EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW! A Night With The Pillows.

A short while back, the Japanese rock band The Pillows finished their Delicious Bump tour with all girl rock band the Noodles. While they were here in Los Angeles we stopped by to catch their show and have a brief chat with them.

The Show

Best known abroad for their songs off the soundtrack of the famed anime series FLCL, the Pillows have been crafting their distinctly unique rock and roll anthems since 1989. The Noodles are an indie band who have been on the Delicious record label started by Pillows front man Sawao Yamanaka since 2001. Their first stop was The El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, where they played a packed house of fans of Japanese music, anime and rock and roll. Opening for them was the all girl up-and-comers The Noodles, who were both vibrant and heartfelt with their songs. Their performance was a more than a warm-up for the fans of The Pillows. This was a first time introduction for many of us western fans to their own brand of rock and roll girl power.

When the Pillows took the stage, they did so with all the presence of rock stars but the humility of good friends. Frontman Sawao asked the question, “Do you know me?”, to which the crowd responded with enthusiastic cheers. Not only did they rock the house with new material, including their recent hit “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!,” they also gave a welcome dose of the songs that broke ground for them stateside. Before playing these old favorites Sawao said, “ Yesterday, I discover music is good, new or old!” then launched the crowd into a mass of kinetic motion with “Ride on Shooting Star.”

By the last encore, the Pillows clearly had the crowd in the palm of their hands as they played “Hybrid Rainbow.” People chanted in unison as Sawao emotionally belted out “Can you feel?” All the while, lead guitarist Manabe Yoshiaki played the chords and seemed to act like a skillful puppeteer moving the crowd with his rhythm. During which, Shinichirou Sato banged away at the drums with precision as he subtly smiled like some sort of Santa Claus bringing the gift of the backbeat. This all came to an end with cool blue stage lights creating a silhouette of Sawao making his hand into an imaginary pistol and shouting us all dead before walking of stage.

The Interviews

After the show, my ragtag crew and I set out to score interviews. Having made connections with one of the event promoters before the show was a good sign, but it was still a daunting task. First things first, we managed to squeeze in just a brief moment with the Noodles lead singer Yoko. Mostly we talked about how she felt about playing in the United States. To this she answered that she was very “happy…” and pleased that Americans seemed much “more expressive..” at concerts. When asked about their influences she answered with no hesitation, “the Breeders”. Hearing some similarities in their music and the American band Sonic Youth, I asked if they too might be an influence. To this she stated that their drummer “Ayumi likes them”. After thanking them for their time, we set out for the more difficult task of trying to get some time with the Pillows.

After talking to everyone from my previous contact, security guards, head of security and then finally connecting with the band promoter, we finally managed to get 15 minutes back stage with the band. Both excited and just a little nervous, my translator, photographer, and audio tech and I headed back stage. There we found the band members having drinks and relaxing.

I introduced myself along with my crew and gave them my sincere thoughts on how the show went.. Sawao kindly offered me a seat on the couch to the right of the chair he was now lounging in and I started with my questions.

Many American fans of your music found out about your music through FLCL? How did you feel about being part of this project?

Ah, at first I wasn’t really interested in FLCL, but the director is a fan of the Pillows and I heard that was the reason he wanted to use our music. So we OKed, but at the time we were not aware of how FLCL is supported or influential world wide. Only because the director was our fan and we were happy about it, and that was the reason we accepted. However, we came to America for the first time three years ago, and discovered most of the people learned about the Pillows because of FLCL, and we were surprised by that. We were glad and grateful. I thought it was a good thing that our music was used as a soundtrack of FLCL.

However, I’m sure you want to be known outside of anime….

Of course.

I definitely feel that you are beginning to do that.

Oh, yes, of course, because in Japan we are not really associated with FLCL or animation at all, but the people who we met outside of Japan, 90% of them are through FLCL.

When I play your music for my friends who don’t know anime and haven’t listened to you before, they really seem to like it.

Yes, that’s how we want people to think…cool.

I’m not just an Anime fan, but also a music fan.

Oh, that’s good.

Who would you say were your major influences?

The Breeders…Do you know the Pixies, bassist Kim Deal, his other band’s name is Breeders..

Yes.

I like them.

Suki desu mo. Translation: “I like them as well”

(points and grins) Ahhh, (nods emphatically)… you like them as well..

The Noodles also like the Breeders…

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…. When the Breeders came to Japan the Noodles opened for them.

About that time we were cued that our time was about up and so I moved to my final question and since it is much more dramatic in visual format I have provided the clip for it here.

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Thus ended our little adventure of interviewing the Pillows and I personally have to say one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

Back Stage with The Pillows

Photos & Video: Ingrid Aquino

Translator: Sally Fujimoto

Author: Jeremy

Jeremy was first introduced to anime with heavily edited versions of Mazinger Z (aka Tranzor Z in the US), GoLion (aka Voltron) and Macross (aka Robotech) while growing up in the 1980's. Since then his tastes have evolved into a fairly eclectic mix of anime with a soft-spot for underdog shonen stories, psychological/cyber-punk stories and select love comedies. Jeremy was also the head organizer of Anime Souffle anime club in Los Angeles. It was at an Anime Souffle meeting where he met Michael Huang and eventually was invited to join as a guest co-host for Scattered Cells Podcast episode #6 in February of 2007. Afterwards he became an official part of the Anime Diet crew.

11 thoughts on “EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW! A Night With The Pillows.

  1. Great stuff – well done on securing an interview!

    It’s always reassuring to see famous people who don’t let the success go to their heads – the band seemed perfectly comfortable with being interviewed and showed good humour too.

    The Pixies/Breeders influence cleared one thing up for me though – I’ve always thought that the catchy lo-fi vibe of the Pillows sounded familiar but I couldn’t place where!

  2. Thanks for the interview with this great great band. Lucky you even got to see them, they never seem to make it past the west coast. Definitely have always heard Pixies/Breeders vibes in their tunes, possibly some Guided By Voices as well which would make sense.

    And I hate to be a correcter, but the lady from the Pixies/Breeders is Kim Deal, not Dale.

  3. Yeah, one of the Pillows song is titled Kim Deal as a tribute to the bassist.

    I guess you could say I was a fan of the band for a very long time, but their new stuff doesn’t do much for me; to each their own though. I always knew that the band generally just made good pop, but its like that feeling you get from following a band that their passion or at least the very reason that you followed them in the first place faded away.

    That said I still like them; its just that I don’t expect too much from them nowadays.

    I’ll add some of the influences the members have:

    Sawao Yamanaka – Nirvana, The Jam, Pixies, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel
    Yoshiaki Manabe – he LOVES Bob Marley, in fact, he has a side solo project called Nine Miles
    Shinichirou Satou – The Clash

    Their Bassist changed two times since their original line-up in the following order: Kenji Ueda, Tatsuya Kashima and currently Jun Suzuki.

  4. Thanks for all the great feedback guys. You are correct Otou-san, it is supposed to be Kim Deal. I think the mistake was originally made in transcription and unfortunately wasn’t caught. It has been corrected. Thanks. 🙂

  5. genial grupo, no es la mejor musica, pero son mis favoritos! no me importan si son unos csms! pero wn me han hecho feliz!

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