At first glance Alec Empire, in black leather from head to foot, appears the archetypal rocker, but his short clean hair and his drug-free, no-drinking, no-smoking stance hardly screams "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."
Besides, with interviews starting from 10 a.m. until late at night, without even a proper hour for lunch, Empire has little time for driving cars into the hotel swimming pool. The leader of noise terrorists Atari Teenage Riot was in Tokyo for a week of press interviews, in advance of the band's new album and their appearance at this summer's Fuji Rock Festival.
As self-proclaimed anarchists, of a type closer to the political ideas of the original anarchists and the Situationists than the aimless violence and apathy of many of the '70s punks, the members of ATR are aware that their chosen ideology is often criticized for being unrealistic, but they are unshaken. "We can't go on this way. It is becoming more and more clear that capitalism obviously isn't working either." They are adamant that there can be "a different approach to life where people can take responsibility for themselves -- and it is mainly an educational thing." And music is part of that education.