MyFoodeeBlog had a great and extensive talk with the leader of one of the most important metal/rock magazines in the world, Mr. Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer. The talks goes from BABYMETAL and their intricate and complex musical project. Also they talk about Pop, Metal and Rock music and the music industry. Read the whole talk below.
Dom Lawson: "They’re all new to the metal world, but they love it"
I was down in London a few weeks ago and bumped into Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer and Tom Smith director of JPU records and we had a chat about the band and about why Western music is so much better than that boring Japanese stuff.
Dom Lawson / Dom
Me / CMQ
Tom Smith / TS
Dom
"Gimme Choco, it was one of them that went viral and it became a ‘thing’ everyone was discussing. And I think we like the sound of our voices quite a lot in this country so there’s a lot of
debate about it and why, especially in metal circles, [it went viral].
I think the key moment was Sonisphere because people didn’t know what to expect! The album hadn’t been released in a proper way; nobody had put out any adverts saying the album is available or anything like that, so it had all been word of mouth up to that point. At Sonisphere – which is obviously a festival – where Iron Maiden and Metallica were headlining, it’s 90% metalheads [so] you’d think it could have gone either way; you don’t know if they were going to win people over or get mugged, but within thirty seconds of coming on the stage there’s five, six, seven thousand people all smiling and totally getting into it. So I think that moment, once they’d won over the metal fans then that’s it, that’s all they needed to do because there’s a lot of people here who are totally into Japanese culture; there’s a real nerdy, Japanese fandom thing here, so that means a lot of them loved them from the start and [who] already knew about [the band], but I think it was the metal audience that was the big audience, more than the pop audience, because the music is so heavy – it’s going to freak out the pop audience, [but] I think pop fans [can] get into it but there’s a leap there."
CMQ
"There is. Radio One tried to play them during the day, and they played the Gimme Choco!, which is still quite a savage track."
Dom
"Yeah yeah, it’s great!"
CMQ
"They gave it a shot, but I think they got too many complaints. And I think to get that crossover appeal they need to forfeit the heavier side of the music [and focus on the pop side]. Is that
something you could comment on?"
Dom
"I think so. I think it’s rock and metal fans are going to get it because they are already attuned to heavy music and the only barrier is getting metal fans and rock fans to listen to
something that is so obviously pop, and not even in a hazy grey area; it’s blatantly Japanese pop sung by squeaky voiced 14 and 15 year old Japanese girls dressed in strange [dresses]. And we
were talking about it earlier, there’s nothing even sexualised about it; it’s not like how pop is marketed in the West; it’s very much a Japanese thing, which makes it exotic, which makes it
intriguing to people, I think it makes people laugh – which is a very British thing – when we see something weird and we laugh about it."
CMQ
"It’s good to talk about the first one [Gimme Choco] which I thought was pretty off-the-wall but then there’s another one called BABYMETAL DEATH, which just has them jumping up and down on
stage."
Dom
"I know, that’s their intro track."
CMQ
"And I think what’s so important about them is that they’re so visually [strong]. And I think I lost the plot seeing these girls dancing to this ridiculously heavy music."
Dom
"Yes! As I said it really works. At metal hammer we’ve covered [them] quite a lot and we’ve had the online whingers going “it’s not metal, it’s not metal!” but you can’t even take that as
being serious because it is so metal at every level! And the band are the most amazing musicians, they’re ridiculous, virtuoso fucking metal players, it’s as heavy as anything else out there in
modern metal."
CMQ
"The Kami Band remind me of the golden age of rock with the neo-classical players like Jason Becker, Joey Tuffola and Yngwei Malmsteen and all those guys, and they remind me of why I started
to like metal."
Dom
"Some of the music is traditional heavy metal and power metal, I mean there’s a more modern edge to a lot of it with the electronics going on and the bits that drop into reggae and dubstep
and all the synths, but actually the core of it is traditional heavy metal really. It’s just the melodies are pop melodies but the best heavy metal is pop in that way, like “Run To The Hills” is
a pop song, it’s just a really heavy pop song and Enter Sandman has got a massive hook, so I think it’s less of a leap than a lot of people think."
CMQ
"And that’s the main reason that I’m here, having not looked at any metal in twenty years! The hooks are like massive claws that you just can’t escape."
Dom
"Yes! And the fact that it’s sung in Japanese makes no difference at all: it’s catchy. And the people at Sonisphere were singing along in a kind of phonetic way, because they’ve got no idea what they’re singling along to. And the fact that the girls look like they’re having an amazing time doing it. When I did an interview for Metal Hammer, they’re [the girls] not stupid; they know what’s going on, and they’re all very professional. They’re all new to the metal world, but they love it. It’s infectious, the child like gleam they’ve got."
CMQ
"That makes the music more heavy in a weird way, if it was a guy singing it would be heavy enough but when it’s the girls singing it becomes more menacing as well."
Dom
"Yes! I know what you mean! there is something really quite twisted about it, I think that’s why a lot of metal fans don’t like it, but that’s a good sign because if it wasn’t like that it
wouldn’t have as many fans as it has because it polarises people. I think it’s odd enough that it appeals to people on that note; there’s been quite a lot of metal bands recently that have tried
to be poppy and yet stay heavy by doing some cover stuff, and real metal fans, like diehards, aren’t having it at all because it’s not aimed at them, it’s aimed at 14 year old girls. Whereas
this, who the fuck is this aimed at? I’ve no idea! Well Japan some would say, but to be to more specific? it looks like to be a really varied crowd out there."
CMQ
"I spoke to Kai [Kobayashi, Babymetal producer] about half an hour ago and I asked him why everything happened so quickly and he’s still shocked and doesn’t know why it’s
happened."
Dom
"I think it’s because it’s so very different from everything else and because it works visually, it’s gold for the internet. It happened on the internet before anything else and as soon as it became a ‘thing’ that everyone was talking about, they were always going to be able to draw a crowd. But I honestly think the speed at which that they managed to play this place and sell it out and Kai was like “we never expected this at all” “we didn’t expect Sonisphere to go so well”. They originally booked the Electric Ballroom not the Forum and it sold out in 10 minutes, so they moved to the Forum but that sold out in a day. It’s taken them by surprise as well, but I think it’s just one of those things; it’s so fresh because it’s so alien to us, it’s an odd combination, but it’s done so brilliantly. There’s a lot of really generic music going on, a lot of predictable tame stuff which is really popular, but if you’re looking for something a bit off the wall this is that to the power of ten!"
CMQ
"There’s some really interesting bands coming out of Japan, there’s this band called “BiS” who I think have split up now and a band called Nacronomidol who mix really ethnic folk with really dark synthy thrashy songs. But you don’t really get that over here, I don’t know why, we don’t get that level of experimentation here that they do in Japan. Why do you think that is?"
Dom
"I think it’s very difficult to say without spending a lot of time in Japan; everything has developed independently from the rest of the world and they do things differently. Like over there
pop music isn’t Mr Cowell making shit pop music, it’s a legitimate art form and people are like “Well, that’s fine, that’s a thing, we’re quite comfortable with that” and it’s a totally different
attitude here. There are bands that experiment, but especially here in the UK we’re so enthralled with what’s going on in America. America drives musical movements to such an extent that even
something original here becomes a cult thing, not a huge thing. And we were talking about this earlier: when I was ten years old, Adam And The Ants were having number one hits with really odd,
strange records that wouldn’t get near the charts today. If Adam Ant put out ant music today it wouldn’t be in the charts because it’s just too odd, so I think people have become very
conservative as far as music goes. It’s all homogenised guitar stuff."
CMQ
"So how did that happen?"
Dom
"I’m not sure. A lot of it is down to the music industry having to play it safe to keep their jobs. Back in the day you could invest into a band and by the third album they might be something really huge or just something really interesting with a cult following. But now the record labels are investing in sure-fire things like bland singer songwriters and they think “that’s good, let’s get pharrell on it”, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s a tried and tested thing now."
CMQ
"Western pop music is just boring. Really, it’s just the same C major scale, there’s too much attention on the production than on the songs and songwriting."
Dom
"I also think people are less tribal than they were when I was a kid. When I was seventeen I was a metal head and I’ve always listened to all kinds of music but I really culturally identified with metal so I spent my time listening to metal, whereas now we’re exposed to so much and our attention spans are so short that they’re not really looking for a strong identification with a culture or a scene, so as a result they just pick on the new thing, they listen to one track from an album, they don’t care as much"
TS
"Do you notice that with Metal Hammer’s readers, are they more exposed to general music rather than just being metal fans?"
Dom
"Well, I think people are buying the magazine because they like metal for the most part, and they’re an older audience; only people over twenty five give a shit about buying a magazine, the younger readers we have, however many there are, they don’t really understand what magazines are for “I can get all of that online for free” and “I’ve heard that album before the journalist” – in some cases. [If] it’s engaging that younger audience, we have to do different things; we can’t give them a magazine with substantial articles and expect them to find it interesting. It’s a short attention span thing as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got two kids, eleven and six, and the idea of getting them to read something without bright colours… it’s not going to happen! So I think that’s the same as the current generation who grew up with the internet and spend all day on Instagram and can just Google anyone. You can pick and choose stuff that we didn’t when I was a kid buying vinyl; you bought an album and you listened to it four hundred times, because you had to wait and save up your pocket money to buy the next one and that just doesn’t exist anymore. You can just go on the internet and download the entire discography in half an hour and delete it ten minutes later because you don’t like it. It’s a different mindset and I’m not like “ooh the modern age is terrible” well… it is! But it’s just different so you have to offer people something else. So some magazines have to do a digital version that you can’t get anywhere else and hopefully people pay a subscription to get that stuff but paying for stuff is alien to kids these days “why would I do that?”."
TS
"I get that because I run a record label too and people don’t want to pay for stuff, they just say “oh I’ll download it later” but that’s no good if you’re trying to make money."
Dom
"Exactly, a lot of labels are like if we do release something it’s a box set or a swanky new edition."
TS
"It has to be."
Dom
"But that’s aimed at the hardcore or people over thirty who see the band like an artifact. But I think vinyl is picking up among younger people as well because they’re realizing there’s
something really rewarding about owning an album and artwork and everything else; it’s not something that’s suddenly become shit, it’s just that people have got other shiny things to distract
them, and for me personally I like the fact that everything I owned as a kid on vinyl is being reissued."
TS
"Do you have original first pressings?"
Dom
"Yes, [but getting back to owning records] it’s all swanky box sets and remastered but I love all that stuff. I’m a sucker for it and I love collecting records but the idea of doing that today
it’s like “why would you if you can just download it for nothing?”"
TS
"Maybe it’s just Japanese music only, but the fans are buying the actually physical [product] rather than the download because they want the actual physical thing, the booklet to look through, they seem to view it more as merchandise, so I’m really happy that people are still engaged that way."
Dom
"Oh totally and I think metal is particularly good for that, there’s a loyalty there which you don’t get from pop fans who are fans of the group until they grow out of it or something else and
then they start listening to U2 and give up on music altogether! Whereas with metal fans, generally, once a metal fan, always a metal fan. And of course there’s always going to be people who nick
stuff on the internet but there is a sense that “I’ll go to the show and buy a t-shirt and when the album comes out I’ll buy the special edition because I want to support the band” because you’re
part of something."
TS
"Yeh, that’s what it feels like."
Dom
"And I think there are other sub-cultures that it’s true of as well. But it’s not with mainstream culture, because that’s not how the mainstream is consumed now at all."
TS
"It’s good for metal!"
Dom
"Exactly. If we can keep providing metal fans with something they want to read then there will always be an audience for it. But I imagine if you’re doing a magazine for boy bands, you know that in five years time if there isn’t a One Direction, then what do you do? There’s got to be a new one, hopefully, because if there isn’t, you’re fucked aren’t you? Whereas metal fans will be there for thirty or forty years, although they’d probably start buying classic rock instead, so they can read about Led Zeppelin, but that’s fine you know!"
