Tone Glow 168: Asa-Chang
An interview with the Japanese composer and percussionist about working in the fashion industry, founding the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, and the importance of rhythm in Asa-Chang & Junray's music
Asa-Chang is a Japanese composer and percussionist best known for founding the groups Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and Asa-Chang & Junray. The latter act began in the late 1990s after Asa-Chang became deeply interested in the emergence of “world music.” He sought to create his own fusion of electronic and folk styles, and the group found a hit in their single “Hana.” The track was released in Japan before getting issued in the UK, where it was regularly played on pirate radio stations before getting spun by John Peel. The group finds its name from the “Junray Tronics” soundsystem that Asa-Chang created, with Junray itself being derived from the Japanese word for “pilgrimage.” Asa-Chang started the group with Hidehiko Urayama, releasing the Tabla Magma Bongo EP in 1998. They would add the tabla player U-Zhaan to their group and release Hana (2001) and Tsu Gi Ne Pu (2002) in the years that followed. They have since gone through more lineup changes, with Yoshihiro Goseki and Anzu Suhara rounding out the current iteration. They released their latest studio album, 事件, in 2020. Recently, Asa-Chang & Junray embarked on their first US tour, playing two shows: one in New York at ISSUE Project Room, and one in Philadelphia at the Asian Arts Initiative.
Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Asa-Chang in three different iterations: via Zoom on October 15th, 2024; in person at the Asian Arts Initiative for a public seminar on October 25th, 2024; and through email correspondence. The following interview is an edited collation of these conversations. Thank you to Junko Okada, Tina Hashimoto, and Ann Adachi-Tasch for help with interpretation and translation. This interview is supported by the Asian Arts Initiative.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Where were you born?
Asa-Chang: I was born in Fukushima, a prefecture that’s sadly become known for the [2011 Fukushima nuclear accident]. My family and the environment I grew up in were rather normal, I think.
Were your parents into the arts? Did they foster a love for the arts in your life?
Not at all. There was no art in my environment. But yeah, it was quite a normal [family] with a father who’s a salaryman and a mother who runs a hair salon—that’s what I grew up in.
I know that you initially had a career as a hair stylist and makeup artist. Did that come from spending time with your mother and seeing her at work?
To some extent. But that was nothing more than a starting point for me. Fukushima is in the countryside, and I always had admiration for a place like Tokyo. Rather than working at my mom’s hair salon in my hometown, I thought about what type of artistic work I could do, and I wanted to do something in advertising. Back in the day, more than 30 or 40 years ago, things in the fashion and beauty world would use a lot of artistic visuals. Those commercials inspired me, and I wanted to do that type of work in Tokyo.
What advertisements stood out to you?
There are many but, in Japan, sake commercials were very… maybe they don’t really have them in the US, but sake gets you drunk, and there were many hallucinatory commercials. I remember these 15-30 second commercials were like short films. For example, Antoni Gaudi from Spain would suddenly appear in one. You’d see a beautiful video with a very European Middle Ages feeling suddenly pop up on TV. That spoke to my heart much more than watching some random movie. Rather than stories, I admired the world of 15-30 second visuals much more. Of course, I always had an interest in fashion magazines too. At the time, I wasn’t really studying, so I thought the only path was to go straight into this practice by working a job and leaving Fukushima to work in Tokyo.
To clarify, they were shooting these commercials in Spain?
Right, right—in Barcelona. They would quote a French poem inside Gaudi’s building—stuff like that. I remember the commercial being a mixture of many things.
What was it like to be a hair stylist and makeup artist for different magazines? I know you worked with CUTiE, which dealt with street fashion. And I know Olive was another magazine you worked for, too, which was also marketed towards girls.
It’s interesting that you know about these young people’s magazines from Japan. I would say the experience was very rewarding. I enjoyed the years where I felt like I was working in the front lines of that era, not only with makeup and hair but with fashion as a whole.
Is there anything from that time that you’re especially proud of doing?
My work receiving positive feedback made me feel… not “proud,” but “honored” might be a better word. Even though I was very busy, the more I did it, the more fulfilled I felt in those few years. Somehow, I ended up transitioning to music. The biggest thing that led to that was when I was doing hair and makeup for a fashion show. There was music playing and it was something I’d never heard before. It was very alluring… it was almost like a street performance, like a brass band, though it sounded like a very bad brass band (laughter). It turned out to be the theme song for James Bond. It was surprisingly funny, and humor is very important for me in music.
I was surprised when I came to learn that this type of music was actually an old style from Jamaica—the music was called ska. I couldn’t help but feel intrigued even though I was busy with my job. It was shocking. And then in a few years, I formed a band that centered around ska music. It was about four to five years until I took that pursuit seriously because I was so busy with the hair and makeup gig.
Right, you were a bandleader for the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Do you remember what year the show was, and who it was for?
I can’t remember the brand because I used to do a lot of shows. It was probably around 1984 or 1985.
Did you play any musical instruments growing up?
I remember that, when I was younger I played the drums once in school. I really wanted to play basketball, but my music teacher heard me and forced me to play the drums (laughter). I also used to play drums in a band for fun back in high school, but that’s about it. The band was a very vulgar cover band that played a wide range of genres—we sometimes played avant-garde jazz, but would then play songs by pop idols from the time. When I was in middle school, I wanted to go to an art university, so I picked a high school that made sense for that. But I couldn’t get into an art university so instead went into this hair and makeup career.
Did you play music at all while you were in the fashion industry then?
I didn’t. Playing music wasn’t fun anymore.
Why not?
I found a new goal in doing hair and makeup, and so I got really busy doing that. That was where my fulfillment came from, so I no longer was interested in making music.
Do you feel like your experiences in that world helped with how you approached writing songs?
The shift was surprisingly easy. For me, each of those is a part of the same flowing river that is my life. It’s not like I had a legit musical background. For a few years, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra was just an idea I had in my head—I was just wishing there was a band like this. Nobody was joining the band because I wasn’t actively trying out members or making callouts. I was fine with that—I didn’t feel the need to realize it. But that period went on for so long that I started to want it more. My desire grew and, in the end, I felt like I had to do it.
Unlike rock bands that only have 3 or 4 people, I wanted a horn section—something like a brass band. But I wasn’t even thinking about commercial success or anything like that. In both music and fashion, you’re working towards creating a piece. So in terms of the creative process, it is similar, and I didn’t feel much of a difference. It was like creating a play or choosing who to cast for a movie.
Were there specific ska bands you were interested in at the time?
I really liked old-school Jamaican ska bands. It’s not like I wanted to replicate or copy them. It was similar to Japanese circus music, or music from old Japanese plays—it had a mysterious feel to it. Ska felt very similar to these non-mainstream things in Japan.
Can you expand more on these Japanese circuses?
Like those you see in movies or short films, sort of like the show tents that existed back in the Shōwa era. Music that played in those settings had a non-mainstream allure to it. This would be music you would hear when seeing a circus in a movie, or music playing during street performances where a guy is breathing fire—I really liked them because there’s something very nostalgic and melancholic about them.
I want to ask about when you started Asa-Chang & Junray. In 1998, you had an EP titled Tabla Magma Bongo. Can you talk to me about starting this new group?
After I left Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, the main members decided to keep going with the band. I was the only one who left. I worked as a session musician to provide percussion for other artists’ songs. It worked out well for me because it was similar to the hair and makeup job—you’re told to go to specific places and you have a specific schedule. My job was to listen to the producer or the arranger and there wasn’t room for me to think about whether the song was interesting or not. This is perhaps similar to jobs in Hollywood.
Making music in Asa-Chang & Junray was actually kind of similar to Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra because I would write music and ask others to play it. It wasn’t really a collaborative process. I wasn’t a very serious leader for the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, and so after I left, they began working as a real professional band. They even played in the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
I think Asa-Chang & Junray was very much linked to the music scene from around that time. The digital processing—Björk, other electronic musicians, and our band all used the same sound materials. And back then, there was a lot of music that combined folk music and techno. I started to hear these artists from London, and I liked that kind of music. I wanted to make my own interpretation of this musical style with Asa-Chang & Junray.
I know the tabla-bongo, the instrument you’ve created, appears on some of these early recordings. Is the current iteration of the table-bongo the same as the one you used back then?
It’s pretty much the same, though some of the materials are different. It’s my main instrument, and over the years I’ve become very familiar with the different sounds that different animal skin can make—I’ll use different ones for each [drum]. The tabla-bongo is so small but there are so many different lengths to which you can use it to express sounds—there are so many tones. I know how to carve out the different parts of the skin to get the tone I want now. (Asa-Chang proceeds to play different parts of the tabla-bongo).
When were you first exposed to techno?
I guess a few years before forming Asa-Chang & Junray. When I was talking about this earlier, I didn’t mean like “pure” techno music or “pure” folk music. I started hearing these two sounds being combined by others in the music industry. My experience hearing this wasn’t like the sort of shock I had when I first discovered ska. It was a bit more broad, and I just started casually hearing it around me—it’s not like I went to the store and bought CDs to listen to. I might have heard this music in clubs, or from people I collaborated with.
There was a movement called “world music” that happened in the ’90s. It was about music that wouldn’t make it onto the American Billboard charts. This was music that was “too unique,” that wasn’t from the US, and it started surfacing in France. We, as “Skapara”—short for Ska Paradise Orchestra—would often get invited to these kinds of settings. That’s how it started to naturally grow on me, from going to these music festivals. There were people from different countries, and to witness all this with my own eyes had a big influence on me and Junray. I learned how to play these different rhythms from experiencing all this music.
Did you have specific teachers or mentors who showed you how to play the different rhythms?
No, I would just be at these festivals. It was enough to stand on the side of the stage and watch these musicians play.
Asa-Chang & Junray started off as two people but you added U-Zhaan aka Hironori Yuzawa in 2000. What do you feel like he was able to bring to the group that wasn’t there beforehand?
This young guy could play these very complicated rhythms on the tabla. These were things you may have never heard before as a Japanese person. Instead of a consistent beat, it was very much like humans chatting with one another. Like, it would “talk” faster and then sometimes stop to think, and then slow down. Someone who could play this kind of rhythm, one that was just like having a conversation, suddenly appeared in front of me. And having him in the group now meant that… I didn’t have to play the drums anymore (laughter). We were able to have songs that were more complex and could utilize his potential—it gave me more freedom to compose.
In a band, it’s usually the case where bandmates will play together and a song will emerge. But the Asa-Chang & Junray songs are made as compositions written on sheet music. I prefer this method because if I were to express these ideas as words, they might not be very accurate—composing with sheet music is the most accurate way to do all this.
Can you talk to me about the song “Hana”? Do you have any thoughts about it now when you look back on its popularity?
I never dreamed that people in the States—someone like you—would ever be talking to me about this music. I’m honored that 20 years after the release of “Hana,” I’m still able to perform it. The song was released in Tokyo, and then was released in England later and had a good reception there, even getting onto the charts. [Editor’s Note: “Hana” was initially played on pirate radio stations in the UK, and was requested so frequently that it ended up being played every single night. John Peel eventually played it on one of his broadcasts.]
Were you listening to other artists at this time when making your music?
I wasn’t really listening to other music at this time. I was really focused on writing my own compositions.
How do you feel like you’ve grown as an artist throughout all your decades of making music? Asa-Chang & Junray’s music has changed so much throughout the years, taking on a more folk-y bent with the later albums, for example.
Even though the tabla player is no longer in the group, there has been a consistent thread running through the group because the music doesn’t simply carry lyrics—these are words that are closer to a novel or a script for a play. If you’re just talking normally, like we are currently, you wouldn’t say this has a specific rhythm, right? As a “rhythm artist,” I transmit those rhythms and fix them onto sheet music. I just made up the phrase “rhythm artist,” but yeah. Instead of melodies, like “do re mi”—though that is something I use as well, the musical scales and melodies—our music leans more heavily on rhythms. It’s “rhythmical.”
The vocalizing in your music is also really concerned with rhythm. Do you mind talking about any poets you’re inspired by? And these could be those who have had a direct impact on your writing or not.
There’s a lot, as well as Japanese novelists. With “Hana,” I wrote all the lyrics. This is a bit of a spoiler, but the first song I’m playing tomorrow [“影の無いヒト(Kage no nai hito)”], the lyrics are from a novelist named Toshio Shimao, who lived during the time of Yukio Mishima. Rather than thinking about poems, I think about words that are percussive. I really like the sound of Japanese words—there isn’t a language that’s more percussive.
You will be using the “Junray Tronics” system in your performance. Can you describe for me how this works?
The Junray Tronics is mainly required to synchronize the instruments with voice, and the system is continuously evolving. I brought the latest model, version 3, to the US.
Is there anything we didn’t talk about today that you wanted to talk about?
In Japan there is this concept of “道 (do)” as in kendo, judo, kado, and shodo. It’s considered a virtue to hone one artform to perfection, but I was never interested in following one path—I simply followed one thing after another.
Asa-Chang & Junray’s music can be found on various streaming services. More information about Asian Arts Initiative can be found at their website.
Thank you for reading the 168th issue of Tone Glow. Just go with the flow.
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