Ken Yokoyama

The melocore icon has a good thing going with Pizza of Death records

Ken Yokoyama (far right) and band courtesy of Pizza of Death

When the former Hi-Standard guitarist and founder of Japan’s marquee punk label waxes poetic about cherry blossoms on the opening track of his second solo album, Nothin’ But Sausage, it sounds like he’s gone wobbly. But no need for fear, the sulky moods and caustic wit we’ve come to expect from the punk veteran are back soon enough.

Following a morose, speed-core “I Can’t Smile At Everyone,” Yokoyama gets personal with “Jealous.” Against a backdrop of machine gun rhythms and in passable English, he castigates jealous backbiters among his peers who “feel you’re so punk/’Cause you’re lazy and 30 and drunk ... You wish I would fall/And then I’d lose it all.” Yokoyama, finally, makes up his mind to “ignore you and all of your kind.”

With Japan’s most successful punk label, and an album that entered the charts at number three and has sold close to 100,000 copies (not to mention his becoming a dad last year), Yokoyama has reason enough to ignore the naysayers. Always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, he admits as much, insisting on “Lucky” that he “worked hard” to get where he is, but that “luck helped me out ... I hope it doesn’t end.”

Yokoyama founded Pizza of Death towards the end of the ’90s, a time when independent bands and labels in Japan weren’t enjoying the kind of success they are now. Yokoyama saw a place for a boutique label that could give the focus that the majors hadn’t to solid but ill-served punk bands like the BBQ Chickens and Genbaku Onanies.

Working out of a small office in Setagaya, the label has become the country’s signature punk imprint, and by signing overseas bands like 20-year British punk veterans Snuff and by working with US-based Fat Wreck Chords records on North American and Japanese tours, Pizza of Death has also become an international player.

Yokoyama has also brought an intercontinental flavor to his new band. In addition to veteran drummer Masatoshi “Gunn” Ishida, he’s recruited Serge Verkhovsky, formerly of San Francisco
pop-punk band Limp (once signed to Fat Wreck), on bass, and hard-picking Colin Doyle on guitar.

Yokoyama’s second solo album since disbanding Hi-Standard in 1999, Nothin’ But Sausage also includes a hilarious mock interview in which the band describes its music as “pre-post-punk.” But Yokoyama also has moments of waxing philosophical.

No longer the young punk rebel of a decade ago, he uses a bit of creative visualization on “Ten Years From Now” to imagine himself in 10, 20, 30, even 40 years. The picture isn’t all bad. “Imagine me in 40 years/Gray hairs growing in my ears/I feel the end is coming near/Life was great/I still play my guitar every day.”

Shibuya-AX, Mar 8; Yokohama Bay Hall, Mar 19. See concert listings (popular) for details.

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