Interview with Uchusentai NOIZ at Animazement

Back in the USA for the first time in three years, Uchusentai NOIZ made their east coast debut with two brand new members at the Animazement 2009 convention in North Carolina. Shortly before their first concert that weekend, JaME caught up with the band for a short interview.


Could you please introduce and tell us something about yourselves?

KYO: I'm super vibrator, KYO. I'm a very cute purple guy!
ANGEL-TAKA: That's his image color!
YAMATO: I'm machinegun beat grappler, YAMATO. I like meat. (everyone laughs)
ANGEL-TAKA: I'm angel voice ANGEL-TAKA. Right now, I'm in the middle of studying English. (in English) Study hard!
KOTARO: I'm neo eccentric guitar, KOTARO. I love sushi. (laughs)
MASATO: I'm hyper sonic guitar, MASATO. I am a genius. (everyone laughs)

How was your flight here?

KYO: My butt hurt!
ANGEL-TAKA: Yeah, definitely!
YAMATO: I drank three bottles of wine.
MASATO: ANGEL-TAKA usually can't drink, but he drank scotch before he got on the plane, so he passed out for about ten hours.
ANGEL-TAKA: Before I realized it, we were here already! WOW!

For the new members, could you tell us your story and about your roles in the space rangers?

YAMATO: I used to be an alien on my home planet, but one day, I felt that I wanted to save the Earth. From there, I eventually started becoming a human being, so I asked to join the space rangers and they said okay!
KOTARO: I am a knight from the Rozen planet. One day, I was in the middle of chasing a monster and from there, I met with the members of the space rangers and felt that I wanted to save peace on earth. That's how I joined.

It's been almost three years since your last American appearance at a convention. Would you say you've changed since that time?

ANGEL-TAKA: How we feel as a band hasn't changed since that time. We still want to protect peace on Earth with our music. The only thing that has really changed is the fact that our recording company has changed and become Universal. It's become easier for us to go and promote overseas.

One of the events you're having this weekend is a Rock Band video game battle with selected fans. Are you fans of the game yourselves? Do you think there's a chance you might get beat?

Uchusentai NOIZ: (all burst out laughing)
KYO: As professionals, we can't really lose! (all laugh)
ANGEL-TAKA: The game is really awesome. As a musician, the game is actually very hard to play!
KYO: It's hard but we're pros! (all laugh)
MASATO: In Japan, one of our songs is on a game like this, it's really hard to play.
ANGEL-TAKA: Yeah, it is difficult. It's our song, BAD MUSIC FREAKS. It's in one of the versions of Guitar Freaks, which is a very similar game in Japan. It's very hard. The introduction is like, BAM! KOTARO is actually really good at the game, right?
KOTARO: About eight years ago, I used to be really into it. I used to be able to clear every single song, there were no songs I couldn't clear. Because we're going to be playing it two days from now, I went to the game center just as practice to go and play, and I started playing it. In the beginning, people were watching, I was like oh, I can do this, I do this, but pretty much the second half of the game, I failed and it was game over.
KYO: When you have a girl watching you, you can play it better? (laughs) Is that what you're saying?
(everyone laughs)
ANGEL-TAKA: I guess it's kind of like that for all the guys!
(everyone laughs)

In the MAGICAL DIVE PV, ANGEL-TAKA is seen running from clowns. What is the clowns' significance? And the meaning of the toothbrushes in the briefcase at the end?

ANGEL-TAKA: (laughs) About the toothbrushes, I had heard on the radio that children in the Philippines couldn't afford toothbrushes, so what happened was that they started getting cavities, and the cavities got so bad they'd have to pull their actual permanent teeth out. When I heard that, I felt that NOIZ should collect toothbrushes. When we asked for donations and collected them, we got about 12,000 toothbrushes, and I brought them to the Philippines and I handed each toothbrush to each child. The song that was created from that memory was MAGICAL DIVE. The keyword within the PV was toothbrush, and the significance with the clowns is that a clown is something that makes children laugh, so that's the reason I embedded that in there.
KYO: But you are running from the clowns...
ANGEL-TAKA: It's showing the significance of someone being chased after and being rushed to do things, but you can't forget what matters. That's why I'm running from them.

All of your PVs have interesting concepts. Whose concepts are they?

ANGEL-TAKA: All of the members put together their concepts.

Last year, you participated in the pro-wrestling event 'Miracle Rocket ~2nd Impact~' that collaborated music and wrestling together. What was that like? Why did you decide on this collaboration?

ANGEL-TAKA: (laughs)
KYO: It was really interesting, because we are very strong men! (laughs)
ANGEL-TAKA: The reason why we did that was because it was interesting. Also there was a wrestler named Mask Man, and his mask was called 'noise mask.' Because of that, we did the collaboration. He's very well known for doing aerial acrobatic moves, and we just simply thought it was really interesting and fun, so that's why we collaborated.
KYO: It wasn't really too much of a deeply thought out thing. (laughs)

The BRAND NEW WORLD single that just came out has two different jackets: one with a perfect egg and one with a cracked egg. Is this meant to be symbolic?

MASATO: The actual egg is actually the same thing. Depending on who looks at it and how they take it, things could be taken two different ways. One way could be someone who wants something perfect, or another could be someone who wants just the insides. That person will take the cracked one. We embedded that message within the actual song. There are wars going on, where people are trying to protect their sacred area, and others that are trying to take over their sacred area. We feel what they're trying to do is really stupid, so that's why we just keep on trying to give that message out to everybody.

Lastly, could you please give a message to your fans?

MASATO: I was a genius. (laughs)
KOTARO: A message... (thinks)
KYO: Say something simple! (laughs)
KOTARO: Please look after us! (laughs)
ANGEL-TAKA: It's been three years since the last time we were here, but we don't want to keep a big gap like that anymore, so we are going to try to come here as often as possible!
YAMATO: And then, you could always come over to Japan! Come on! We'll be waiting!
(everyone laughs)
KYO: Please read this, have more interest in us and like us more! Like me more! (laughs)

Thank you!

Uchusentai NOIZ: Thank you!


JaME would like to thank Harry Lo, JhouseRock Ent., Midori Maejima, Animazement and Uchusentai NOIZ for making this interview possible.