When you’re friends for a decade, a lot can change — even more so when you’re working together in a band.
Formed in 2012, Japanese rock band I Don’t Like Mondays. comprise vocalist Yu, drummer Shuki, Kenji on the bass and Choji on the guitar.
According to an interview with JaME in 2022, Yu, 38, originally joined the band as its manager when his friend was gathering members. Shuki, 37, and Kenji, 39, were in its original lineup, while Choji, 39, came along when Yu’s friend dropped out.
“We’ve become more like a family than just friends or colleagues,” said Yu to AsiaOne when they performed in Singapore for the first time on March 1 at *Scape The Ground Theatre for their Toxic Asia Tour.
“It’s been over a decade and within that long time, we’ve gone through lots of things together.”
Shuki remarked that the audience in their first headline show amounted to merely three or four people. He recalled: “We didn’t feel the need to stop performing. We knew we needed to keep going, because everyone starts like that for sure.
“After we decided to go for our major debut, we began to have crowds of about 400 people in our venue. We couldn’t believe that was just our audience and it was really shocking for us at the time.”
‘Passion alone isn’t enough, we need trust and patience’
The band’s biggest challenge occurred in 2018, when things didn’t work out smoothly with their original record label. People had not been consistently attending their live gigs, nor was their salary satisfactory.
Yu recalled that they had to take a leap of faith in changing record labels, which prompted daily discussions between the members. Ultimately, they signed on with Rhythm Zone – an in-house label under Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex Group.
Reflecting on his biggest takeaway from being in the band, Choji said: “Each of us has grown up not only as musicians, but as people too. We’ve learned that passion alone isn’t enough, we need trust and patience.”
He recounted one live gig when his guitar abruptly malfunctioned and he had to fix it on stage in the middle of the set, while the members proceeded with the performance and made up for his parts.
“Even if his guitar sounded off, we needed to keep going and be concerned with our own parts first. Pretend that nothing happened, while letting Choji concentrate on fixing his issue first,” added Shuki. “All of us always trust that the show must go on.”
“We communicate with each other a lot more openly now,” said Kenji. “We’ve learned to respect each other’s individuality more than ever now.”
Going beyond Japan
After the release of Paint — the theme song for popular anime One Piece — in January 2022, I Don’t Like Mondays. shot to global prominence.
“Even before we made our major debut, we’ve always talked about wanting to do so many things and that included going beyond Japan,” said Shuki. “After Covid died down, we could finally do it but it was when we made Paint that things really began to shoot off – it was like our breakout.”
The song led the band to overseas performances in Europe and South America, including Spain, Brazil and Argentina.
They were initially fearful of language barriers when performing abroad but soon realised that music is universal and has no borders.
“When we write songs, we usually think about how our listeners would react in real life. These overseas experiences make it a lot easier for us because we’re able to better imagine the reactions of all our different audiences,” said Shuki.
Their concert in Singapore was their only stop in Southeast Asia and Yu told us what drew them here.
“Singapore feels like the centre of this region, with its multitude of languages and cultures. We wanted the concert venue to emulate our music, which resonates with ‘city vibes’. Our band is influenced by a mix of Japan and other modern cities, so Singapore felt appropriate,” he said.
While this is Choji, Kenji and Shuki’s first visit here, Yu shared that he was here with his family as a child. On their five-day trip here, they told us they wished to try new things together, including eating signature dishes like chilli crab and chicken rice, and taking fun pictures at the iconic Merlion statue.
In a tie-up with cosmetics brand Kate, the band released a new song yesterday (March 3) as part of the official soundtrack for the short movie Kamen Rider Henshin the First. Titled Masquerade, the song tells a sombre narrative of resentment and regret.
Prior to recording Masquerade, the band had to record four other demo songs for the collaboration, which were ultimately rejected as they were “too pop”.
“It was a challenge writing this song as we usually prefer to write brighter, happier songs,” said Yu. “However, the Kamen Rider team and Kate wanted a cooler, darker vibe to Masquerade, so we had to be a little more serious and switch up our vibe.”
The band also released an Instagram Reel yesterday showing Yu singing to Masquerade in front of the iconic Tong Ah Building at Keong Saik Road.
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kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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