BAND-MAID released their new single, “ENERGETIC,” on June 24, which marked their first release of 2026. The band has announced that in 2027, they’ll be taking a short break from their “OKYU-JI” (live shows) to recharge, so one can’t help but see their frame of mind reflected in their new songs, along with the message they’re trying to share. They recently finished their last European stop on their ongoing world tour and returned to Japan, and Billboard JAPAN was able to speak with them at length about everything from their impressions of the tour to the process of creating the new single.
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You played at five cities on the European leg of your world tour (Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris and London), and you performed at Download Festival in the U.K. How was it?
KANAMI (Guitar): This was our first time in Europe in seven years, so I was nervous and a bit worried. I was like, “How receptive are they going to be? Will the crowd get into it?” But there were no problems at all. You could tell that everyone had been listening to our music and waiting for us. I was relieved, and happy, and filled with this feeling like “We’re going to be coming back here again!”
AKANE (Drums): There were a lot of people who had never been to an OKYU-JI before, which surprised me. Over half the audience at each show. It really made me happy knowing how many new people had found us over the past seven years.
Before you left for Europe, you announced that you’d be putting your OKYU-JI on hiatus in 2027. The singles came out after that announcement, so it really feels like you’re baring your hearts, especially on “Days.”
MIKU KOBATO (Guitar/Vocals): We wanted to make a song that resonated with the sadness our Masters and Princesses will feel not being able to see us for a year, and a song that would provide us in the band with emotional support during this period of separation from our Masters and Princesses. We wanted it to be like, with this song, we’re fine, and people know we’re doing alright.
SAIKI (Vocals): We started playing “Days” on the world tour starting with the Yokohama show (in April). We revealed it pretty early on, because we’d made the announcement (about our OKYU-JI hiatus) and with “Days” we wanted to let everyone know how we were feeling. I wrote really raw lyrics that were honest to a fault, and we wanted to share that message directly through our OKYU-JI. I think of “Days” as being a promise. “ENERGETIC” was written while picturing a bright future, and when talking about it, KANAMI even said “This year, we’re going to make them get out there and dance!” (laughs)
KANAMI: When I wrote the song, I was imagining everyone at the 2026 OKYU-JI going wild dancing.
SAIKI: We want to create some fun memories.
AKANE: “Days” has a message we want to share with our Masters and Princesses, and we want people to pay close attention to the lyrics of the chorus. That’s why I went with a simple beat, a drum phrase that would highlight the melody without getting in the way of the singing. After the second chorus, I reproduced the programmed rhythmical phrase that KANAMI had put in the demo, but at the same time I applied my own technique.
MISA (Bass): When I got the demo, I hadn’t yet heard that the song was a promise, like SAIKI mentioned earlier. But I found it to be a very emotional song. I thought about how I could complement that emotionality, and I put in a lot of horizontal slides and glissandos in the bass line. I wanted my own emotions to come across through the music.
KOBATO, what did you think when you performed “Days” for the first time at an OKYU-JI?
KOBATO: It was right after the announcement (of our OKYU-JI hiatus), so more than anything else, I wanted to convey this message of “We’re here, right beside you” to the saddened Masters and Princesses out there. When we play “Days,” the Masters and Princesses nod along, and they have these gleams in their eyes, like they’re moved. Every time we play it, we feel truly connected as one with the audience.
I hear that you only recently finished the new single’s title track, “ENERGETIC.”
KANAMI: In BAND-MAID’s 13-year history, this is the first time we’ve ever moved so fast, going into recording right after the song was written and then going on to play the brand new song in OKYU-JIs. When we played it for the first time at an OKYU-JI in the European leg of the tour, it was like all of our energy just exploded on stage. It was the crowd’s first time hearing it, but they were all going crazy dancing. And in the intro I sang “LALALA,” but then when we got to the interlude, everyone started singing along. It was our first time debuting the song, but it was like we swept everyone up in it.
SAIKI: There were even people putting their own spins on it, right? There were people who were harmonizing during the “LALALA.”
“ENERGETIC” starts out with a bass line. So, MISA, they put you in charge of getting the song off to an explosive start?
MISA: I was so nervous about that. I wanted to see everyone dancing in the OKYU-JI, but I had my hands so full with my part that I couldn’t even look. (laughs)
AKANE: The song has a four-on-the-floor dance beat, a relatively simple one for a BAND-MAID song. But if you want to sweep everyone off their feet and create a sense of unity, a repeating phrase clicks better than a busier sound. It’s easier to remember. So I kept that firmly in mind when we made the song. But because of its simplicity, there were parts where I could really show off, and parts with a lot of movement in the phrases that stand out, so I was able to give the phrases some variety.
KOBATO: Our past title tracks have tended to be half-English, half-Japanese, or a little more on the English side. That’s why I tried to keep a good balance, like on “DOMINATION.” When I started writing the lyrics for “ENERGETIC,” we’d already decided to make it the title track and to pair it with “Days,” so keeping “Days” in mind, I tried to write lyrics that were evocative of our future and the dancing and running around we were looking forward to seeing in our upcoming shows. SAIKI also shared her image of the artwork, and how we might wave around a flag during the tour, and I wanted to include elements that brought to mind something like a BAND-MAID board game. That’s why there are lyrics like “Live or Dice,” or the gamelike “Play it or end with this hand.” And in the musical part where we want people to dance, the lyrics “Max gain.” I also added lyrics like “Prove it” and “To the top” from our past hits, to give a feeling of BAND-MAID’s history. And I tried to write lyrics that would also give a sense of our future.
Where did the board gamelike image of the artwork come from?
SAIKI: I think that BAND-MAID’s career itself has been like a game. There are a lot of different topics, so it’s easy to break it up into spaces (like those of a board game). There’s so much content in our history that you could make a game out of it. And it’s not just us. Our fans also enjoy our music like people enjoy games. We have people coming from all over to join our OKYU-JI, so I also reflected that in the artwork.
This interview by Takayuki Okamoto first appeared on Billboard Japan.
