Break Of Chain Interview

When it comes to Japan and hardcore, I mostly associate the scene over there with beatdown or edge-metal bands that I have come across over the years. Names like Creepout, TJ Maxx, Dying Grace, Numb or 43 Urban certainly ring a bell. But truth be told, I don’t really follow what’s happening over there on regular basis. So when I got contacted by Break Of Chain, I had no idea who they were. My mistake, cause it turns out the band has been doing their brand of rugged old-school hardcore for over 10 years now and got couple of releases, comps and splits under their belt. If you’re into heavy-ass hardcore with a NYHC-twist, check them out! Here’s the interview with Danzaki, who handles the vocals for the band.

When it comes to Japan and hardcore, I mostly associate the scene over there with beatdown or edge-metal bands that I have come across over the years. Names like Creepout, TJ Maxx, Dying Grace, Numb or 43 Urban certainly ring a bell. But truth be told, I don’t really follow what’s happening over there on regular basis. So when I got contacted by Break Of Chain, I had no idea who they were. My mistake, cause it turns out the band has been doing their brand of rugged old-school hardcore for over 10 years now and got couple of releases, comps and splits under their belt. If you’re into heavy-ass hardcore with a NYHC-twist, check them out! Here’s the interview with Danzaki, who handles the vocals for the band.

For anyone new checking this article out, what are three things you want them to know about Break Of Chains?

We're a hardcore band based out of Sendai, Japan that is 400km far away from Tokyo. We have released 2 albums and been part of many compilations so far. We also released digital EP "Single 2013" through iTunes and Amazon MP3 on June 1st, 2013. Definitely you should check it out. We have switched English lyrics to Japanese ones since 2 years ago.

NYHC influences in your sound are pretty obvious, but tell us in your own words what bands have played any role in inspiring your sound?

I have loved NYHC since my teenages. Since more than 10 years ago, hardcore bands such as Half Life, Strength, Spike Shoes used to book their own shows in Sendai, and I was around there all the time. There was a lot of opportunity I check out great hardcore bands from all over Japan. That made me think "I gotta start a band someday!". For songwriting, Agnostic Front, Madball, Breakdown, Leeway inspired Break Of Chain. I have never intent to rip them off because Break Of Chain is Break Of Chain. Those bands I mentioned are still roots for us though. More specifically speaking, we try to keep songs simple, straight in your face, and catchy as much as we can so that people can sing along with the songs. I don't wanna mix up this and that. The theme through songwriting is "Don't add extra stuff!". I think that's what old NYHC inspired us. For vocals, Oyakata from Tokyo-based band No One Rules influenced me most. Attitude, how to explode energy on the stage and everything.

I’ve seen some life footage from your shows on youtube and it looked really cool with mad energy on the stage and in the pit. How would you describe a typical hardcore show in Japan?

Always we put full energy into each show. Now we got Japanese lyrics, so we can express what we wanna say into those lyrics instead of saying that on stage. At local shows in Sendai, people mosh and sing along songs like anywhere else. We're the only band in this city that plays this kind of style, but there are various type of punk/hardcore bands here and share good times together. Those people enjoy our set too and we do the same to them too. There're bunch of rad bands in Sendai. These days people put on all genre shows, but it's been normal for us since long time ago. This city got healthy circumstances I guess. We don't get much good response at shows in bigger cities yet, so we would like to keep up and get more and more. We will stay hungry. We would like to get involved in bigger cities more and more. We are thankful to people who bring to other cities.

What places did you play outside of Japan? Do you get much support from other Asian countries?

We played in Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand so far. I can't speak their language and English, so I spoke Japanese on stage, but they welcomed us and we were so happy about that. When we played a song called "Motto Mae-he"(which means "Go Forward"), people there sung "Motto Mae-he" along the song in Japanese. That was great times. They didn't get my words, but they got my will. Once timing and money fits, we would like to go play in Europe and United States someday too.

What you do for a living? What’s it like balancing personal life with hardcore band?

All in the band works at office during day time. Some member has been busy with it all the time, some member has married and has a kid. Balancing personal life with hardcore band would be up to each member. When we don't have a show, we go to hang out, go for a trip, attend a local show on weekends. It's an important part of us. We practice once every week, and we thankfully get many offers to play shows, we enjoy doing that.

Lately there seems to be a lot of going on in Japan hardcore. What are your thoughts on the scene out there?

I don't know everything about the whole thing of Japanese hardcore scene, but I'm sure there are plenty of cool bands and it's something we are proud of. Of course I think I'm part of it. Makoto from SAND and Senta from NUMB bring overseas bands to Japan and organize tour all over the country, they offered us to organize shows and then Skarhead, Next Step Up came to our hometown Sendai too! I can't judge anything about Japanese scene, and I'm pretty busy on our own thing, but I hope each people keep up and produce next movements. The first thing we have to do is rise up the local scene like giving away flyers, asking friends who are outside of the hardcore scene to come to our shows, there're a lot of things to do! I've been doing that with hope that they might like hardcore in the end. We gotta make a change in the local scene which people normally tend to ignore. We will make that happen someday and we're not gonna end up in one local band.



Being around for about 10 years now, what are a few of the differences that you’re able to see in Japan’ scene between now and when you were starting out?

I started Break Of Chain back in 1999, it was in the middle of hardcore movement after its birth. Local shows here were full of people every time. Time has passed then and we take care of our city now. We have booked our own shows for 10 years, sometimes shows don't turn out good. Without taking care of not only band-wise things but also everything else like promotion, shows won't turn out good easily. Recently it's been good, but we have to keep it up. Bond between hardcore community all over Japan is stronger than any other music I think.

Top 5 bands from Japan right now?

For me, Numb, Beyond Hate, KiM, Fight It Out, No One Rules.

When can we expect the next release from you guys?

We are looking to release 3rd album either the end of 2013 or early 2014. Lyrics will be all in Japanese, booklets will include all Japanese lyrics and English translation.

Any last words for the people?

Thanks for having us!