Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, before we get this episode’s interview, I want to share a couple of updates with you. A couple of weeks ago, we launched the Japanese edition of Third Culture Kids, which is designed to help Japanese families living overseas with the challenges that come from raising kids in a foreign context. We know it’s going to be a big help to a lot of people, and so we’re excited to see that it made it to the top 10 for Christian books in Japan and the top 20 for family relationships.

We are also looking forward to the launch of my next book, Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan on August 1. The book is about seeing the beauty of God that’s hidden within the art, history, and lives of people in Japan. In fact, this is a book that has grown out of our Art Life Faith gatherings. Most of the people I tell stories about in the book have been featured speakers in the past. By writing it down with them, this has been one more way to help Japanese people articulate how they see connections between their art, life, and faith. It’s been really fun to see the excitement on their faces as these stories now come out in print. I really hope that even if you’re not interested in Japanese culture at all, that through these books, you will gain a fresh perspective on how God can be worshiped in your daily life.

Well, for this episode I have the privilege of talking to Takahiro Nakamine, otherwise known as Tone, who leads a Christian heavy metal band called Imari Tones, and he led our Art Life Faith discussion the evening after recording this interview. There were a lot of people there, very interested in hearing what he had to say, hear his music, and watch some of his music videos. He has quite a following here in Japan, and it really was an honor talking with him.

I find discussions like this particularly fascinating, because when we consider what it means for ethnodoxology, the praise of the nations of the world, sometimes it’s not what we expect. Takahiro’s music is very Japanese, not because he plays traditional Japanese instruments, and not because he is singing in Japanese, and not even because he incorporates Japanese scales into his music. It’s because he is authentically praising God. It just flows out of his music and leads us to worship God as well. No one can say the West imposed their culture on him. Rather, he took an art form that spoke to him and made it his own. I mean, there is no other heavy metal band in the world quite like Imari Tones. He said he was born to play heavy metal, and I have to agree. Here’s just a little taste of his music.

[“Passion” by Imari Tones]

So, Takahiro, thank you so much for sitting down with me to talk with people on this podcast.

Konichiwa! Arigato Gozaimasu! Thank you for having me. My name is Tak. I’m from Japan, and I’m in a band called Imari Tones, and we play Christian heavy metal.

So that I have so many questions for you, but let me first start with your name. So, Takahiro Nakamine, but you said that you’re also called Tone. Why are you called Tone?

Yeah, some of my close friends call me Tone, and basically it’s about my guitar sound. People call it Tone. And because I have a good tone, people call me Tone.

That’s awesome.

Also, you know, my name is Takahiro Nakamine. That’s my real name, and the first and last letter of these goes like T, O, N, E, so that’s where I got my nickname.

Very cool. I love it. A musical nickname. And your band is called Imari Tones. Now how did the band get that name?

It’s a long story. Imari is a name of Japanese porcelain, like dish pottery. Japanese old pottery from like the 18th century. We had very beautiful traditional pottery. And this pottery was exported to Europe and was very expensive. So, in a sense, it means Japanese beauty. So that’s one explanation. Since we are a Christian band, I can also say porcelain pottery is made from clay. It’s a jar of clay, like in the Bible.

That’s so cool. Well, actually, one of the most famous Christian bands in the United States is called Jars of Clay. You are Jars of Clay Japan.

Yeah, you can say that. But the real reason I named our band Imari Tones is because Imari is actually my wife’s name. We were together since we were in high school, so we’ve been together for very, very long time now. We became Christians after we got married. When we were young, we were not Christians yet. But for some reason when I started making music, I named my band after my wife Imari.

Beautiful.

She’s now playing bass in our band. When we were young, she was not in a band yet. She joined later, and she claimed the band because she was like, this is my band.

Yeah, it’s named after her.

It’s my name.

That’s so cool.

It’s beautiful. It’s all hers now.

All right, so I have so many questions about heavy metal music. The image that comes to my mind is that heavy metal is meant to be anti-establishment, in your face. On your website, you advertise as the first heavy metal Christian band. Right?

From Japan.

From Japan. Right, of course.

So what does that look like here? And what kind of response are churches giving you here?

As you know, Christianity in Japan is very small, and the church music scene is obviously very small. Everybody knows everybody. It’s a really small community. But basically we’ve been trying to be not too close and not too far. We have that kind of relationship with the Japanese church, if that makes sense.

Yeah, maybe most of the churches here are kind of older in age and smaller and maybe traditional in a lot of ways. At least that’s a strong image.

Yeah, I think that’s true.

So how do they respond to your music?

Many churches don’t allow us to play our music because it’s too loud or something like that. But most people in the Japanese Christian community simply ignore us or try to stay away. Generally speaking, that’s the most common reaction from Christian people here in Japan. But sometimes we have very passionate people who go crazy when they see us perform because we are doing something different.

Right.

And we are doing something really passionate, energetic, and we are very fun to watch. Yeah, that’s what people say.

So, yeah, I’ve seen some of your videos up on YouTube, and you have quite a following here with a lot of subscribers. It is a lot of fun to watch.

Thank you.

I can’t wait to get to see you guys live sometime. But I’m still trying to put this together, the idea of heavy metal and Christianity in Japan. Even before we started, we were talking and you were telling me about how you try to put even some of the Japanese scales into your music. I find that fascinating. I’d love to hear more about that.

So, you know, we’ve been playing this Christian heavy metal music in Japan. When we say we play Christian metal, Japanese audiences say, like, oh, you sing chorus hymns like in a cathedral. And heavy metal, the only Christian band they know is Stryper. That kind of reaction we always receive. When we say Christian metal, people always think of this Western European, traditional kind of church, cathedral thing. But we play something different. Like in the past five years, we have been trying to play heavy metal music based on Japanese traditional music.

So you play those scales on your guitar?

Yeah, now I’m playing them often. I’m playing Japanese traditional scales like the Hira Joshi, Kokin Joshi, Kumoi Joshi, and Ryukyu scales.

And you know the Japanese national anthem “Kimi Ga Yo.” It sounds like old traditional music. And we turned Kimi Ga Yo into a Christian metal anthem Praising Jesus. We were kinda worried because when we play this song, it’s really obvious it’s the Japanese national anthem, but we are singing the words that praise Jesus in the Japanese language. And so with conservative kind of people in a political sense, we worried some people may get angry and we would get shot or something.

Oh, no.

So we were kind of worried when we decided to play that song. It is called “God Anthem” and I think it’s one of our most popular songs. And yeah, it’s called Gat Anthem instead of Japanese national anthem. It turned out people love it.

So is that one of the ones we can hear on YouTube?

Yeah, you can hear it. You can watch it on YouTube.

Okay, maybe I’ll play a little bit of that in this episode.

Yes, please.

[“God Anthem” by Imari Tones]

You mentioned earlier that some people just go crazy over your music. They get so excited because it’s so different and unique. Do you have any stories you can share from concerts of people reacting to the music?

Yeah, people always go crazy. People always go nuts. When we play live shows, it’s always exciting, awesome. We have this amazing reaction from people and people say something like, you guys are ridiculously awesome or stupid good. Something like that, you know? So we are not just good, we are like crazy good, stupid good.

Awesome. I can kind of imagine it because I’ve been to quite a number of black gospel choir concerts where there ends up being this mosh pit up front with people jumping up and down and screaming, waving their arms. Yeah, that’s so cool.

It’s about happiness, joy, overflowing and … I don’t know how to put it in English, sorry. But it’s about the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I believe that.

So talking more about the style of heavy metal a little bit, how do you think that that style can uniquely praise Jesus? What does it mean for you to praise God through your music?

Yeah, it’s a really deep question. So many Christian people ask me, why are you playing heavy metal? Why did you choose heavy metal? But my honest answer is I didn’t choose it. I don’t think we had a choice. It just turned out this way, and we were born this way. God chose us to play metal, and this is something given by God. I totally believe rock and roll music is a gift from God, and it should be used to praise God. You know, God creates something awesome and it’s always the devil who comes later and make things go bad.

Yeah.

We have to use it for God. It’s all about freedom and using all your soul, all your body, all your passion, all of your energy. We are using it to praise God. Really loud and everything for God’s glory. I wish I had more English vocabulary.

Yeah. Don’t let me put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that the style, as you were saying earlier, it’s loud blues, it’s fast blues, it’s very energetic. And somehow you’re able to give glory to God through the loudness, through the fastness. And there’s an excitement there that isn’t in other forms of other styles. Usually, if you think about classical music, it’s a little bit more subdued.

I think every Christian metal musician will say this, but many people think their idea about heavy metal is the devil’s music. But as a Christian metal musician, we have to claim it back from the devil. Did I say that right? Is my English even correct?

Yeah, yeah.

We have to get it back from the devil. So much heavy metal music is actually influenced by or based on classical music in so many ways. Many metal musicians are actually classically trained. We have to play it as it is intended to be, and I mean to praise Jesus.

That’s cool. You know, I’m a pipe organist and the reason I got into the pipe organ music is because I liked how loud it was. No kidding. Like I would “pull out all the stops,” an English expression we have, which means basically as loud as it can get. And I’d be playing away and I love just being loud and have the sound wash over me. I can see that same kind of thing with heavy metal. And back when I was younger, I used to play very technically, I loved playing fast and technically proficiently. Heavy metal is very fast on the guitar. The things I’ve seen you play, there is a sense that you can say something, you can give praise to God in a different way than you can in other styles and other art forms. And I think that’s part of the beauty of what you do.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Pipe organs are cool. They are like, literally, the biggest musical instrument in the world. The whole church, the whole building, the whole cathedral is a musical instrument.

Right, right.

That’s awesome.

Yeah, all the walls are shaking and everyone’s sitting there, their bodies are shaking.

Wow.

There’s even some types, they’re very rare, that have a 64 foot, which means it’s a very, very low note. You can’t even hear it. It’s only meant to shake you.

Some of those sounds, like really low frequencies, get harmonically distorted like electric guitars. So I think that these loud, big organs have many things in common with electric guitars.

Well, people are going to be coming in soon, so I guess we’d better stop there. I’m so looking forward to tonight. Thank you so much, too, for sitting down and talking with us.

Thank you very much. You’re welcome.

Thank you for listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.