The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘culture shock’ as the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life or set of attitudes.
When audiences in the UK, and indeed, most places outside of Japan, were presented with (or confronted by) BABYMETAL, that strange feeling of disorientation ruled the roost. The newness of the unfamiliar was startling, but intoxicating. It didn’t take long for that oddball cocktail to start tasting rather sweet. A trip into the world of BABYMETAL is a weirdly interesting entry into the kingdom of elsewhere…
The band’s genesis is every bit as curious as their extravagant image and music. The outfit was ‘created’ by Japanese producer Key Kobayashi, better known as KOBAMETAL, who in 2010 pulled the three singing band members from all-female group Sakura Gakuin. The latter was an ‘idol group’ – essentially a collective of school age individuals who don’t just sing, but might dance, act and perform in sketches. Idol groups, beloved in Japan, are entertainment machines sculpted to fascinate and inspire young audiences.
KOBAMETAL’s idea was to fuse the idol group idea with metal, and he thought – correctly – that Sakura Gakuin’s 12-year-old Nakamoto Suzuka would be the perfect voice and persona to front such a thing. BABYMETAL was initially no more than a sub-unit of the parent outfit, its line-up rounded out with fellow members Kikuchi Moa and Mizuno Yui, who were even younger than Suzuka. The trio were granted suitably metallic stage names, Suzuka becoming SU-METAL, with Moa and Yui christened MOAMETAL and YUIMETAL respectively.
The band were to be backed by a masked collective of metal musicians, sometimes described as the Kami Band, if referred to at all. As time went on, they tended to be clad in zombie Halloween get-up, with even KOBAMETAL opting to remain largely anonymous, making most of his public appearances in a full body skeleton suit. The visual focus was pretty much entirely on the trio of singers.
The project was a distillation of KOBAMETAL’s vision, but it was something that the undeniably accomplished and determined SU-METAL, MOAMETAL and YUIMETAL rapidly grew into. It was a particularly notable thing given their young age (in those important early years, the trio had to balance shows with school work on a regular basis). Then there was the fact that they were almost discovering metal as they were making it.
“At first I had an image that metal music was a little bit on the scarier side,” MOAMETAL would later reflect. “But through BABYMETAL I’ve been able to really understand and realise how beautiful and amazing metal music is. For future generations, I want to be that role model to communicate that.”
Cognisant of his charges’ youth, KOBAMETAL said the band name was representative of a ‘newborn’ genre, something we hadn’t seen before. Still a part of Sakura Gakuin, BABYMETAL made their live debut on November 28, 2010, with a first song Doki Doki Morning appearing on a 2011 album credited to the parent group. The track, full of cheerleader zip, certainly had legs – still performing it years later SU-METAL said that singing it always “made me think of how far we have made it in our careers”.