Heavy metal is, and always has been, a unifier of people and cultures.
It has brought together people of opposing race, colour, and religion, and has never asked or demanded anything in return.
Occasionally, those forces brought together are difficult to understand or comprehend, but just by virtue of the fact metal music is involved people seldom question the hows and whys and simply focus on the unseen bond that weaves the magic of music together.
Occasionally and this is a big OCCASSIONALLY, there are musical unions that sometimes defy belief and maybe even question the blind loyalty momentarily.
That is until the metal kicks in and everything else is mysteriously okay.
Over the years we have heard rap metal, pop metal, punk metal and even Spanish flamenco metal, but none of that has prepared us for the latest musical partnership that promises to sweep the world.
Except maybe a little band by the name of Babymetal.
But after listening to the latest project from the enigmatic and talented Australian-born, Japanese based musical phenomena named Ladybeard, even that world beating pop/metal hybrid will seem like the entrée before a main course of epic proportions.
Ladies and metalheads, prepare for BABYBEARD, a musical enigma that almost dares you to not enjoy them.
Aside from the larger than life presence and personal of Ladybeard, BABYBEARD also contains two of the most talented and adorable musicians to have appeared in the pages of music history in SUZU and KOTOMI, both of whom provide the perfect harmony to the chaotic nature that seems to be Ladybeards existence.
With the imminent release of BABYBEARD’s debut video for Nippon Kara Konnichiwa, and as the world prepares for many a WTF moment, Ladybeard himself sat down for a chat with HEAVY to run us through all things Babybeard related and a couple of things that even now we have no idea of how they got into the conversation.
I don’t usually make recommendations like this, but this is an interview best listened to rather than read, if only just to be drawn up into the exuberant nature of Ladybeard’s everyday existence and to be able to fully comprehend the passion, emotion, and occasion charm of one of Australia’s finest ever musical exports.
“For those of you who don’t speak Japanese,” an excitable Ladybeard began, “Nippon Kara Konnichiwa means hello from Japan, so this is the point of the whole thing. The whole point of this group Babybeard – which is Ladybeard plus babies, BABYBEARD – we have two missions. The first one is to bring Japanese pop culture across the waves as much as we can and bring it to the outside world, because there’s a lot of interest in Japan and Japanese pop culture from outside of Japan, however, if you are not in the country, and even if you are, and you can’t speak and write Japanese, access is very challenging. So one of the things we’re trying to do is breach the gap. The other thing we are trying to do is bring good times and happiness and inspiration through some really pumping, upbeat and heavy vibes for everyone. I think after the past two years that we’ve all had, everyone could use a bit of happying up and encouragement and inspiration. At the moment we’re all stuck in our homes, and we can’t go out into the world, so we need to yell this massive AAARRRGGGHH to the whole world over the internet waves, and we hope that it shall be heard. My first song with my old group that came out in 2015 was called Nippon Manju, so what we did was we got the same musicians who made that song, and they made this song as well. Here’s what’s been going on. Over the past five years or so I’ve been touring around the world performing at Anime conventions and so forth and everybody tells me how much they loved Nippon Manju and they wanna see more of that, so we’re really just trying to give the people what they’ve made very clear that they want. Same musicians from Nippon Manju, same set-ups from the old groups, and the two little cuties SUZU and KOTOMI, and we are trying to bring some BABYBEARD magic to the world. That is what is going on. This music video has finally happened. I’ve gotta tell you, I thought it might never actually happen. There’s been obstacle upon obstacle upon delay upon delay, and I’m so happy that finally we can release this thing. January 24 people. It’s on like Donkey Kong!”
In the captivating full interview, Ladybeard takes you further into the inner world of BABYBEARD and their plans for the future, talks about the amazing film clip, introduces us to SUZU and KOTOMI and why they are such an important part of BABYBEARD, how to get your hands on the song and video as soon as it is released, mixing Japanese pop culture with heavy metal and how it works, the wonderful and whacky world that is part of his existence and more.
