It’s pouring outside the container that hosts the on-site interviews at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. I try to warm up after drinking water from PJ Harvey while waiting for the arrival of the new Japanese sensation, the girl group Atarashii Gakko!. The four arrive escorted by their team, and introduce themselves with the classic Japanese greeting, with a slight bow, bringing their hands in contact with mine. The amazement at the temperature of my hands strikes Suzuka (24), the leader of the girl band, who calls her colleagues Rin (22), Mizyu (22), Kanon (22) to report to discuss. «Cold! Cold!”, they repeat to me as they take turns warming my hands. The situation is rather funny – and it’s easy to think of those chaotic moments in manga – also because the girls don’t speak English and understanding each other while waiting for the translator is not easy. After all, despite having over a million followers on Instagram and seven on Tik Tok, this is their first European, and therefore Italian, interview.
The Atarashii Gakko! they present themselves in typical Japanese school uniforms (their full name 新しい学校のリーダーズ?, Atarashī gakkō no rīdāzu in fact means “New school leaders”), a look that has distinguished them since 2015, when the Asobisystem company brought together the four girls (ai times the average age of the members is 14 years) to build a new idol project (projects built around the table by the Japanese industry – we can compare them for example to our boy bands and girl bands of the 90s and 2000s – to promote Japanese culture by embodying models linked to a certain purity). Today the uniform is black and white with a red patch on the left arm, a bit Japanese high school, a bit army on the march as required by their latest single Tokyo Calling (“Tokyo is calling / be proud to move forward / hope for the future is here / cut from our history / We are marching”) from the new album AG! Calling published by 88rising, the American label that has been following the group since last year.
«We decided to wear uniforms because when we were put together to form the project we were still at school», they explain to me. «It was something recognizable, and above all something linked to our tradition, but which in some way could also be recognized outside Japan».
«We started as an idol about ten years ago», they tell me while the rain outside the container seems to get heavier, «but we never wanted to be the same old idols who talk about the same old things. Of course, at the beginning we were very young and it was normal to talk about more naive, more youthful topics, but now we aim higher. We are very attached to our tradition, it means a lot to us but now we try to talk about broader, more important themes, which often concern the culture of Japan.” Specifically, as they are keen to reiterate in a slogan: “We strive to challenge a narrow-minded society by embracing individuality and freedom.” Their uniforms are covered in words, I ask them their meaning: “On our clothes we write words that are important to us, words like authenticity and humility.”
“Dad is stuck in the routine, the grip of work is terrible / My brother is chained to the screen, he no longer knows which way to turn in college / Mother escapes from reality by becoming addicted to idols” is the portrait of an increasingly complex Japan told by the girls in the singles Tokyo Calling. A completely different matter compared to what idols and J-pop have accustomed us to. The question comes naturally: how involved are the four in the writing of their songs?
«We have a team with whom we work closely on the entire supply chain, from writing to production, up to aesthetics. Especially in recent years we have started to participate more and more actively in every choice regarding the band, also because we are growing and learning a lot. Now we can share and make our ideas available because we are no longer little girls: now we know who we are.” The band easily identifies the turning point in their performance at Coachella last April: «It was the first stage of this new era of ours, there we understood how much potential this project has, and that it is time to take a further step in after you”.
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A potential that, however, had already been sensed outside Japan not only by the American label that signed Atarashii Gakko!, but also by a great pop star always attentive to new phenomena such as Rosalía, who joined the band last year for a video that quickly went viral in which the motomami and the four replicated the choreography of the single Suki Lie of the Japanese. But the story is actually stranger, with the twist you might expect from a project like this. «We honestly had no idea who Rosalía was», they admit to me candidly, without embarrassment, «then we looked up who she was and discovered her music and we said to ourselves: wow».
Yes, wow. The choreographies – as demonstrated by the interest of Rosalía, one with a certain experience on the topic – are one of the main features in the aesthetic definition of the band given that the sound of the various albums and singles in recent years has enjoyed playing and investigating various territories , from anime theme metal-pop to city pop, from old school hip hop to EDM, thus not defining the acoustic boundaries of the project. Not just in videos (see for example the one by Nainainai or the one already mentioned Suki Lee) but also above all in live performances as they will demonstrate to us shortly after the interview on the Primavera stage in one of the most fun and engaging performances of the entire edition. «We prepare the choreographies ourselves, we follow our instinct, there are no choreographers, there is no real dancers’ work behind it. We’ll explain it to you like this. It’s a bit as if there were a chemical reaction: the music moves something inside us and we let our bodies respond as they wish. When a step strikes us, it becomes choreographed.”
The linguistic obstacle matters little, even in Europe, as in the States, the Atarashii Gakko! it’s 100% madness, between acted moments and choreographies, between sketches, choral pop and lightning-fast rapping. The result is that even an audience of curious people (but not fans), like that of Primavera, definitely loses their mind due to the energy of the show. But for those who grew up with the adoration and organized fanaticism typical of the Japanese world surrounding idols, how do they see the Western public? «The first thing to say is that it is certainly more heterogeneous. In the West everyone reacts to live music in a very personal way. In Japan, however, especially for idol culture, the public acts as one, doing choreography and preparing for detail. They are two very different experiences (which we recommend you try!)”.
But a flirtation with the West, beyond tours and a record label, has been underway for some time for the four. First a Spanish version of Free Your Mind under the advice of their producer, the American (but of Japanese and Mexican origin) Money Mark, who – just to clarify – has been a collaborator and producer of the Beastie Boys since Check Your Head from 1992 to the trio’s last album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two of 2011, and then, to stay on topic, a rethought version of Intergalactic, by the Beastie Boys, another piece of Western culture missing at four: «Money Mark came up with the idea of having us redo that Beastie Boys song. We didn’t know them. So he showed us the video and we went crazy, that’s why we decided to replicate it, but in our own way. And the Beastie team was thrilled.”
Outside the rain doesn’t seem to want to slow down. The girls peek at the notebook where the translator has taken notes so far. Suzuka makes fun of Mizyu, the atmosphere is relaxed despite the fact that in just under an hour the four will go on stage for the first date of their first world tour, 25 dates between Europe, Asia and North America. As we say goodbye – and the attention to my hands which have not yet returned to temperature returns to being a topic for four o’clock – I ask again if they feel a little tension before this debut. Suzuka sticks out her tongue and in shaky English she answers me in the only way possible for a band raised in the world of idols: «Absolutely not, we are made for this».
