Nudity, guitars and laughs: Electric Eel Shock

The music industry is often a bewildering place. The ‘noughties’ as it has been coined will surely be remembered for being a time when anyone can become famous, irrespective of any discerning talent or ability. Although far from the ‘birth’ of reality TV, it certainly gave it a very good home. The plethora of reality television programmes which pluck ‘ordinary’ people from obscurity and place them in the public stage for us to gawp at as we please has been unrelenting. Big Brother was the first suspect which has been superseded by shows such as Pop Idol, Britain’s Got Talent and the behemoth that is X Factor.

Recently as with the latter music Dinosaurs Sting and Bon Jovi has publicly claimed that the show is killing New Music (but of course Bon Jovi came out with their comments after they used the opportunity to go on the show to plug their new album and tour).

The knock on effect that this has had is that record companies are climbing over themselves to sign up rejects from the show and put out their records to hop on the band wagon to cater for the publics insatiable appetite for a disposable product, to be championed for a year until the next bunch of wannabes step into our TV screens. The simple fact is that most people are nowhere near as interesting or talented as they believe themselves to be.

On the flip side of this coin comes the sheer unrelenting hard work of bands slogging it out across the world; scouring the globe for shows, building a fan base and self releasing their records. And few have work as hard as Tokyo’s mental punk-metallers Electric Eel Shock.

Formed in 1997 they have developed a blistering live reputation for guitar theatrics, naked drumming and good old fashioned rock n roll frolicking. It’s a drab November [2009] evening and sitting in the bands dressing room at the Gibson Studios in London, the three of them sit on a sofa laughing amongst themselves. Aki sits with a Flying V in his hands as his fingers tirelessly zip up and down the fret board as Gian sits pulling faces as they are being photographed.

Oozing charm and a childlike enthusiasm they spend much of the evening laughing and joking, darting to and from the Gibson showroom beaming excitedly about the guitars with Aki saying: "Gibson is like Jack Daniels, the original".

Bands such as Electric Eel Shock have embraced the internet and social networking sites as a tool to help get their music to a wider audience which have helped them develop a fevered band base across the world and as they prepare for tonight’s Gibson/Bebo showcase the ever charming bass player Kazuto Maekawa searches for the right words on how methods like these have become good for building fan bases: “we don’t know bebo so much because we just joined now, but touching of hands by internet is always good for us,” taking a pause he smiles and continues: “sex, drugs and email” before bursting out in a big belly laugh which singer/guitarist Aki Morimoto grins and says: “it’s very good for rock n roll culture”

As they sit relaxed whilst the flash of a camera litters our peripheries Tomoharu “Gian” Ito (drums) sits between his band mates with his fingers in his ears pulling faces as if teasing Aki about his guitar playing, but laughing off the banter they talk passionately about their fans and how they keep fresh after all this time to which Kazuto smiles and leans forward grinning “maybe we stupid” before letting out another big laugh.

For a period of time a few years back they were based in London but this has been a long awaited return with Kazuto scratching his head saying: “we really want to come back to the UK next year. We feel sorry for UK fans because we haven’t played UK in more than 2 years, so I want to come back soon”

When pointed out the distance between Tokyo and London Aki simply shrugs: “yeah, but it doesn’t matter. If they want to see us, we come, we play.”

Its refreshing to see this from a band who have been going for so long, they’ve released 8 albums in this time (Maybe I Think We Can Beat Nirvana, Live Punctured, Slayers Bay Blues, Go Europe, Go USA, Beat Me, Transworld Ultra Rock) with the most recent one being ‘Sugoi Indeed’; Sugoi being Japanese for ‘Amazing’.

For this album they decided to join Sellaband, the website that allows fans to invest in the band which pays for the recording and after raising $50,000 in 2 months the band were ready to go, if not taken back a little, as his eyes widen Aki sits forward in shock: “we were very surprised, we weren’t ready to record”, jumping in Kazuto adds: “manager said, we have money now, lets go to record” as Aki finish off with an excited chuckle “I don’t have any songs.”

For a band like Electric Eel Shock this means a lot, its clear they hold their fans very close and its easy to be charmed by their wide eyed optimism, even when broaching the subject of working so hard for so many years without any big results the band are defiant and buoyant as Aki looks at the other two, takes sometime to think before saying: “sometimes we get bored in the practice studio, because its just practice. On the stage everything is new. New Audience, new City, everything new... you know the number of people is not the priority, how much energy or how much enjoyment, that is the priority”

Offering a similar response Kazuto confirms “it’s the most enjoyment for us to play a stage, deep communication with English people, every country’s people” and as he contemplate his words trying to translate from Japanese to English Aki thoughtfully sits forward to say: “gig is not made by only us, gig is made by us and audience, so if audience is really drunk, like drunk party, we go more crazy, but sometimes audience want to see more proper, guitar kids want to see guitar solos…that’s why I told you we never get bored on tour, its always different, but we always keep communicating with the audience”

Keeping with the subject of audience interaction talks slips into their recent show at the Bizarre Ball; the annual event hosted by the alternative magazine for all things kinky and bacchanalian as Kazuto face goes very serious saying “I saw the dark side of London” before letting out a familiar laugh as Aki quickly sits forward adding bewilderedly: “we were most normal people there”. But the question is, did you like the dark side of London? An enthusiastic and resounding yes is the response.

Unlike many of those congregating at the upper echelons of the charts riding the fickle wave of faux-popularity Electric Eel Shock will be around for a very long time. Its not simply what they want to do, its what they have become, they will be there playing every little crevice of the world until the day of either they can no longer stand or until there’s no one left in the room watching. And as the latter is very unlikely to happen, lets hope they keep themselves fit and well because we’re not done with them yet, not by a long shot.