Interview with The Japanese Popstars

Comprised of Gary Curran, Decky Hedrock and Gareth Donoghue, The Japanese Popstars are three DJ’s from the UK who are not only big in Japan, they are taking the electronic scene to a whole new level.  This past summer they played at numerous music festivals leaving people drenched in sweat from dancing their hearts out and left awestruck by the three DJ’s who had the foresight to come together and form a truly unparalleled trio.

Now, with the release of their new album, “We Just Are,” (Buy Now!) The Japanese Popstars are making quite the buzz amongst music critics as well with their unabashed creativity and simply enjoyable dance grooves. BeatCrave was fortunate enough to chat with The Japanese Popstars about how they formed, what they are currently working on and much more.

How did the idea to form Japanese Popstars come about?

The band technically “birthed” at the Oxegen Festival in Ireland about 2 years back. We were drunk in a field and decided that we could goto the festival for free the next year by forming a live act, playing out and basically blagging free passes in.  We left it a little late in actually writing any music and getting on the line up for the following year, but our hearts where in the right place.

I’ve actually known Gary for about 10 years.  He gave me my first gig!  I was producing music under another alias and I used to take my tracks to Gary to play when he DJed at a local nightclub.

I sent out a one of our first Popstars track and we got asked to play a full live show off the back of a promoter hearing our first Japstars track “Rodney Trotter”, we agreed to the gig and then wondered how the hell can we play live with only one song?

Here’s where Galo (Gareth) comes in…

Gary had met Gareth a few months earlier at a club night he was DJing at and knew that he could produce music in a live environment using his laptop – as were Gary and I didn’t have a clue how to.  He called him up and Gareth said he’d be right up for this, even though he only actually met Gary twice in his life!

We all got along and things started to roll really well ever since.

Why did you decide to name yourselves Japanese Popstars?  What other names were you contemplating?

There were no other names.  I am a fan of Japanese culture, movies etc and wanted something that reflected that in our name.  “Big In Japan” was already taken, so I though what or who was big in Japan….”The Japanese Popstars” was my first idea.

I rang Gary and he just started to laugh – he loved it.  It reflects our sense of humor also and the fact that we are three Irish guys that make dance music, which is the furthest away from our namesake as you can get!

What benefits are there to having three incredibly talented DJ’s work on a project?  What are the major drawbacks?

Three heads are better than one!  We all have to believe in the music we create for us to use it.  If one of us does not like the track then we will not use it.  Also we can send each other unfinished mixes that allow us each to work on a track individually and bring the results to the table.  We can then use each other’s individual ideas to build on the track further, as some of the ideas will be unique and untainted by the other two.

The only drawback that we’ve found is that we are not all based together in the same city, so making music sometimes is left to emailing ideas to one another, but its helped put a fresh twist on things, as I mentioned above.

If you were to add a fourth DJ to the mix who would it be?

I can’t think of anyone that we’d add.

Your videos are amazingly creative and all very unique.  What is the inspiration behind the music and videos for “Facemelter” and “Delboy’s Revenge?”

“Delboys Revenge” was based around the monster trucks theme that we’ve used on our single covers and “Face Melter” comes from our love of Japanese culture and dodgy B-movies!!  The three monsters in the video represent us.

“Rise Of Ulysses” comes from our love of an old cartoon called “Ulysses 31″ which the tracks name orignally was called, which our record label was unaware of any connection.  We were amazed when our label suggested using the footage and we couldn’t believe it when they landed the license to use the animation!

What has been your best, most interesting and/or most memorable live show?

I think that our Tokyo gig in Japan was the best by far!  We played a 10,000 capacity venue with Justice, Basement Jaxx, Vitalic, Busy P and Crookers. The whole experience was amazing and the gig was one of our best.  We spent a few days in Japan and actually were treated like Popstars.  We loved every minute of it and bought loads of cool Japanese stuff when we were there.

What are you guys currently working on?

We have started work on our new album which we hope will be released late 2009.  We also have some very special remixes that we are currently working on but we are not allowed to mention any names yet.

Your MySpace page states that Charlie Sheen is an inspiration, could you elaborate?

Charlie is such an 80s icon.  He’s been through it all and still is on top.  He has many sides and he starred in “The Wraith”.  Nuff said!

If you could only listen to five albums for the rest of your life, what would they be?

The Prodigy – “Music for The Jilted Generation”

The Japanese Popstars – “We Just Are”

Foo Fighters – “One By One”

The Killers – “Hot Fuss”

Michael Jackson – “Bad”