GUMMY, a Girls Band of Battle-Hardened Men, Completes Bold and Stimulating Debut EP: "What Matters is That These Four Are Having Fun. We're Far From Getting Bored"
This interview was originally published in Japanese on barks.jp. Translated by VK Chronicle.
GUMMY Interview
GUMMY is a new girls band comprised of men with extensive careers behind them. Rather than provide a standard explanation about their true nature and background—which would dampen the excitement—what’s important is that this isn’t some “secret project” for them. What matters is that their debut EP GIVE ME GUMMY, which they’ve just released as a live band, is an astonishingly provocative and unconventional work. This time, we bring you the raw voices of all four members discussing its completion.
Within this interview, the guitarist’s name appears as both “Mad Dangerous” and “aie,” and the members use both “僕” and “俺” (different ways of saying “I”), which may make it a bit difficult to read in places. However, just as with their music, we’ve intentionally avoided any bureaucratic standardization or adjustment to these details. We’re delivering this 20,000+ word long interview as close to the “raw” state as possible.
L to R: Kohta (B / @KOHTA63official), Gara (Vo / @merrygara0706), Lotty (Dr / @Lotto_drums), Mad Dangerous (G / @THEGOD_aie)
“The spark came when I first invited aie. Through his introduction, Lotty joined, and then Gara came aboard later”
Q: Mad Dangerous, you don’t look so well.
Mad: The reliable two-day hangover (laughs). We had a live broadcast on Niconico yesterday (April 15th). Originally, the plan was to show live footage while we did some side commentary, but the conversation just kept getting more and more heated. For 90 minutes, we completely forgot to show the live footage and just kept talking non-stop. In the end, it turned into a completely free-wheeling drinking session that lasted 90 minutes straight, starting with a toast (laughs).
Gara: At first, the live footage was supposed to be the main thing and we were in a small window on the side. But that ended up being reversed halfway through (laughs).
Q: So it was just a livestreamed drinking party!
Mad: Exactly. And then the switch flipped, so after the broadcast ended, we kept drinking until morning (laughs).
Q: It’s impressive that the switch never flipped back off until morning.
Lotty: I think GUMMY is dangerous, honestly. You drink way too much.
Mad: There’s no brakes on this car. When we stop, it’s only because we crash into something (laughs).
Q: And from this Mad and Dangerous situation, Kohta quickly…
Mad: Escaped (laughs).
Kohta: I bailed out right away yesterday (laughs). My stance was just to let everyone enjoy themselves without worrying about me.
Q: From your position as manager, that might actually be important. So, jumping right in—how do you all feel about the work that’s now complete?
Lotty: Actually, the recording was completed pretty early. The older tracks were finished about two years ago, back in 2024.
Mad: We were like, “Well, we’re bored, so let’s just record something.” At that point, Gara was already with us, right? So we decided to do it together, and before we knew it, we were recording.
Lotty: We’d already knocked out around 12 songs by that point. We basically just got the skeleton done first, then after that our live activities started ramping up toward tour dates. So this release is mainly packed with tracks that fans can enjoy at live shows.
Q: Six tracks total. Is it a mini album, or an EP?
Mad: From our generation’s perspective, it’s a mini album. But apparently people call them EPs these days. I’m not entirely comfortable with that, but… whatever (laughs). What’s the actual difference between a mini album and an EP anyway? Running time?
**Q: I don’t think there’s a strict definition, honestly. But I think “mini album” is a term that only exists in Japan.
Mad: Ah, I see. But from our perspective, it definitely feels like a mini album to me.
Lotty: So we released it without really understanding the difference (laughs).
Q: Regardless of what we call the format, you’re releasing these tracks—which seem ready to be battle-tested in live shows—right before your tour kicks off, correct? Also, hearing what you just said made me realize, “Wait, all this was already in motion two years ago?!”
Mad: Well, each of us has different circumstances and obligations, right? It took two years to work through all of that.
Q: So this is what you’d call “adult circumstances”?
Mad: Exactly. But if we’d just waited for everything to be resolved, time would keep passing and we’d all get old. So we decided to lock in some decisions early. That’s why we booked that Shinjuku LOFT show over a year ago. We had to decide what we were doing first, then move toward those goals. We basically realized that unless we started recording, the band wouldn’t move forward, and unless we booked a live show, things would never get started. So we called the manager at Shinjuku LOFT and locked down that date, then started working toward it from there.
Q: When you secured that Shinjuku LOFT date, weren’t you worried at all about whether you’d actually be able to pull everything together by then?
Mad: Strangely, I wasn’t worried about that at all. After that, we just started talking to people and making it happen.
Kohta: Once you decide on something, you realize you can actually get there. If you decide to do it, you find a way, or if that doesn’t work, you come up with another approach.
Q: So you make the decision first, then work everything out afterward—that’s faster than waiting for everything to be perfect before deciding. Who actually started GUMMY?
Kohta: That was me. I was the one who first invited aie. We’d had one chance to make music together before, and he’s been my favorite guitarist since then. When my other band (Angelo) stopped, I wanted to do something with him, so I reached out. Though he’s pretty busy with different things.
Mad: No, I’m free (laughs).
Kohta: So from that “let’s do something fun,” aie introduced us to Lotty, who joined. At first, the three of us were going into the studio regularly. Then, about a year and a half later, Gara joined.
Mad: Kohta told me I could do whatever I wanted with the drums, but when we first thought about doing something as a three-piece, Lotty seemed like the obvious choice from people I knew. So I asked him, “We’re thinking of doing this—want to give it a shot?” and he said, “Sure, let’s try it.” After that, we’d get together once a month and make music and write songs. I think we did that for about a year and a half.
Lotty: That period was pretty long. We were going into the studio regularly and wrote about ten songs…
Q: At that stage, did you have any specific decisions about the music or a clear direction you were heading in?
Mad: No, not at all. It was completely spontaneous. The arrangements and everything started taking shape once Gara came in. When all the puzzle pieces finally fit together, we started pushing the arrangements in a more specific direction. That was around the time we booked the Shinjuku LOFT show. But at that point, we didn’t think this band was going to become a girls band (laughs).
Gara: We didn’t even have the name GUMMY yet.
Mad: Right. We had no idea about that concept at all back then. We were thinking more like, “This is a pretty male-oriented rock and roll band, so Shinjuku LOFT seems like a good fit.” We were saying things like, “It’s a pretty big venue, but let’s work hard for a year and become the kind of band that sells out LOFT.” We’d say this stuff at a yakitori place in Shimokitazawa while we were drinking once a month. But the way this actually happened came from a flash of inspiration during one of those conversations. Someone said something like, “That ‘Otoboke Beaver’ thing is cool, right?” and “What if we were like that?” At first, we were thinking, “No makeup, sunglasses, but for some reason underwear,” but our energy just kept building as we drank. We started looking at online shopping sites together, going “This is cute, right?” and “Maybe this one would suit us better.”
Gara: At that point it was basically girls talk (laughs). Honestly, with GUMMY, everything gets decided during drinking sessions.
Kohta: Yeah. We take the ideas that come up while drinking pretty seriously, and then we’re like, “Oh, that’s fun,” and we expand from there.
Q: So after Gara joined, you decided over drinks to become a girls band?
Mad: Yeah. And this was actually after we’d already locked in tour dates.
Q: So why is Kohta the only one outside the girls band concept?
Gara: It came up a few times. While we were drinking, someone would ask, “What about Kohta?”
Kohta: But I couldn’t picture myself as a girl at all, so I was like, “Nah, I’m a guy, that’s my only option” (laughs). I figure having one character like this among the four of us works fine. I ended up being cast as the manager or the guy in the black suit, but that only works because these three actually commit to the female costumes.
Mad: The three of us do these uncouth girls, and we ask Kohta to be the manager pulling us together, wearing a suit.
Kohta: Kind of a scary-looking manager, I guess (laughs). Once we settled that, everyone’s direction solidified.
Q: I think people tend to assume this whole concept was the starting point, knowing that it’s a girls band formed by four experienced men. But it’s actually the opposite, right?
Kohta: Yeah, it’s all really just stuff we added on afterward.
Gara: We hadn’t even decided what kind of music we were doing. When aie was like, “I’m in the studio with Kohta and Lotty—want to come sing?” he didn’t really explain what kind of sound they were making at all. But honestly, the excitement of “What could we create together with these people?” was way bigger than anything else. So I was just like, “Yeah, let’s do it!” and started going to the studio. At that point, I had zero thoughts about becoming a girls band (laughs). But if I could do something fun with these people, honestly, I was down for whatever.
Q: In a way, that’s kind of like “adult play,” right?
Kohta: Exactly like that.
Q: And at the same time, in an era where girls bands aren’t such unusual things anymore, this kind of becomes a “here’s another option” kind of statement.
Mad: Right. Surprisingly, nobody was really doing this. Even though it’s fun.
Kohta: Basically, with this band, everything expands from “this is cool,” and we don’t overthink it (laughs). We just kind of dig into it.
Mad: This was a while back, but there was this incredibly cool girl doing solo guitar at a show we were on. I remember thinking, “If we made this into a band and did grunge, it’d be so cool.” And that’s basically what we’re doing now.
Q: Grunge came up as a keyword, and when I saw the Shinjuku LOFT show, I got the impression of “Courtney Love and L7 doing something together.” I also felt it was very ’90s in a way.
Mad: Yeah, exactly like that.
Q: In a way, it’s very much in the same era as ’90s Visual Kei, right? But it’s interesting that the “guys doing a girls band” idea came right after Gara joined.
Gara: For sure (laughs). I mean, I’ve only done Merry until now, so my musical and visual values were pretty solidified. But I had this feeling that aie could break that apart in a good way, so I was able to accept it pretty smoothly. Like, if we could do something fun, why not?
Mad: The real deciding factor was Gara’s voice. At first, we were just thinking “solid rock,” so we were actually looking for a vocalist outside the Visual Kei world. But when we were the three of us, that voice naturally came through. Once we heard it and started thinking about doing it together, it was just constant course corrections—all the way until we became girls.
Q: “Until we became girls”—you’re saying that like you had some kind of surgery (laughs).
Mad: Yeah, there was actually a lot of back-and-forth about which direction to take. Like, whether our bodies are actually female in the setting, or just our hearts, or what each of us’ personal image of “female” is. For me, I’m fine with just “looks like a girl, but still basically an old man inside”… We actually finally got to have that conversation yesterday. Someone was like, “So what do you all think about yourselves?” and we actually answered.
Gara: I think I’m probably in the “woman at heart” position. Although, maybe I should act a bit more feminine (laughs). That came up yesterday.
Lotty: I’m similar to aie. It’s not that I’m a woman in the setting—I’m specifically a man in drag. So actually, my hair is long, but because I want that sense of being in disguise, I deliberately wear a wig. I could do it with my real hair, but then I’d just look like a beautiful woman, and that’s not… I’m not trying to be a woman, I’m specifically drag—
Mad: A cross-dressing pervert, basically (laughs).
Gara: Whereas my character is “someone who wants to be a woman.”
Q: There’s probably a lot of “things that are fun specifically because it’s a girls band doing them,” right? So that “wait, has nobody actually done this?” feeling was part of it too?
Mad: It’s that specific window where we have the right amount of career experience and we’re at the right age. That combination worked out perfectly. If we were in our twenties doing this, it wouldn’t be fun at all. The fun part is that we’re approaching fifty and we’re still doing this.
Gara: And forming a new band at this point in our lives is part of that too.
Kohta: Plus, there’s no forced calculation behind it. I think if a young band did this, it would come across as really calculated and contrived. But doing this when we’ve all got solid careers behind us—that’s just genuinely fun.
Mad: And this concept isn’t about us trying to draw bigger crowds or anything like that. The spark was just “this sounds fun, let’s try it,” and even if the venue was half-empty, I wouldn’t consider it a failure or anything.