Tomo, smiling: “I would say that we are very, very influenced by Damo, so that might be helping the chemistry too.”
Damo: ‘’I gave him 50 euros to say that…’’
Tomo: ‘’When I was 17 I played in a punk-band, and I was listening to bands like Black Flag. But my older sister was already in university and she played me Sing Swan Song by CAN. I thought It sounded so familiar to Japanese, but it isn’t… That was because of Damo’s voice. I was intrigued for sure, I found it interesting but I couldn’t understand yet what they were trying to do. I few years later, when I started to go to Uni myself and listened to more different kinds of music, I heard CAN again. And I instantly remembered that first time I heard Sing Swan Song in my sister’s car. But this time it was so different. I was hugely impressed. I can’t get it out of my mind since.”
Damo: ‘’Now it’s a 100 euros…’’
Tomo: “When I found out the singer was Japanese, I was even more impressed. It gave me so much hope. When you are from Japan, a lot of people just want to be like western musicians. It is because Japanese musicians see a lot of western media on tv and want to play there too, in America or Europe. I grew up like that too. But there’s a big language barrier and also they are scared. Because these worlds are very different. Before, my big examples where always, for example, from the UK. When I play a festival with Kikagaku Moyo now, mostly, we are still the only Asian band. Even when they call it a world music festival.”