The last interview we bring to you from MOSHI MOSHI NIPPON FESTIVAL 2015 in TOKYO (MOSHI FES here on) is with the much-acclaimed “air band” of Japan, Golden Bomber (aka Kinbaku)! Headlining the main stage on day 2, they made the crowd go absolutely berserk with their crazy set and had fans on their knees, screaming for more.
The four（vo-karu：Kiryuin Sho、gita-：Kyan Yutaka、be-su：Utahiroba Jun、doramu：Darvish Kenji）made time for us right before their show — take them seriously, or not. But hell, it’s always better to not take things too seriously, and they do a stellar job at it on our interview here.
―― This is your first MOSHI FES! Show us your enthusiasm.
Kiryuin：We’re obviously enthused already. For example we want the people who attend MOSHI FES to be considerate with the end time for the food booths. They’ve been working hard from days before, so I think it’s important to be considerate towards them.
Kyan：Our Darvish ate two hamburg steaks when he was supposed to eat one. Yo, we don’t have that much time! Show them how you’re enthused about the show! (laughs)
――MOSHI FES has a concept of delivering Japan’s pop culture to the world. What are your thoughts on that?
Darvish：Overseas is such a mystery to us, I’m more afraid of it if anything. Doesn’t help that I speak zero English…
Utahiroba：Yeah, I hear you have to pay tips too…
Kyan：We’re never really condescending, like “let us show you what Japan culture’s all about,” we’re not like that. But if fans abroad are going to see us, I want to tell them that us weird guys, we’re not your average mainstream culture. It’d be easy if we could tell them ourselves but we only speak Japanese…
Kiryuin：Yeah, we’d feel bad if people overseas thought all visual-kei bands were like us.
Kyan：Someone needs to explain the fact that Kinbaku locate in a somewhat niche environment. I’m just worried this message won’t get through though.
Utahiroba：Yeah, we’re quite embarassing.
――It seems there’s quite a number of fans from overseas today.
（Crowd shakes up）
――You know you’re saying all of this, but I’ve seen you topping iTunes charts!
Kyan：Maybe that had something to do with management. Maybe the manager or the VP slept with the CEO of iTunes .
Utahiroba：Yeah, I heard about that too (laughs)
――You’ve also got many comments from your foreign fans on your YouTube videos.
Kyan：Oh, so they slept with the YouTube CEO as well…
Utahiroba：That’s our management’s style.
――（laughs）I take it well that you’re not conceited.
Kyan：Yeah. We don’t want people to misunderstand us. This is always going to be our style, so we’ll keep this up and if we can deliver something through that, that’ll be great too. I’m sure passion transcends borders.
――You’ve performed previously at JAPAN EXPO in France and other shows abroad, but what would you say are the differences between performances in Japan and abroad?
Kiryuin：The people overseas are crazier, but in a good way. Every one of them were ready to burst with excitement. I guess Japanese people are a lot more shy compared to that.
Kyan：That’s something we would’ve never found out unless we travelled abroad.
Utahiroba：Although we’re an airband, we feel the crowd would get even more heated up if we actually played instruments. That’s one challenge we’re facing. Though we have no intention of picking up an instrument any time soon (laughs).
――JAPAN EXPO’s also a huge event that aims to deliver Japanese culture abroad.
Kyan：It seems like the groundwork has been laid for Japanese culture, enough groundwork so people like us can do the weird stuff we do and people can be okay with it. I think it’s a great thing.
――What does J-pop culture mean to you?
Kiryuin：J-pop becomes more difficult to mold by the day. You can’t quite describe it in one word. But I guess we’re situated as part of “visual-kei” or “band” in that huge realm of J-pop.
――Visual-kei is also hugely representative of Japanese culture.
Kiryuin：That’s true. It’s definitely Japanese. So is it okay for us to be a visual-kei band representative of Japan?
Darvish：But I mean, the fact that we’re here performing at MOSHI FES may signify this one way or another…? Japan should be worried about the direction they’re moving in…
Utahiroba：But hey, I think foreigners would love your make up, Darvish. We can call it kabuki by a Japanese look alike (laughs).
――Is there anything you’d like to do if you were to perform at MOSHI FES abroad?
Kiryuin：I want Darvish to get his karate gear on and chop through wood. We’ll have an empty can ready for charity. I’m sure we’ll get some coins.
――Which countries/cities would you like to perform in in the future?
Utahiroba：Urawa, perhaps (laughs)?
Kyan：We haven’t been abroad in a while so I’d love to go. I want to go play somewhere where we can be familiarized to a certain extent, so maybe Germany?
Kiryuin：I’d love to go to New York. You know there’s that shirt that writes NY in big letters? If it’s a city that’s worth being written out that large on a t-shirt, it must be loved by many. I’m sure there’s a very unique cultural scene as well, so it’d be great to visit. But it’s tough being stuck on the plane for 10 hours…if an event host is ready to offer us a first class trip there, we’ll think about it.
――You’re up next, but any specific hopes for this show?
Kiryuin：We’ll give it all we’ve got, and if they don’t get it, that’s that. I just hope no one throws beer bottles at us. Oh and definitely no petrol bombs, please (laughs).
Kyan：We’ll take eggs. I’ll have the rice ready (laughs)
――Thanks so much for speaking with us right before your show! Can’t wait!
Kinbaku: Thank you!
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Interview：Atsushi Yamada
Photos：Keitaro Murakami Words：Toshinori Tanaka（SHUTTER）