Here we are.....we had spoken with a great growing band from Germany: Japanische Kampfhoerspiele!!!
With Florian's big support (Bastardize Recordings) we sent the questions we are used to do...and something spicyer!!!
Bony, them great Screaming voice answered very soon and kindly to us, ant the result is ....

As usual, we like to start with a summary presentation of the band to our readers .

Jaka were founded in 1998 by guitarist Klaus and Drummer Christof. They recorded some demos, recorded them on CDs, made the covers themselves and gave them away to some friends. Over the years more and more people joined the line up. Jaka put out two lonplayers on a small label from Switzerland (a self titled debut and "Die Grosstadt stink, ist laut und septisch"). In 2003 me and Paul joined the band and completed a line up that was able to hit the road. The line up which you can hear on the "Fertigmensch"-ep and the current album "Hardcore..." is:

Christof: drums
Klaus: guitars
Robert: guitars
Marco: bass
Bony: screeching
Paul: deep growls

No one of us was ever involved with the harcore scene. Though the new album is called "Hardcore aus der ersten Welt" we are definitely not a hardcore band. We use the word "hardcore" as a synonym for all the disgustung plastic surgery stuff you and the commercial advertising terror you see on every t.v.-channel nowadays.

I guess all of us grew up listening to death and thrash metal. Christof and me unfortunately lost the interest in metal during the past few years. Christof prefers Frank Zappa, James Brown and easy listening while I like brit pop a lot. But it brings a lot of new aspects to our sound.

You are German ...did this influence you and your music evolution from an artistic point of view? And what about opportunities with labels? How?

We hear a lot of influences in your sound. Napalm Death, Slayer, Morser, Acme..do you agree? Which are the bands that most influenced you?

What are you listening to at the moment? Is there some band or kind of music that you like better?

At the moment I listen to bands like Interpol, Mew or Tiger Lou. Not very metal-like, is it? )))
Christof and Klaus listen to artists like Sigur Ros or Burt Bacharach. But the rest of the guys listen to death and grind-stuff all day.

What do you know about the Italian scene?

Unfortunately we don't know a lot about the italian scene. I know that bands like Rhapsody and lots of other melodic metal stuff come from italy. But that's not quiet my cup of tea. If you know some cool death/grind/punk stuff from italy: don't be afraid to tell me!!! I'd love to listen to it.

We're from germany, german is our first language so why shouldn't we sing german? You can express your emotions and agression much better in the language that you were born with. Lots of german bands prefer english lyrics because they think it makes them sound like the american originals. So they probably end up sounding like everybody else. Another positive aspect about german lyrics is that they make grindcore sound much more aggressive. By the way: we'll deliver the next album with a lyric sheet that contains english translation of the lyrics so people outside germany are able to undertstand what we sing about/against: money, plastic people, plastic surgery, commercial advertising-terror, greed etc.

First off all: thanks for the compliment.

I don't know how many copies the new album sold so far...but the record company says that they more than happy with the sales. Maybe in a few months we'll know how much we sold. 99 % of the reviews were great and we're pretty surprised because when the album was finished we really didn't know what to think about it. Some of the reviews in bigger magazines weren't that overwhelming. Maybe our music's too brutal for them. But who gives a fuck. We don't care about the maimnstream. The underground loves the album and that's all that matters.

Talking about live shows. how do you live it? How does the audience react at your shows, do you like it when the audience press against the stage? Have you got any planned show in Italy?

We played a couple of shows in germany in the past weeks and it was awesome. We're still surprised how many poeple come around to see us. Some people even travelled 8 hours by train to see us. Pretty overwhelming!!! It's always a big pleasure to look at the moshpit and people who sing along the lyrics. Some people in the crowd even know the lyrics better than I do. There are no plans for shows in Italy by now though we's love to come over. If anyone is interested in putting up some shows in italy for us, just mail to the booking address (jaka-booking@fertigmensch.de). If you give us the money for bus-rent, gas + food, drinks and a decent place to sleep, we'll definitely come.

What's the translation of your name in English? Why did you choose this particular one?

The coreect translation would be: japanese martial arts radio theater of the mind. But "japanese fight music" will do as well. Our drummer picked the name from a letter he got from a friend. There was no special intention about it. It just sounded funny.

The artwork of both your record and website is really interesting and particular. who did that? In which way is it linked to your music?

Most of the artwork is done by our drummer. He also writes all the lyrics. Sometimes there's lots of weird things going on in his mind... so he transforms it into music and design. I think we try to keep both the music and the layout out of the ordinary. Individuality is pretty important to us.

Thanks a lot for the interview, is there anything you want to add for our readers?

Stay out of jail & support your local grindcore-scene. Visit us at: www.japanischekampfhoerspiele.de

Thanks for the interview as well.

By Webmurder .