J-pop band Yoasobi will be headlining the annual Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago this Sunday, Aug. 4. First formed by Sony Music Entertainment Japan in 2019, the musical duo includes 23-year-old singer Lilas Ikuta, whose stage name is ikura (literally meaning salmon caviar, more on that later), and 30-year-old music producer Ayase. While both musicians are quite young, they've already achieved much success. With over 2 million followers jointly on their Instagram accounts, they earned more than 630,000 viewers on a TikTok livestream performance, the most ever received for a Japanese act on the social media app. Their first song, Yoru ni Kakeru (Into the Night), was No. 1 in many Japanese streaming charts in 2019, and was the first song to stream over 900 million streams in Japan. Newsweek's Ramsen Shamon, deputy opinion editor, spoke with the band through a translator on Wednesday via Zoom, while they were in New York City.
Q _ How are you feeling about performing at Lollapalooza? How does it feel to be a headliner?
A _ Super excited! [ikura's] been thinking about it since she came [to the U.S.]
What do you do to prepare for a performance?
They each have their individual rituals. But as a group collectively they always form a huddle. And they kind of encourage each other before they get to stage.
Will you sing any songs in English at Lolla?
They're not planning to sing in English.
What's one striking difference you've noticed while being in the U.S. compared to Japan?
First of all, whenever they go overseas, to countries or towns, they realize how hot Japan is. It's so hot in Japan. As for New York, yesterday, ikura and Ayase said, at Times Square, to have dinner, they witnessed the smoke coming out of the manhole—so they were wondering, how and why, and what's happening?
ikura, you lived in Chicago when you were 3. Do you have any memory of that time in your life?
Since she was 3 when they left [Chicago] she was still a baby, so she doesn't really remember. When the family shares pictures and videos from back [then], that's kind of vaguely when she [remembers].
Why did you choose the name ikura? (Which literally means salmon caviar.)
So her real name, being Ikuta Lilas—so if you cut the middle TA and LI and combine [them] together that makes ikura. But if it's easier for you to remember [her name] as salmon caviar that's OK.
Speaking of names, how do you decide on choosing a song title?
After they get inspiration from reading a book or story—[that] their songs are based on, [then they] apply that theme into music and [then decide] what that music should sound like. And what's the best words to describe that music, not the story itself. That's how they always think about it.
Both of you are quite young, how does it feel to be so successful at such a young age? You've even worked with Pokémon, which is such an iconic Japanese brand.
Ayase said it's really great that so many people listen to them. They are extremely happy that so many people from all over the world listen to them and the number of listeners [keeps] growing, but they never want to take that for granted. And they always think about where they started from. They don't want to forget that, and they always think about longevity. And making their fans happy. And ikura said they each had their solo careers before Yoasobi. And they had those times where they didn't get this kind of success or the kind of attention [as they do now]. So the Yoasobi project is like—now our music career has finally started. We're still at the starting point. They have a lot of goals and hurdles to achieve.
What are some of those hurdles or goals they would like to achieve or overcome?
As an artist to represent J-pop as Yoasobi for five years, they're going to have to keep the constant effort of making J-pop more recognizable, and they have to continue the effort for another five to 10 years to comfortably say they represent J-pop. And also, they want to perform at bigger stadiums, tours, stuff like that. So there's many more things to achieve.
When you're both not making music, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?
For Ayase, when he's not making music, he really enjoys drinking with his friends. And ikura really enjoys eating out with family and friends. And she really enjoys nature, so she makes sure to [make] time to go out in nature and get rejuvenated.
Do you have a name for your fans? Rihanna's fans are called the Rihanna Navy. Beyonce has the BeyHive. What are your fans called?
They don't have one. They were very intentional about not making [a fandom name] in the beginning, because you know, it's great. They know the trend. It's great to have the kind of name for fans, but they didn't want the fans who got to know about Yoasobi later to be feeling excluded that they're not the original whatever the fan name is, but now it's become such a popular thing. Maybe they missed out on the opportunity and ikura said maybe it's a good idea to announce that [fandom name] at the 15-year anniversary.
Do you want to change the stereotype of J-pop being kawaii or "cutesy" or are you OK with that stereotype?
Ayase didn't really know that J-pop is known and labeled as kawaii and cutesy, but it's cool. As Japanese, we know that there are a bunch more [styles] than just cute and kawaii, there's a cool side of [J-pop]. So he's not trying to change it, but he wants to add to it. There's so many more elements to [J-pop].
Are there any misconceptions about your music or J-pop that you want to dispel?
Ayase doesn't really want to change anything about it. It's just cool that J-pop has this image of being kawaii or cute because that's recognition right there. If people don't know about J-pop it's going to be like, "What's J-pop anyway?" so they don't want to change their image. They want to add more elements to it.
Where is your favorite place to make music? At home? The studio?
For Ayase, definitely home. Whenever he makes music, he loves to do it at home. For recording even [in the studio], he doesn't really prefer having that many people around. So the less people the better. For ikura, she prefers to be in the house [making music]. But whenever she gets the inspiration for her music, it tends to come whenever she's on tour, on the move, like overseas, like right now. Or whenever she's at a hotel overseas.
Is there any U.S. based or English-speaking band or musician you both would love to work with?
Ayase said definitely Post Malone. Since he's in America right now he would like to collaborate with him. And even if not in the collaboration of music, he's just really interested in him as a person. He seems really cool and nice. It would be really cool to meet him. For ikura, she's been a huge fan of Taylor Swift.
Favorite Japanese food?
Ayase's current favorite is hitsumanbushi, it's a Nagoya specific cuisine. It's broiled eel over rice. And you can change three ways—the taste—by adding different things. For ikura, it's hotpot—shabu-shabu, sukiyaki. She likes to eat hotpot almost every day.
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