Am Amp × ASH DA HERO: A Deep Dive Into Their Unexpected Connection Before Their First Joint Show
This interview was originally published in Japanese on spice.eplus.jp. Translated by VK Chronicle.
【Dialogue】Am Amp × ASH DA HERO: No Connection on the Surface, But Actually Mutual Admirers!? Deep Dive Into Both Bands’ Relationship Before Their First Co-Headlining Show
Am Amp × ASH DA HERO Photography = Yuki Ōhashi
On May 31st, Am Amp suddenly released a music video for their new song “ハートに安全ピンを刺して” on YouTube. They announced the start of their second period, and that they would be holding a one-man live celebrating the band’s third anniversary on August 3rd at Spotify O-WEST in Tokyo titled “Am Amp再始動 Here we (Am).” — which sold out immediately. They then announced an emergency additional show on August 14th at Shibuya WWW X. These guys will be hosting co-headlining live shows titled “Here we (Am). VS. SERIES @新宿LOFT” at Shinjuku LOFT in Tokyo over three consecutive months starting in August, welcoming guest bands each time.
The guest for the first installment on August 28th is ASH DA HERO — a live powerhouse expanding their activities both domestically and internationally. For this dialogue, we brought together Sugar (Vo) and Motoharu Yazawa (Ba) from Am Amp, along with ASH (Vo) and Sato (Ba) from ASH DA HERO. The Tokyo-based alternative band Am Amp and the Reiwa era’s strongest mixture band ASH DA HERO — while they seemed to have no connection, it turned out Sugar has been a huge fan of ASH DA HERO since way back, and Yazawa and Sato have connections and exchange within the Visual Kei scene. The dialogue was packed with excitement! Before the co-headline show, here’s their passionate talk.
Q: Let’s start with introductions.
ASH: I’m ASH, the vocalist of ASH DA HERO. Nice to meet you.
Sato: I’m Sato, the bassist. Nice to meet you.
Sugar: I’m Sugar, vocalist of Am Amp.
Motoharu Yazawa: I’m Motoharu Yazawa, bassist of Am Amp. Nice to meet you.
ASH: (looking at Sugar) What should I call you? Sugar-kun?
Sugar: Yes, please. My real name is Kyousuke Suga, but I’ve been Sugar since May 31st.
Q: You just changed your name recently, huh?
ASH: Then I’ll go with Sugar-kun.
Sugar: You’re the first senior to ever call me that!
Yazawa: Not just seniors — you’re literally the first person on Earth to call him “Sugar-kun.” We haven’t even called him that yet.
L⇒R: Sugar (Am Amp), ASH (ASH DA HERO)
“When I pushed into the green room to say hello, I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but honestly, I was such a fanboy!” (Sugar)
Q: So, with Am Amp’s restart, you’re holding this three-month consecutive co-headlining series ‘Here we (Am).VS SERIES’ at Shinjuku LOFT starting in August. Could you tell us why you chose ASH DA HERO as the guest for this memorable first installment?
Sugar: He was the very first person we reached out to. Looking back at my history, I’ve been aware of ASH DA HERO (from his solo project days) since I was a student.
ASH: Really?
Sugar: Yeah. Through HYDE’s VAMPS project, I learned about this “incredible person who’d emerged,” and I went to see his live shows many times.
ASH: Oh man, that makes me happy.
Sugar: When I pushed into the green room to say hello the other day, I thought if I told you this, you’d think “Wow, that’s creepy,” so I couldn’t bring myself to say it. But honestly, I was such a fanboy! With those passionate feelings of mine, I thought maybe we could work together, so I reached out. That’s how this came about.
ASH: Really? That makes me incredibly happy. Thank you so much.
Sugar: I never thought it would actually happen, so I’m just… “thrilled!” honestly (laughs). And it’s not a festival or event — it’s a two-band show, right? I’m genuinely, truly thrilled. I feel like I need to go in with resolve.
ASH: For me, I’d been seeing you guys often on SNS. I’m the type to check various things pretty consistently, and your band caught my antenna. I was definitely keeping tabs on your existence. I thought you guys do some seriously masculine, intense live shows.
Sugar & Yazawa: Thank you so much.
ASH (ASH DA HERO: Vo)
ASH: You guys really kill it on SNS, right? I actually learned a lot from how Am Amp releases YouTube Shorts videos — I’ve genuinely used you guys as a reference. For our band, that goes for Sato-kun too. I thought, “Oh, if you focus and release videos like that, it works,” and honestly, I was learning from Am Amp. So when it turned out that band was actually aware of us? That’s what made me happy.
Yazawa: That’s mutual admiration.
ASH: Seriously. So when we got the offer, I was like, “What? Am Amp?” because they operate in their own independent scene. “Why would they even know about us?” Our scenes are different. But now, with this dialogue session, that mystery got solved from what you just said. Getting asked to do this is a huge honor.
Sugar: Really?? That makes me so happy.
ASH: You made the decision pretty quick, didn’t you?
Sato: Yeah, we did.
ASH: Once this was shared among us, it was like, “That Am Amp? Yeah, I know them. I check them out constantly. Let’s do it!”
“I felt a sense of being kindred spirits with the same lineage and career path as Sato. There’s respect for Visual Kei, there’s identity, and there’s a scent that remains.” (Yazawa)
Q: Yazawa-san, were you already familiar with ASH DA HERO?
Yazawa: Of course I was aware of them. Yes. I didn’t have direct contact with ASH-san, but I did know Sato-san. Originally, I came from the Visual Kei scene before forming Am Amp as a rock band now, so I felt — on my own — that Sato-san was a kindred spirit with the same lineage and career path. Just me reading into it, though. When I left the Visual Kei scene to pursue rock, there aren’t that many people who carry that scent with them while doing rock.
ASH: So you’re saying there aren’t many people who properly shoulder their Visual Kei background?
Yazawa: Right. While maintaining respect for Visual Kei, while maintaining identity — there aren’t many people who keep that scent. On the other hand, there are tons of people who completely erase it. Among all that, I felt — from a distance — something in Sato-san’s originality and identity that was really close to my own. Once we connected and that distance shortened, we’d go out to eat together.
Sato: We had tacos (smiles).
ASH: Really?
Sato: We also went for yakiniku.
ASH: You guys are super close!
Sato: We lived near each other for a while.
Motoharu Yazawa (Am Amp: Ba)
Yazawa: Sato-san lived literally about a minute’s walk from my place.
Sato: We were like, “We’re musicians and basically live closest to each other,” so we said, “Let’s hang out.”
ASH: Is that area some kind of special district the city designated for former Visual Kei bassists to live in? (laughs)
Sato & Yazawa: No, no, no (laughs).
Sato: Living near each other was just a crazy coincidence.
ASH: But if you think about it in broad categories, you two fit into a pretty similar folder.
Sugar: Yeah, honestly, I think you’re totally right.
Sato: Even though we were both in the Visual Kei scene, we never did a co-headlining show. We just nearly crossed paths at big circuit events.
ASH: So you were both active in the Visual Kei scene at the same time?
Sato (ASH DA HERO: Ba)
Sato: Yeah. When I was doing support work backing up Visual Kei singers, you were in Minus-Ningen Orchestra. We never co-headlined, right?
Yazawa: Yeah, we didn’t.
Sato: And then, coming from Visual Kei roots with strong influences, I met ASH and now we’re doing a mixture rock band. It’s really like an all-boys school vibe.
ASH: Nah, it’s like vocational school for us.
(Everyone laughs)
Sato: Motoharu-kun, the way you present yourself as a material in Am Amp is completely unique. You’re one-of-a-kind. You came from Visual Kei, but because you’re in this Am Amp, it’s incredibly interesting. I felt a rare sympathy in those parts.
“The senpai who did uncool things never seemed punk to me at all. But having experienced that incredible irrationality from above, I definitely got tougher.” (ASH)
Q: You two are mutually admiring each other. So Sugar-san, having watched ASH-san since your fanboy days, what was your first impression meeting him in person?
Sugar: Can I be honest? ASH-san kind of scared me.
Yazawa: Yeah, when we went to say hello in the green room before, we were really nervous about it.
Sugar: Right. “Will this be okay?” We were filming a music video for a new song in the countryside that day, and we headed straight to an ASH DA HERO live, but we didn’t make it in time. We didn’t make it, but I wanted to at least say hello, so we asked, and I knocked on the green room door. At that moment, I was prepared to get knocked back with “You didn’t even make it?!”
ASH: That’s quite an image (laughs). I wonder where that came from?
Sato: It’s probably your eyes, right? You have intense eye power.
ASH: Huh. But people do say that to me. “You look scary.” I’m really not like that at all.
Sugar: Right?! When I actually met you, you were way too kind — I was completely taken aback. You’re such a kind person.
Yazawa: We were glad we met you in person before the live. It cleared things up for us.
Sugar: Yeah, exactly. From far away, you kind of seem…
ASH: “I thought I’d get punched,” or “I thought I’d get beaten up.” I don’t know where all these rumors came from making me sound like some legendary delinquent.
Yazawa: I think that’s the image in the band world. But when we actually met, you turned out to be incredibly kind. It was totally fine. When you were younger, did you beat people up?
ASH: Nope (laughs). I got beaten up though.
Sugar: So it was like that, huh?
ASH: That kind of scene. I was in a sports club vibe. I never thought the senpai who did uncool things like that were punk at all. Like, juniors getting bullied by their seniors, and then those seniors get on stage saying “Punk rocks!”? I thought that was stupid. I decided I’d never do something like that.
Sugar: So ASH-san ended that trend?
ASH: Hold on, you’re making me sound like I was the main character of that era (laughs). I just didn’t do those kinds of things. But having experienced that incredible irrationality from above, I definitely got tougher.
Sugar (Am Amp: Vo)
“When our drummer was leaving, we had discussions where we seriously wondered if it meant disbanding. But we made it clear that this was the only place we belonged, and in the end we decided to continue. I realized the ideal rock star image I first set out to achieve was about being a ‘symbol,’ so in our second period, the two of us became one.” (Sugar)
Q: Bands have turning points where they get stronger. ASH DA HERO became a guitarist-less mixture band after your guitarist left in 2024. Am Amp lost your drummer last year and chose to put the two of you front and center, leading to your current lineup. I’d like to hear how you both converted that minus element of member departures into band strengths. How did you think about it?
ASH: So for Am Amp, the drummer leaving was the catalyst that led to this current setup?
Yazawa: Yeah, it was a major turning point.
ASH: So you’re saying Am Amp right now is “new generation Am Amp.”
Sugar: Exactly. We call it our first and second periods. We’re now in our second period.
Q: Am Amp’s first period was a four-member band, right?
Sugar: Yeah. When our drummer was leaving, we honestly had discussions where we seriously wondered if it meant disbanding. But we made it really clear that this was the only place we belonged, so ultimately we decided to continue. Then I thought about the ideal rock star image I first set out to achieve, and I realized we had to become a “symbol.” So in our second period, the two of us became one. He (Yazawa) has a pretty distinct personality too, and I completely settled my past and changed my name to Sugar. With the idea of the two of us becoming one symbol for the band, that’s how we arrived at this lineup.
Q: But you guys really committed to it, huh?
Sugar: Yeah.
Yazawa: By the way, JHON (Gt) is no longer a member, but he’s still with the band as the creative center, and he still performs on stage just like before. So we two are out front doing the offense, scoring goals, like in soccer. JHON is like the goalkeeper protecting from behind. Including label staff, we decided on this setup by figuring out where everyone needs to focus completely.
ASH: I see. That’s got an overseas rock band vibe to it — it’s cool. Like Panic! at the Disco, right? Green Day, Bring Me the Horizon — they’re team-style bands. So actually, this might be a cutting-edge band format. So the fans should think these two are ahead of their time, and while sharing this sense of era, they can become comrades fighting together through the second period, I think. That’s what I’d say.
Sugar & Yazawa: Thank you so much.
L⇒R: Sato (ASH DA HERO), Motoharu Yazawa (Am Amp)
“We had schedules so packed we didn’t have time to think. We had no choice but to weather the storm with these four people. We just kept running without stopping and got stronger.” (ASH)
Yazawa: So when your guitarist left, what kind of discussions led you to your current setup?**
ASH: At first, we were talking about bringing in another guitarist. But when we thought about who could replace him, nobody came to mind. So we shifted to thinking about what kind of sound we could create with the members we had left.
Yazawa: Did you naturally arrive at your current form?
ASH: Our schedule was so packed we didn’t have time to think. We had immediate live shows coming up where we had to perform without a guitarist. And not just regular shows — festivals, overseas performances, all away games. So we had no choice but to weather the storm with these four people. We’d go into the studio without sleeping. We’d wonder, “Is there some way to make this work?” During that time, DJ Dhalsim and Sato-kun were experimenting with the sound side of things, and I was trying different approaches creating four-member songs. Gradually the four of us just became tighter and tighter, and before we knew it, we weren’t even using the term “new generation” anymore. We just kept running without stopping and got stronger. So if there’s anyone dealing with band members leaving and feeling lost about it — look, you’re already abnormal idiots for even doing rock and forming bands in the first place, so stop moping around and just charge forward without hesitation, you know? That’s what we want to embody.