‘We were treated like enemies of society’: Japan’s dangerous punk scene returns to its roots | punk

A A few years after punk’s initial shock and horror inspired thousands of teenagers to let their hair up and learn three chords, the genre morphed into hardcore: a leaner, fiercer, fiercely independent hybrid that would soon tear up squats, church halls and bars around the world.

Forty-five years later, hardcore is enjoying a moment in the mainstream thanks to bands like Turnstile, Speed, and Knocked Loose. There are hardcore bands on talk shows, in fast food ads, and on $40 T-shirts — all things that ’80s artists might have swallowed.

Anyone yearning for the original underdog spirit of hardcore might consider looking to Japan, and a host of recent reissued albums documenting the early hardcore scene there. “It was very violent and scary,” says Ishiya, frontman of Death Side, one of Japan’s most important hardcore acts (he and many of his punk peers reject monikers or use stage names). “At every party, someone gets beat up, and you never know when it might be your turn. That tension was something you could never experience in normal life – it was exciting.”

Tokyo alone was home to a host of foundational acts such as GISM, Gauze, Comes and The Execute – and later Death Side, Bastard and Tetsu Arrey – all of whom performed some of the angriest and most exciting punk acts of the late 1980s and early 1990s. But for all the camaraderie that bands find on stage, on tour, and in sweaty, moody crowds, being a punk band in Japan can be isolating.

“Our basic stance was rebellion against society and ‘common sense,’ so of course we chose a look that mainstream society wouldn’t accept,” says Ischia, who was sporting a towering purple mohawk. “In Japan, the pressure to conform is very strong, and we were subjected to discriminatory treatment simply because we looked different. On trains we were shunned by people, and when we looked for work, we were excluded. We were treated like enemies of society.”

One of the earliest bands to emerge on the scene was Lip Cream. Bassist Minoru Ogawa used to spend his time at Japanese record store chain UK Edison “digging through the few hardcore records they had” and asking staff for recommendations, eventually focusing on Western hardcore songwriters like Discharge, Chaos UK, Dead Kennedys and Disorder: “I was always looking for fast beats.”

He had already cut his teeth with Comes, a raw punk act and machete whose enigmatic singer Cheetos was inspired by The Damned and The Stranglers, whom he saw on a trip to London. Ogawa resigned, but was then asked if Comes might submit instrumental tracks for a compilation LP. “I just made something up on the spot: ‘We’ll do it! We actually got a new band!” “We’re called Lip Cream,” I said randomly.

To keep his word, Ogawa drafted drummer Aburadako Maru and former Comes guitarist Naoki, and the band eventually released four albums containing some of the most brilliant Out of Control songs of the era. “Everything I went through during the ‘Comes’ period ended up being a stronger driver with the lip cream,” Ogawa says. “It wasn’t that I wanted to change What I did, I just wanted to keep moving.

Elsewhere, there was also a short-lived act called The Nurse who made their mark as one of the first all-female bands in the world. At the age of 16, singer Nico – a fan of GBH and Discharge – recruited members through Doll, a Japanese magazine. “My family was against playing punk music,” she says, and they would be surprised when she would leave the house “wearing heavy, eccentric make-up and weird outfits. I would go to parties at Tsubaki House in Shinjuku, and it would cause problems when I stayed out late.”

In this first burst of Tokyo noise, Ishiya’s band Death Side released two landmark albums, a breakout release with Ishiya Chaos UK artists and a scattered collection of EPs, all between 1987 and 1994. “The feeling was: ‘I want to do something myself.’ “A punk band was something anyone could do,” he says. “I got an instrument cheaply and practiced it, couldn’t control it, and decided I wanted to be the vocalist. Hardcore punk was perfect for expressing the desperate rage of my teenage years.”

Ishiya has a number of theories about why the violence became so widespread, ranging from the traditional worldview of the samurai to the country’s post-World War II trauma. Other reasons are more prosaic. “Basically, people who couldn’t fit into this thing called society — school, companies, etc. — were all labeled as deviants,” he says. “When these types of people come together, I think violence naturally erupts.”

This tendency was then amplified by bands like GISM, whose leader Sakivi had a knack for attacking journalists and using a flamethrower on stage. “Because of GISM’s violent performance, there was a feeling of hardcore gigs king “You have to be violent,” Ischia says. “It made gigs a kind of extraterritorial space where normal rules don’t apply.”

Trouble came when the villains returned to regular society. Zigyaku, a guitarist frankly named Bastard, was turned away from venues and jobs, and couldn’t rent a room because of his appearance. He played with Judon and Half Years in Hiroshima before moving to Tokyo, where he became instantly captivated by the city’s chaotic rhythm. “The first thing I felt was that everyone was just flying,” he laughs. “All these people seemed crazy, so I thought I’d be a crazy person too. There were a lot of hardcore bands; there were parties everywhere every week. Time passed so quickly. It was like the Ryugu-jo in Japanese folklore” – a tale in which the story’s hero visits the temple of the dragon god Ryūjin for what seems like a few days, then returns home to find that centuries have passed.

But in addition to his daily hardships, there were others as Bastard made his way across the country, incinerating audiences with the indomitable, screaming songs he perfected on their 1992 album, Wind of Pain. “Bastard was never a violent band, but we still had a lot of problems,” he says. “The bad guys are prominent, so they can be easily noticed by the police and the yakuza. On Bastard’s tour with Cruck, Mad Conflux, and Pile Driver, there were problems in every city.” However, like Ichiya, it seems like Zijiaku wouldn’t have it any other way. “Being a punk puts you in the minority, and there’s value in that,” he says. “If more than half of Japan’s population became immoral, I think the world would be even more disgusting!”

Despite their close proximity, each of these bands has maintained a distinct sound and identity. “There was a sense of rivalry, but I think it was more like sharpening each other,” says Ischia, now an author and punk music historian. “It was a great relationship where we were going head-to-head and lifting each other up.” This unbridled individualism was mirrored elsewhere in Japan, where bands such as Confuse, Disclose, SOB, Mobs, Crow, and Nightmare transformed hardcore music into bizarre and deviant forms.

As for Why These teams were so authentic that most players offered only a shrug of the shoulders in response. But Isiah finds a specific reason. “The musical lineage is different from the lineage found abroad,” he points out. “Abroad, rock music is played in ordinary homes, but in Japan in the 1960s or 1970s such a thing would have been unthinkable.” It highlights how Japanese music was instead rooted in bland forms like geinō kayōkyoku, enka and folk – meaning punk was always going to shine brighter in Japan. “If someone rebels, they are likely to move in a unique direction.”