CFDL: It’s Easy to be a Punk in Japan

Takeshi Evolstak, singer of Japanese thrashing punk band CFDL was interviewed by Nick and Emily for the first issue of Mangelslakt zine in 1999. Here’s a slightly edited reprint of the original interview.

When did CFDL form and how did you meet?

CFDL was formed sometime in 1990. At that time we had another bassist and we were all together in a band called Attitude of Shit (AOS) where I, Takeshi, played bass. Our original bassist was singing and the rest of us were playing the same instruments as CFDL, so that was the reason why we met for CFDL and we were all good friends together before we formed AOS by the way.

Why did CFDL change its acronym from Crazy Fucked up Daily Life to Chaotic Formidable Destructive League? For fun?

No, it was not just for fun, we had some reasons to change it, although it was pretty trivial. Well I’ll tell you some reasons, first of all a lot of people just called us “Crazy”, sometimes I was told “You’re Takeshi of Crazy!” and it sounds in Japanese like you’re the Crazy Takeshi, I’m not crazy and I didn’t want to be called crazy, ha!

Second, I lived in England for a year and learned English, my teacher was a very nice woman and I talked to her a bit about my band and she couldn’t say the word fuck that was used for our name, so I decided to change our name. Third, I couldn’t come up with a cool logo with Crazy Fucked up Daily Life, ha! Fourth, blah blah blah. Anyway, don’t forget that our name is now Chaotic Formidable Destructive League. Oh, that means we are, of course!

What has CFDL released and what are upcoming releases you are planning?

We released two demos, a split 7″ with Dischange on MCR, an official live 7″ on Overthrow, a split 7″ EP with Spazz on Slap a Ham, and have been on a few comps so far. And just now the split tape with a local noise-core band called Denial.

As for future releases, we’ve already recorded and sent a master tape for a split 7″ EP with Regeneracion, which will be released soon on Cryptas in Mexico (Never happened – N/E). Also a split tape with SNA will be out soon in Peru (Ditto – N/E) and soon we’ll be recording for a split 7″ with someone on Overthrow (Ahem – N/E) and also a split 7″ with BOD (Okay this is sad now – N/E). We have some plans to do split EPs, but I can’t say much about that.

What bands influenced CFDL?

I can’t say what bands influence us cause there’s too many you’ve already heard of.

Is it hard to be a punk band in Japan? What do you think of Japan?

No, it’s very easy to be a punk band here in Japan. Anyone can be in a punk band if they want to and if they can find people who love punk rock and can play instruments and scream a lot. I think Japan is a boring country if I’m not in a band because you know life in Japan is all hard work from Monday to Saturday and then you just spend some boring time on the weekend. I think/hope most people don’t like it, but they have to do it for their own life, I’m sorry about that.

Do you do any DIY projects?

No, none of us do any DIY projects but I make and distribute our split tapes with Denial as I said before, if that can be called a DIY project, I can say I do. Oh, I also help translating stuff for Japanese punk as fuck zine called Drunk with Party, if you care.

Do you think Japanese punk is getting more popular?

Do you mean for overseas or for Japan? If you mean for Japan, I would say no because the Japanese scene is so small compared to a few years ago, it’s pretty underground, but if you mean for overseas, then I think it’s getting more popular because a lot of Japanese punks have started corresponding with punks from overseas. Also, most of the Japanese labels and bands are starting to distribute their stuff for overseas, but I’m not so sure if that will make Japanese punk more popular overseas.

Favorite Japanese punk bands?

Too many to mention here, but I love old bands like The Swankys and Confuse, also SDS. Other favorite bands are: BOD, Chaos Ch., Addiction, Life, Collapse Society, Abraham Cross, Gloom, Disclose… local bands Denial, An Apology, Nature Arise, and Order.

Okay that’s all Takeshi, thanks for doing the interview! Any final comments to the readers?

Thanks a lot for the interview and cheers for everyone who reads it!