They say brevity is the soul of wit and few bands have as much of both as Otoboke Beaver. Playing short, sharp songs packed with equal parts ferocity and black humour, next week the Japanese quartet will play easily their biggest UK gig yet, at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium supporting Foo Fighters.
“We met Foo Fighters at an overseas festival, and again in Japan,” says vocalist Accorinrin as we chat in a music bar in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, a couple of hours before Otoboke Beaver go on stage and eviscerate an audience at the nearby O-Nest. “Dave Grohl told so many people about us, which helped us a lot. He didn’t have to introduce a nobody band like us, but Dave is always looking for newcomers and he wanted to hook us up within the music industry.”
Due in part to Grohl’s evangelism, Otoboke Beaver’s popularity has spread: along with putting out around a dozen records in various formats since they formed 17 years ago, they have opened for the likes of Green Day, Idles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack White, Eddie Vedder and Oasis. “I learned from those shows that amazing bands have amazing support staff,” says wild-eyed guitarist Yoyoyoshie (all Otoboke Beaver members go by mononymous nicknames like this). “Those staff are so professional, and they have such compassion for the artists they work with. It seems like a small thing, but that really left an impression on me.”
I ask what the Gallaghers were like. “We weren’t allowed to meet them. There were lots of restricted areas and black curtains were hung up when the Oasis members passed by.” How about Idles? “So cool and friendly. They were just like a bunch of cool punk guys, and they invited us to go drinking together.”
Otoboke Beaver’s music is most easily described as punk, but that’s not really the half of it. Their songs are short but incredibly dense, packed with changes in tempo and tone, aggressive but hilariously funny. Each song is an ornate puzzle box: pretty on the surface but with intricate hidden depths to unravel.
Accorinrin sings about love and food, but also about being harassed by old perverts (Dirty Old Fart is Waiting for My Reaction), the pains of dealing with Japan’s music royalties agency Jasrac (I Put My Love to You in a Song, Jasrac), and her lack of desire to have children (I Am Not Maternal). Despite these song titles, “I never thought our songs were feminist until people said they were,” she says. “Japan has always been a male-oriented society, so it never occurred to me to be bothered by it.” Any latent frustration, she says, “naturally comes through in my lyrics”.
The band formed in Kyoto in 2009 and were fans of bands from nearby Osaka including the wildly chaotic Oshiripenpenz, whose gonzo performances are filled with unhinged surprises. “I couldn’t believe music could be like that,” says Yoyoyoshie.
As the home to Japan’s biggest comedy talent agencies, the Kansai region, where Kyoto and Osaka are located, is the humour factory of Japan; and as such, Otoboke Beaver take influence from comedy as much as music. “It’s in our DNA,” says Accorinrin. “If the songs aren’t funny, it’s no fun.” Sure enough, that night at O-Nest, Accorinrin berates an audience member for using the flash on his phone camera – “Old men who don’t know how to turn off their flash should bin their smartphones!” – and raises her middle finger to each audience member in turn: it brings to mind the jovially antagonistic routines of Stewart Lee. Not least because the audience are in on the joke: a sadomasochistic relationship that is endlessly fun to experience. Accorinrin says the band can work on a melody or lyric idea “hundreds of times, trying new things, thinking about the emotion we want to convey, and how to make it funnier or sillier”.
Otoboke Beaver’s longtime drummer Kahokiss recently left the band, leading them to rush out a three-song single and mini-tour to see her off. Their last show with her was a joyous celebration rather than a maudlin farewell, according to Accorinrin and Yoyoyoshie, and she was replaced by Emi “Leo” Morimoto, formerly of veteran Osaka band and fellow humorists Shonen Knife. Ludicrously complex basslines are handled by Hirochan.
At O-Nest they play four new unreleased songs written with Leo including Don’t Dance in Front of My Grave, which is poppy and mid-tempo by their standards, and actually very danceable. Fans are begging for more new material like this: the band’s most recent album – the 18-song, 21-minute Super Champon – came out four years ago. Poking fun at the constant nagging, one of the songs on their new single is titled Is the New Album Out Yet?
“We’re working on it bit by bit,” says Accorinrin soothingly. “Our songs take a long time to write, and we like to play live a lot, plus we’ve had a lineup change.” She laughs as she rebukes the fans once more: “We need everyone to shut up and wait.”