Random Acts of Ninja

pS: (newscaster beat) Are you guys a real band?

K: No, we're just a figment of your imagination.
Full Metal Ninja (FMetalN): We play our own music, we play instruments and we have martial arts guys.
Ninja34: Yeah! The EMC Monkeys!
K: There are murderous undertones, which is the ninja part. And the random would be how we create chord progressions.

IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A NINJA

pS: How did you all meet, or did you not all meet at once? Who founded this?

FMetalN: I guess that would be me. One day we just started playing. It was like, "We're like ninjas, we play music, we like martial arts, we like videos, we like video games...," So why don't we just make a band that pulls everything together. You can actually hear some ninjaness in the music. And we actually have people doing martial arts.

K: We have a song called "Shinobi" which is very ninja like.

pS: Is this a full time gig or do you have day jobs?

K: Like regular ninjas we all have our other professions. It's not a like superman type of thing where during the day you're an accountant (which is my case), and at night you're a ninja. That's pretty much how it works out after I finish my accounting job.
Ninja7: You're not an accountant. (smirks)
FMetalN: Some of us are students, some of us are full time...

pS: Can I guess that the people who aren't students are the ones in the back being sullen and quiet?

Ninja6: Yeah, I'm a working man.

pS: I can tell from the sigh because I am also a working man.

FMetalN: Some of us are students, some of us are full time ...
K: Going back to the original question. This guy, FMetalN, wanted to start a band and he asked me to find some folk. So I asked this girl over here, her name's Oyuchan (real name Yuko), and she was from Japan and I didn't really know her, but she was Japanese and I thought 'hey she probably sings right, karaoke and all that good stuff?' It turns out she was way better than I expected.
FMetalN: Actually ten years ago I taught him his first piano lesson.

pS: What song was it?

Ninja56: "Row Row Row Your Boat"?
K: It was K-Ci & Jojo's "All my Life". (everyone laughs, sings it) That was the start of the Random Ninjas.

NINJAS HAVE ENEMIES

pS: Ninjas need enemies. Do you have enemies?

Ninja23: Yes, Pirates?

K: Besides Pirates? Space pirates.

pS: Oh you guys are biting Dr. McNinja...

K: Well there are rival ninjas ... and DJs are also our enemy. There's a group out there that stole our identity a bit, they're called Random DJs. And I guess now, they wanna throw down.
Ninja67: By challenging us to a Ramen eating contest.
K: They took their vinyl discs and put like, ninja star/shuriken shapes on 'em and when they're spinning they'll cut off people's heads. You think I'm joking but no, it's an entire seedy world of Shinobi that you don't know yet.

YUKO: THE SKULL BITER

pS: Yuko, you're the only girl, unless there's another woman ... (she looks at Kaato)

K: (mock anger) Why did you have to look at me!

pS: You're the only girl among like, 8-9 guys. How is that? Can you control them?

Yuko (Y): Uh? No.

(Laughter)

pS: Do you ever feel like the mother figure?

Y: No. Not like that.

Ninja34: We have to watch her. She's crazy.

Ninja45: She's a princess.

K: We have to make sure that she doesn't punch fans in the face when she's rocking out.

Y: I don't. I try not to ...

pS: Do you have a problem with violence? Are you a violent person?

Y: Haha. I don't think so. How I feel and how people feel is different though.

pS: (to K) Has she been abusing you?

K: A little bit. She bites. The skull. She likes to bite people's skulls. Mostly she's nice except when I play a wrong bassline. Gotta watch out there.

STALKING YUSUKE

pS: You guys were telling me that you had, a stalker. Usually when I hear stalker I think the woman in the band but...

K: Uh.. it's this guy. (Kaato points to Yusuke)
Yusuke: It's not me, I mean she has stalkers too.

K: Because she's a female, the males do their best to redirect the attention because, well, I'm pretty frail. But Yusuke though... he gets stalked by teenage girl bands.

Yusuke: We have a female medical team too that kind of helps us out if there's some weakness.

pS: You have a female medical team?

Yusuke: They're downstairs right now.
K: Yeah seriously. Cause a lot of times when we're playing we will have injuries. Guys flipping, nails torn off.

Yusuke: We got someone who was thrown into a concrete trashcan. We have battle scars.

K: I don't think you realize how dangerous a ninja band is. We don't like, have health insurance.

J-POP, J-ROCK AND OTHER

pS: Are you guys fans of Japanese pop/rock music?

K: We're all really into J-pop/J-rock influences. For example, Yuko, she's really into Olivia.
Yuko: Since she debuted in Japan.

pS: You liked her since Dance & Dream, really?

Yuko: Yeah! I got her debut single CD. And I listened to it all.

K: This is kinda like a full circle weekend for her, to play in the same venue. And I got to J-rock/j-pop through stalking Utada Hikaru.

pS: Did you stalk her when she was over at Columbia University?

K: No. No. No. In my mind. Much like fans of Yusuke. But yeah bands like, Do as Infinity, Samba Master, Asian Kung fu Generation, Dir en grey, the pillows...

pS: That's a long way from Utada Hiakru ...

K: Major stuff like L'Arc, Alice Nine and so forth.
FMetalLN: I like everything. I like world music actually, so that's why I asked (Yusuke) to join us, taiko element put in a rock band. See what happens.

THE MOST RANDOM THING EVER

K: At our very first anime convention show, our sound went out for 15 minutes or so because they had to move us to another stage.
FMetalN: Our stage was as big as this bed.
K: No one knew who we were, so in order to keep them there I had to start talking. So I started saying anything that would keep them there. I started saying "Oh, if you leave, my nipples will open up to the seventh gate of hell," and people liked it for some reason and stayed around. So that's my random story. Being that my nipples are the gateway to hell.

pS: (to Yuko) Did you do a jig?

Y: I couldn't understand what he's talking about so ...

Ninja34: (beat) None of us know what he's talking about.

K: In regards to randomness, we have random set pieces and clothing like Mexican wrestler masks.

FMetalN: Uh yeah, I had a giant sombrero one time.

K: That was the best.

FMetalN: I tried rocking out with it but it was messing up my neck.

pS: Were there people dancing on it?

K: Imagine a ninja wearing a sombrero, moving around to "Ichirin no Hana" by High and Mighty Color...

BEST PART OF PLAYING IN JAPAN

pS: You guys played in Japan already?

Y: Yes.

pS: How was the reaction?

K: Pretty awesome. We played at Shibuya box, which I guess is like the Roxie of Japan. When you hit the Roxie in America, it's like people piss on the walls and it's gross. Over there it's like a classroom they feed you.

Yusuke: they're very nice.
Ninja4: The sound acoustics in that room is amazing.

Yusuke: The water vending machine, that was the best, and the curry bread.
K: Vending machines have robot arms that get water for you at the Shuibuya Box, so that's what amazed us most about Japan ... robot arms.

pS: You didn't see much of Japan did you?

K: Shibuya was beautiful. People would just be playing on the street and they have a great music scene over there. It was all just really lucky that we got to be a part of that.

pS: How did that come about?

Y: My study abroad international student organization has a project to send over Japanese students working on a music major, and I tried out at the audition and they chose us and we went there.

FOR THE FANS

K: They're awesome for supporting such a ragtag band of ninjas for the past few years. Feeding us, buying us Pocky. At anime expo we played a show and I said I love Pocky and our next show we ended up with like forty boxes of Pocky and ...
NinjaCookieMonster: And cookies.
K: And made us like 300 cookies. Which was ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome. And all these guys help us out, promote us, tell their friends about us and listen to our music and that's the most important thing. Makes us feel like ...

Yus: A real band (laughter).