After listening to Tokyo Pinsalocks' brilliant new minialbum "Planet Rita," it's frightening to think that the trio — bassist Hisayo, singer Naoko and drummer Reiko — almost sold their soul to the devil, and not the rock 'n' roll one at that, which would be cool. No, in a bid to get famous they almost sold themselves to the far darker evil of mainstream J-pop. And they're honest to admit loitering at that dangerous crossroads . . . and tough enough to say they don't regret it either.
"We used to play very heavy music like (1990s Tokyo rockers) Super Junky Monkey, and by the time we released our minialbum "Bubble Girl," we were quite famous on the indie scene and we felt we wanted to become even more successful," Hisayo tells me, between sipping her beer at a small Shibuya cafe.
"So we started working with a management company, and in about half a year we recorded a few songs in a J-pop style to try to get into the charts, but then we had second thoughts and decided not to release them because it's not what we wanted to do. Now we manage ourselves."