Index Magazine March/April 1998

From the riot-torn streets of Tokyo City comes a trio of leather-clad grease alchemists called Guitar Wolf. Feral sons of garage trash monarch Link Wray and over-the-edge runaway Joan Jett, they have just unleashed their fifth album, Planet of the Wolves, on Matador. Guitarist Seiji Wolf, along with bassist Billy Wolf and drummer Toru Wolf conceived a sound that speaks of a life lived too fast, of motorbikes, rumbles and gallons of gasoline.

Back on the road for another wild tour of the USA, Guitar Wolf was at the cavernous Roseland Ballroom opening for the Cramps, when we caught up with them. We brought with us three packs of bubblegum cigarettes and our friend Hisham, who had played with them in Providence and also knew them from back home in Japan Land. He was especially helpful to negotiate those moments that might have been lost in translation...

Stephen Sprott: I heard you drink gasoline before the show to get ready.

Seiji: Ah, gasoline. Alcohol.

SS: Have you ever played with the Cramps before?

Seiji: No, first time. They are very nice people.

SS: Did you meet them today?

Seiji: No, the whole tour.

[Roseland woman enters] There's a phone call for anybody in Guitar Wolf. A girl named Daryl says she's a friend of this girl who made a movie about you guys.

SS: You were in a movie?

[Billy makes loud burp]

Seiji: We can't understand the meaning.

SS: Was this an acting movie or just playing?

[Toru starts shaving]

Seiji: We're the Leather-Jacket men from Planet Leather-Jacket.

SS: That's past Saturn, right?

Seiji: Maybe next ... I hope. We want to conquer the planets.

SS: When are you gonna take them over?

Seiji: Every planet.

SS: Song by song?

Seiji: Yeah.

SS: You were never in a band before Guitar Wolf. Have you played an instrument before?

Seiji: Yes, just fun, just play.

Hisham Bharoocha: Could you play guitar before?

Seiji: I barely touched it. That's all I did, touch it.

SS: Just learning rock n' roll or did you play something else?

Seiji: Yeah, rock n' roll and punk.

SS: You mean punk like the Oblivions, that kind of thing?

Seiji: No, Sex Pistols.

HB: So it was a cover band?

Seiji: Yeah, Sex Pistols and Johnny Thunders.

SS: Were you guys in bands before Guitar Wolf?

Both: No.

HB: You could play though.

Billy: Only a little bit.

HB: Toru, you could play, right?

Toru: No, but I was better than now.

HB: Huh?

Seiji: In the beginning of Guitar Wolf, nobody played instruments.

HB: Did you start with the looks?

Seiji: Yeah, that's how it started.

HB: Were you wearing leather jackets from the beginning?

Seiji: It wasn't really from the beginning.

HB: What do leather jackets mean to you?

Seiji: I like only leather jackets.

SS: Do you get them in Tokyo, the pants and everything?

Seiji: Sure, yeah. Sometimes I bought here when they get stinky.

SS: Summer tour.

Seiji: Yeah, especially in summer.

HB: When you get up on stage, do you feel like you're going through a transformation?

Seiji: I don't feel like I'm going through anything like that. I get psyched and do the best I can.

SS: Can you see on stage with the sunglasses?

Seiji: At the beginning of the show, I can see. But towards the end, my sunglasses fog up and I can't see.

SS: Can you play "Sunglasses After Dark?"

Billy: Yeah ... but Seiji's are darker. They're completely black. He can only see through the crack between the lens and the frame.

SS: Where do you get your hair products? When you're on tour for a long time, you must really have to stock up ... a crate for the whole tour.

Billy: Yeah, we brought a lot but we're running out. We use water-based pomade.

SS: How long does it take to get your hair like that every day?

Billy: I haven't washed it in a year.

SS: Do you sleep on it and it stays like that.

Billy: I go to sleep like that and I wake up and put pomade in it and then go to sleep and then do the same thing again.

HB: Do you use a hairdryer?

Billy: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. [pointing to Seiji] Wig.

SS: Seiji, you're bald?

Billy: Seiji has a wig, so don't worry. He can't put on pomade. Fake hair.

SS: Have you ever been electrocuted?

Seiji: Yeah.

SS: While playing?

Seiji: No, at the factory. It was a construction site. I used torch welding. In the summertime, you sweat very much. [wild shaking sound]

SS: That's when your hair fell out?

Seiji: It felt like the devil took over my body. Like exorcist ... serious.

Billy: It was really bad. If nobody had pulled him away - it was 200 volts.

Seiji: After that, I thought about playing the guitar.

Billy: Before that he played folk.

HB: When you were young, what were you guys into?

Seiji: What are you talking about? We're still young.

HB: What were you into before you listened to rock n' roll?

Billy: 'Enka,' same as now.

HB: That's Japanese love songs?

Billy: Yeah.

HB: How did you learn your style?

Billy: Watching our favorite bands and looking at books, magazines.

HB: What's the soul of Guitar Wolf?

Seiji: You ask hard questions. I just do it 'cause I like it.

SS: Toru, did you learn by playing along to records?

Toru: Maybe in the very beginning I listened to records. My favorite drummers are Marky Ramone, Ringo Starr, Al Jackson ... Green Onions.

SS: Do you have friends from Japan with you on tour?

Seiji: Yeah, sometimes.

SS: Is Kung-fu Ramone coming tonight?

Seiji: I called but he said he doesn't want to cross the Pacific.

HB: Where is Kung-fu Ramone from?

Seiji: He's from Hong Kong.

Toru: It's hard because he rows his own boat.

SS: Seiji, you have a motorcycle, don't you?

Seiji: Yes.

SS: What kind of bike do you have?

SW: Kawasaki.

HB: He sings that song about it. "Kawasaki 750 Rock n' Roll."

SS: Do they have biker parades in Japan? Anything like the Harley parades?

Seiji: No.

HB: Not like 'bosozoku' - a Japanese bike gang?

SW: No. I have friends like that though.

SS: So you bike just on your own.

Seiji: Alone, yeah.

SS: Have you seen the movie The Wild Ones?

Billy: Yeah, yeah. The one with Marlon Brando. I love him.

SS: Do you get played on the radio in Japan? Do you ever listen?

Seiji: We do not play on the radio but I listen sometimes.

HB: What Japanese music are you influenced by?

Seiji: Tokyo rockers. But in the beginning I was into Carole and RC-Succession.

HB: Do you guys all like karaoke?

Seiji: We don't really like karaoke.

HB: Really?

Seiji: No, we don't.

Billy: Seiji has second rank in karaoke license.

Seiji: That time I was tricked into doing it.

Billy: Seiji was the only one that could get the second ranking.

HB: How did they decide that?

Billy: They have real judges.

HB: No way.

Billy: No really.

Seiji: It was about ten years ago. I think it was in Roppongi, before they had karaoke boxes.

Billy: They had experts. If you got the beginner rank, you won a bottle. If you got the second rank, you got two bottles.

SS: On the new record, you're singing sometimes in English.

Seiji: It's all bullshit English anyway. It doesn't change it that much. Jenglish. Japanese English.

Billy: Jenglish.

SS: How do the crowds differ at your shows - like the Memphis rockabillies versus Tokyo rockabillies?

Billy: Their color is different. Other than that everything is the same.

SS: You mean the clothes?

Billy: No, the skin color.

SS: Do you have a goal for next year? Are there places you haven't toured that you want to see?

Seiji: Anchorage, Alaska ... and Hong Kong.

Billy: There's no more Hong Kong. It's been changed into China.

SS: Have you ever got arrested or spent time with the police?

Seiji: Just a little, because of fighting.

Billy: I've gone for fighting and LSD.

HB: Can you get caught with LSD?

Billy: Of course you can. Last time Seiji got caught was for being a "chekan."

SS: What's that?

Billy: Train pervert. It was pretty close. We had to pay Sony for the lawyer and everything.

Seiji: That's a lie.

Billy: I heard he gets dressed up in a suit and leaves his house around seven.

HB: He puts on the wig and everything?

Billy: Yeah, a wig and glasses. His neighbors think he's a business man. He never leaves the house without his suit on.

HB: That's pretty scary.

Billy: But he always comes back early.

Seiji: I come back around 10 AM.

Billy: ...and then around 4:30, he leaves again.

HB: So you have to stop that.

Seiji: If this gets out by mistake, it's gonna be bad. Do me a favor and don't put that in.

Billy: You know those 24-hour surveillance shows on police watch? You see Seiji on those shows a lot. You know when you see them with the mosaics covering the face. Then I think, "Man, he's being followed again."

SS: So can Hisham play with you tonight?

Seiji: I hope. Please dive to the stage - diving into stage please.

SS: It's a long way to the stage.

Seiji: Yeah, that's true. I need a magic hand. Lasso.