Introducing: Your New Favourite Japanese Acoustic-Prog Fusion Duo, GoodMoon
We all know there are so many cool bands coming out of Japan at the moment, and we've found another one! GoodMoon comprises of brothers Kimitaro (Taro) and Tomojiro (Jiro), and they pair complex guitar techniques with their incredibly in-sync vocal harmonies to create unique and exciting music. If you're a fan of Polyphia and other bands who bring intricate guitar work to life, GoodMoon is for you.We had a chat with the brothers to find out more about their music, what it's like being an independent band in Japan, and how much they would love to play in Australia one day.Tell us your origin story! How did you guys begin making music together?Taro: I started playing the guitar when I was 12yo and invited Jiro to play music together.Jiro: I was still 9yo at that time so for the first couple years I was just singing and playing tambourine.Taro: There was a Japanese folk duo we both really liked, we would listen to them all day every day. First, we started covering their songs and just gradually picked up the skill of writing music.Jiro: It was just like two brothers playing together in their house, but instead of video games it was music.Can you describe your sound and what inspires or motivates you to be creative?Jiro: We describe it as “alternative acoustic guitar rock” but some people consider our guitar sound to be a little bit mathy (like math rock) as well.Taro: To keep having this aim that one day we become what we dreamed to be when we were kids is a big motivation. And it keeps us focused on writing good stuff.https://www.instagram.com/p/C2KMj84xRNt/Can you tell us what your most recent song '1.62m/s2' is about?Both: We wrote this song for Takamine guitars’ latest model “ltd2024” and it was themed on the planetary orbits in the solar system. So this song is about cosmic romance and the “1.62m/s2” represents the gravitational acceleration of the moon.What's it like being an independent band in Japan?Taro: It’s pretty free to do anything we wanna do, so it’s fun. And as long as you have a good team, you can manage to live off music. But the thing is once you hope to get more recognition and become super famous, you might need some bigger back-ups, like signing to a major label or something like that.Jiro: The hardest part as an independent band is getting spots in festivals or big events, and getting our songs played on the radio stations, I think.What is a highlight of your career so far?Jiro: The highlight is actually now, I’d say. We were making an album around the end of the last year and just as we were almost finishing all the recording, the hard drive broke and all the recorded files were unable to open. And we still had to finish the song for Takamine guitar by the end of 2023 so we were totally fucked. But we took it as a message that we should just focus on the Takamine song, so we did and after so many song ideas thrown into the trash we finally came up with the song “1.62m/s2”.Taro: I always believed that everything happens for a reason. Before this incident, I wasn’t really in a good place and feeling pretty discouraged and doubtful about my future and almost thinking about giving up on music. But thanks to what happened to us and this hard patch we got through, we became stronger and it made us the most motivated ever.
If you could tour or play in any country, where would you like to go?Both: Definitely Australia!!! We’ve been to many places but not Australia yet, so hopefully we could do an Australian tour sometime soon!Interview by Ebony Story@ebonyrose.s
Keep up with GoodMoon via LinkTree
Stream '1.62m/s2' here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKRPyncPRKk
