BABYMETAL was interviewed by NY Daily fron New York City to talk about their upcoming new album "Metal Resistance", their return to New York, the success after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert performance. The interview includes a new promotional photo. Read below.
BABYMETAL interviewed on NY Daily
At first glance, death metal and pop music mix as well as oil and water, orange juice and toothpaste, the Starks and the Lannisters. Yet BABYMETAL is shaking the cages of metalheads and challenging the laws of rock with their candy-coated sonic steel. The teenage trio delivered saccharine hooks and synchronized dance moves with their ghastly Kami Band shredding behind them at the PlayStation Theater in Times Square on Wednesday night.
“We're happy to be back for our second performance in New York. I believe the enthusiasm to BABYMETAL is universal,” singer Moametal said in Japanese, through a translator, before the performance. “They have the same amount of passion and love, whether it's in Japan, or the U.S. or any other country.”
BABYMETAL's singers — Su-metal (Suzuka Nakamoto), Yuimetal (Yui Mizuno), Moametal (Moa Kikuchi) — spun off from an earlier group, Sakura Gakuin, a band of Japanese idol pop girls formed in 2010. Even though they had never listened to metal music, Sakura Gakuin producer Kobametal (Key Kobayashi) had “strong affinity for both heavy metal and idol music,” leading to the concept of BABYMETAL.
The girls soon found themselves headlining concerts alongside hefty, established acts like Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Metallica. The kawaii-metal thrashers were introduced to the mainstream U.S. audience after appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in April.
“The interesting thing was, the very next day, we were on board a plane to Los Angeles. The flight attendants already knew who we were from seeing the show the previous night — ‘I know you! You are BABYMETAL,’” Yuimetal said. “They gave us a lot more snacks and sweets than they usually do.”
Japan is well known for incubating trends that rise and fall as quickly as the sun, barely allowing the ripples time to reach U.S. shores before they're on to the next one. Yet BABYMETAL's meteoric rise continues two years after their self-titled debut album. In that time, they speedily dropped a second record, “METAL RESISTANCE,” at the end of March. The album came after a string of international performances, including five dates opening for Lady Gaga during her 2014 “artRave” tour.
“METAL RESISTANCE” debuted at No. 38 on the Billboard 200 at the beginning of April — the first Japanese album to appear on U.S. Billboard’s Top 40 in 53 years, since Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki and Other Japanese Hits” in 1963. The album's melodic metal track “THE ONE” has Su-metal singing completely in English for the first time.
“There are a lot of meanings (of) the song. The fan club is called ‘THE ONE.’ We want to gather everyone together as one, transcending any barrier of language and culture,” Su-metal explained.
Over the next few months, the band hopes to perfect their set as they eye a Sept. 19 homecoming at Japan's prestigious Tokyo Dome, a 55,000-seat arena. They've already played London's legendary Wembley Stadium, which one music blogger called ‘one of the most bonkers shows ever witnessed.’ It's a brave new BABYMETAL world — with headbanging cute kids in evil schoolgirl uniforms, belting out pop anthems between speed metal solos — and the hype is real. Over half the dates on their U.S. tour have already sold out.
Up next: complete world domination.
“Our aim is to bring everyone together through BABYMETAL's music,” said Su-metal.
“Overseas fans have actually studied (Japanese) to sing along with BABYMETAL and gained interest in Japanese culture.”
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Interview by: New York Daily.
Read more about BABYMETAL at PlayStation Theater.
BABYMETAL Newswire's Show report, click here.
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