yukina and Matsuri’s true personalities. Possibly conscious {that a} quilt tale for a revered global track mag carries a undeniable gravity, they appear somewhat subdued and protected.
A jokey query about the place Hanabie excursions may rank on a sliding scale measuring rock ’n roll extra, with the in moderation insulated Babymetal at 1 on stated scale and Joan Jett’s party-loving LA punk’n’roll workforce The Runaways at quantity 10, is met with a reaction revealing that, when no longer onstage, those 20-something musicians like not anything so adrenalised as doing laundry and visiting buying groceries shops. Nonetheless, even with their expressions unreadable, Yukina and Matsuri are audibly appreciative and fascinated by Hanabie’s present trajectory.
Hammer is chatting with them simply prior to they’re because of fortify Limp Bizkit in Tokyo, Auckland and Sydney. They met Fred Durst and Wes Borland eventually yr’s Louder Than Lifestyles competition in Kentucky.
“I requested why they’d picked us to play with them in Japan and Australia and New Zealand, and so they stated that they noticed our movies and concept they had been fascinating and funky and enjoyable,” says Yukina, who will later finally end up becoming a member of Limp Bizkit onstage in Auckland to sing Nookie.
The ones movies have undeniably boosted their global profile. The surreal We Love Candies promo used to be a Gimme Chocolate!!-style viral hit closing yr, assisted through a flood of TikTok and YouTube response movies. Nonetheless, Yukina and Matsuri view Hanabie’s presentations as the important thing to their long term luck.
Now not that it’s at all times been simple for them. At their earliest presentations in Tokyo’s golf equipment, they had been met with scepticism from lovers and different bands who doubted their skills. No less than till they in fact plugged in and performed.
“We didn’t have a lot of an target audience again after we first began reserving gigs, however we had been excited and prepared to make an influence and please,” Yukina recalls. “I’d leap into the group and scream in folks’s faces, or kick over beer crates and folks could be stunned as they weren’t anticipating such power or aggression from little highschool women. It’s at all times great to exceed expectancies and marvel folks.”
That angle continues to underpin Hanabie’s complete solution to gigs. The place Babymetal presentations are constructed round choreographed performances designed to unite the band and their faithful target audience, their countrywomen are a extra unpredictable and anarchic proposition onstage. Nonetheless, there are moments of syncopated brilliance, mainly the already-iconic gang refrain of ‘What the fuck!’, delivered halfway thru Be The GAL.
“In Europe, each nation and each target audience reacted otherwise, which used to be enjoyable to look,” Matsuri says, praising each and every territory for his or her “wild enthusiasm”. Yukina provides that the quartet’s London display “exploded to the max”.
The gang’s 2024 reside diary is swiftly filling up, with Hanabie set to hit the summer season competition circuit laborious, together with their first actual go back and forth to Donington Park for Obtain 2024.
“In fact to start with, with the whole lot creating so speedy, there have been occasions we concept, ‘Is that this a dream?’” says Yukina. “However on the similar time, it steadily grew on us that that is actually taking place. From the beginning we believed in our track and our attainable, and now we’re at some extent the place now we have the realisation that our track is in spite of everything spreading and we need to push it additional. So, now it’s no longer like a dream, it’s our fact, and we need to stay this going and take it so far as we will.”
What about that ambition to transform “the sector’s primary lady band”. Why forestall there? Why no longer shoot for being the sector’s primary band, irrespective of gender?
“Certain, why no longer?” Yukina laughs. “All of the nice bands began out with the similar desires now we have. We are hoping that increasingly folks will probably be sufficient to hear no less than one music and spot why persons are speaking about us. Give us a possibility, and perhaps we’ll blow your minds!”
Reborn Celebrity is out now by means of Sony. Hanabie play Obtain Pageant in June.
