SEKAI NO OWARI can fill an stadium, which holds 70,000
Interview Conducted on February 14, 2018
By Dan Locke
SEKAI NO OWARI is currently one of Japan’s most popular and skilled creative groups.
The group is comprised of four distinctly talented members: Nakajin (group leader, lead guitar, sound production); Fukase (lead vocals, group conceptualist); Saori (stage production, piano); and the masked clown DJ LOVE (sonic palette, comedic stage banter).
These four childhood friends grew even closer while collectively managing the live music venue clubEARTH, which they built from the ground up. The members were living on the premises as they developed the concept and direction of what would eventually become SEKAI NO OWARI.
Now their combined passion and deep personal connections have led to unprecedented success as one of Japan’s premier music acts, culminating with their latest album, Tree, (January 2015) charting at #1 on the hit charts.
And in July of 2015 they performed two sold out shows at Japan’s largest venue, Nissan Stadium. Roughly the size of London’s Olympic Stadium, Nissan Stadium seats 70,000 people and both shows sold out in a matter of hours.
The group’s originality and creativity known as “TOKYO FANTASY” are highlighted by their massive fantasy stage setup, a high-concept, reality-redefining magic treehouse and exotic town known as “TOKYO FANTASY”. Such fearlessness in stage design and entertainment value has become the envy of the Japanese music industry.
SEKAI NO OWARI have performed all over Japan, including a 9 city, 15 performance arena tour that brought in more than 200,000 fans, and have sold out the legendary Budokan (of Beatles fame). With multiple commercial tie-ins, features in TV and movies, they have conquered the Japanese music scene.
And now, after years of preparation, SEKAI NO OWARI is ready to take their originality and imaginative shows to music fans all over the world.
Unratedmagazine: Your band is comprised of four distinctly talented members: Nakajin (group leader, lead guitar, sound production); Fukase (lead vocals, group conceptualist); Saori (stage production, piano); and the masked clown DJ LOVE (sonic palette, comedic stage banter). How did you guys get together?
SEKAI NO OWARI: We are childhood friends, all friends of Fukase.
Fukase met Saori in pre-school, Nakajin in elementary school, DJ LOVE at high school. We then started building studio/live venue in old factory site and named it clubEARTH near Haneda airport. And we have been making music there before our debut.
How did you get interested in music?
SEKAI NO OWARI
We all have different musical background; I think we had love for punk music in common. Saori comes from classical music background. Since we’ve started the band, the goal was to make music for people, to make people happy rather than writing something we liked and enjoyed. It’s better if we all can enjoy together.
What type of music did you grow up with? Plus give me some of the artist?
DJ LOVE: I was shocked when I first heard Rage Against the Machine; I started to listen to punk rock since, like Rancid, NOFX, The Offspring, to Ramones and Clash.
How do you describe your music?
We often get asked what is the genre of End of the World’s music. Always had hard time to define End of the World by genre. Our music is like a chameleon changing colours from song to song.
You guys lived together before you became a band. How did this go?
Living together is very important to us. The more you spend together and share moments, we can have mutual memories so we all know what we are taking about because we all seen and done everything together.
As I understand it SEKAI NO OWARI actually means End of the World. This could be good or bad for a band like Chevy had a car called Nova. And in France it meant bad car. Do you have any trouble with your name in different countries?
End of the world can give negative connotation but we started the band when Ukase hit the rock bottom in his life, and it was also a starting point for him and for the band. So we see a really positive meaning behind “Ending”.
Tree charted at #1 on the charts and soon you were playing sold out shows in Japan’s largest venue.
SEKAI NO OWARI
Nissan Stadium. It held over 70,000 people. With two show playing back to back, were you nervous to play such a large crowd?
Of course we were nervous to play at such a big stadium. But once we stood in front of 70,000people we’ve past that nervousness and there was actually a rush of happiness and excitement.
SEKAI NO OWARI have performed all over Japan that brought in 100,000s of fans. You are the biggest thing in Japan since the Beatles. How do you feel you are so famous in a short time being a band?
Really grateful for all the support and love we get. But there are more people who don’t know about us than who knows us in the world. There are so much more we can do.
How did you get pick as the official theme song for the movie “Attack on Titan”?
We were really honored to receive an offer from the Movie side to write the song.
Any other ongoing projects?
We want to be making a lot of music for both SEKAI NO OWARI and End of the World this year!! We will be starting Japan tour in April as SEKAI NO OWARI which is really exciting.
You did short US tour back in 2016. Are you going to tour again in 2018?
Yes also touring with Clean Bandit was a great experience. We are discussing the possibility now and we are really excited to visiting many countries to play and meeting new people.
What did you like about the US?
We love how people in America are really energetic and really friendly.
How are the crowd different from the US to Japan?
We get the impression that Japanese fans really listen in when performing whereas American fans seems to enjoy the vibe and be part of it.
What is you’re feeling about Vinyl?
We didn’t have vinyl around growing up, so we never made our own vinyl but definitely interested.
What is the biggest crowd you have play for?
The biggest crowd would have to be Nissan Stadium, 70,000 a day 140,000 across 2 days.
What direction do you see your music heading in the next 5 years and your long term goals of your
SEKAI NO OWARI
music?
What we can say at this point is that we want 4 of us together in 5, 10 years making music.
What music fests would you like to play in?
We would love to play as much festival as possible all around the world.
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If you could pick any cartoon character who would it be and why?
DJ LOVE: I don’t want to be bounty hunter but it would be awesome to be Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop and travel across different planet.
Anything you like to close with?
We are planning to visit as many countries as possible to perform this year, we are really excited to meeting all of fans around the world.
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