[article] Taking J-rock values stateside

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Excerpt:

Taking J-rock values stateside
Japan's Dir en grey join Korn on the Family Values tour

By WAYNE GABLE
Special to The Japan Times

On the eve of the longest and perhaps most important tour of their almost decade-long career, Dir en grey were putting on a brave face.

Though a guaranteed crowd-puller at home, the Tokyo-based band weren't quite sure how audiences would react to their theatrical brand of pop-metal during a eight-week trek through North America supporting California hard rockers Korn and Deftones. Their dark lyrics deal with such familiar heavy-metal themes as alienation and death, but screaming them in Japanese makes it difficult for kids who don't speak the language to connect.

What's more, the costumes and makeup that cause writers and fans alike to dub Dir en grey a "visual kei (style)" band stayed at home. That means the band has to rely on good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll swagger to make an impression during Korn's Family Values tour -- a traveling mini festival boasting two stages and nine bands.

"We're not worried. We won't even care if people start throwing PET bottles at us," guitarist Die said through an interpreter during a pretour rehearsal in Tokyo last month. "We might even enjoy it,' added bassist Toshiya, laughing. "Any reaction's better than no reaction."

Judging from the favorable responses that Dir en grey received on overseas outings earlier this year, the two musicians and their band mates -- vocalist Kyo, guitarist Kaoru and drummer Shinya -- have little to fear. The band made their U.S. debut in March at the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, then played sold-out gigs in New York and Los Angeles, where they caught the eye of Korn frontman Jonathan Davis.

"We had a chance to see Dir en grey perform in Los Angeles at the Wiltern Theater and have rarely seen such a strong reaction to a young band in one of their first appearances in this city," Korn manager Peter Katsis said by e-mail. "The band and their relationship with their fans are quite an exciting thing to watch."

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