HANABIE. - 'The Harajuku Core Queens Taking The Scene By Storm'
It’s been a massive year for Japanese metalcore outfit HANABIE. who went viral at the start of 2023 with their video for ‘Pardon Me, I Have To Go Now,’ and followed up the success with their debut major label album Reborn Superstar!, plus festival appearances in America and Europe. Now, Aussie audiences get to experience HANABIE. as they hit the stage this weekend for Good Things Festival, along with a show supporting Limp Bizkit, and their own headlining gigs in Brisbane and Melbourne. https://youtu.be/fuFbQ-Mewfw?si=sAFNyzNb60IQMNlRWe’re in for a treat – HANABIE. joins a growing list of bands from Japan’s explosive metal and rock scene that’s garnered a loyal and dedicated fanbase overseas. There’s good reason for that – like their peers such as Crystal Lake and Crossfaith, HANABIE. offer a hyperactive mix of Metalcore and EDM, but with a bit of a twist in drawing influence from the colourful fashion and style found in the Tokyo district of Harajuku, earning the term ‘Harajuku-Core.’ With such a buzz around them, naturally when the offer came Wall Of Sound was more than happy to jump on a Zoom call... Hello HANABIE., and welcome to Australia! Would you mind introducing yourselves?Yukina: Hi, I’m Yukina, vocalist! Matsuri: I’m Matsuri, guitar and vocalist. Hettsu: And I’m Hettsu, bassist… Chika: And I’m Chika, drummer! Congratulations on such an exciting year! I started following you when I saw the video for ‘Pardon Me, I Have To Go Now,’ and you just seem to have had an exciting year with your first world tour and you released your first major album. Have you had much of a chance to take the excitement in?All: Thank You! (All laugh) A little bit. Yukina: Only feeling a little bit of the success. I keep seeing the phrase ‘Harajuku Core’ being used when describing HANABIE. – could you describe what that means, and what do you love the most about the area of Harajuku? Hettsu: So how we started using ‘Harajuku Core’ - this phrase actually came from overseas fans. They were talking about a lot of ‘Harajuku Core’ and they were commenting on Harajuku and we thought that this word really matched our music and our thinking. So that's why we started using ‘Harajuku Core’ quite a lot. As for our favourite places there…um… Yukina: Do you know Kitty Land? Hettsu: Ah, Kitty Land! Kitty Land is in Harajuku and it's like a toy shop. Yukina: That's one of our favourite! We’re looking forward to having you down for Good Things Festival – what can Aussie crowds expect from your show?Matsuri: If you listen to us live, there's only certain things that you can feel from us through the live music. Yukina: So hopefully the audience will come and enjoy our live music there and feel our music live. Matsuri: Look forward to it! [gallery type="rectangular" columns="2" ids="https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/yukina.jpg|Yukina,https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/hettsu.jpg|Hettsu,https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/matsuri.jpg|Matsuri,https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/chika.jpg|Chika"]Your music crosses a wide range of genres, from metalcore to dance music – what kind of bands did you listen to growing up?Matsuri: The four of us are all from different places in Japan, so I guess we have different music that we heard as we grew up. But we started copying a band called Maximum The Hormone, that's the band we started to copy, and that's probably the core to us four as the music we kind of grew up with. You seem to have a lot of fun making your music videos – I enjoyed the video for 'TOUSOU (Run Away)' - where do your ideas come from?Matsuri: The word ‘TOUSOU’ is ‘run away.’ When we were at an early stage, we had an idea, an image in our mind that we would separate the part into like one person running away and the other person chasing after. So that was kind of the image that we had, and then as we went along we thought that running away - it's like a kind of a thing that everybody has in their life, that you sometimes really want to run away from something. So we thought that in our music video, we would try to express that. And so, in the music video, you can see that we are running around, and sirens are going. Yukina: It's kind of the expression about human nature that there is something that we're always running away from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9cC2_V7JwEI love the combination of Matsuri’s clean vocals and Yukina’s heavy screams – how did you learn to do heavy vocals?Yukina: So when I was in high school, as I told you, we started to copy the band Maximum The Hormone. I was listening to their music, and I was trying to copy the way they were singing. I started to want to learn more. And I checked many places and learned about it. And we had many live concerts and I think my throat got gradually stronger and I think I was getting used to having that voice out. And yeah - that's how it turned out! I've had your album on repeat in my car for a while, I love how you transition from a cute style of vocals to the heavy growl - it just blows me away every time!Yukina: Thank you! Aside from getting on stage, what else are you looking forward to seeing in Australia?Chika: Fish and chips! Ha, yes, I can recommend doing that in Sydney if you can. Finally, I've got just one more question for you – you’ve been in a band for about eight years now, if you could go back and share some advice when you were just starting, what would it be?Yukina: I wanted to tell myself eight years ago - you gotta exercise! Get some stamina there. (Laughs) Ah, yes, for standing on stage - fair enough! Thank you very much for the chat and I can't wait to see you in Australia!All: Thank you so much! Interview by Simon Valentine (@SimonValentineAU)
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Good Things Festival 2023
Friday December 1st – Flemington Racecourse, Melb (LIC AA 15+)
Saturday December 2nd – Centennial Park, Syd (18+)
Sunday December 3rd – RNA Showgrounds, Bris (LIC AA 15+) - SOLD OUT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTuPwVYHc_M
