Kazuhiko Kato (second from right) founded SDM in 1972

Courtesy of Columbia Records

Guitarist, songwriter and key founding member of the former Sadistic Mika Band, Kazuhiko Kato has the air of an English aristocrat about him. Polite and soft-spoken, he looks the part of a true gent, surrounded by an array of antiques and artifacts that adorn his apartment like a treasure trove. Now settling back in Japan after years of living abroad, he is only too keen to extol the virtues of the band’s British heritage.

The SDM story begins back in 1972, when Kato moved to Kensington, London. The Japanese music scene, then dominated by enka ballads and kayo-kyoku pop, was getting most of its inspiration from the US, but Kato was taken with the extravagance of a new style emerging from the UK. Glam rock was just beginning, and the likes of T. Rex, David Bowie and Roxy Music represented the new sound of London. “I felt the music situation in Japan was very poor, while the British style was impressive, funky and had an image,” he says. The newly-wed Kato asked his wife Mika to be the vocalist and, in a pun on the Plastic Ono Band, the Sadistic Mika Band was born.

“I gave our first CD to Malcolm McLaren who at the time had a shop with Vivienne Westwood, and he gave it to Bryan Ferry, who was just starting out,” Kato says. Such was the impact of the group’s self-titled debut that they would go on to make two seminal albums with producer Chris Thomas (The Beatles, Pink Floyd) and support Ferry’s Roxy Music at Wembley Stadium in the first UK tour ever by a Japanese rock band.

Kato waxes nostalgic about this concert. “Sting was there [in the audience]. About five years later, The Police came to Japan for the first time, and we met. Sting recognized us right away and said he liked us very much.” But right at the height of the Sadistic Mika Band’s success, they would break up due to musical differences. “Our tastes were different… we were close, but not musically.”

The members went their separate ways, with drummer Yukihiro Takahashi co-founding the legendary electropop group Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kato becoming a successful producer. Sadistic Mika Band would regroup for one-off projects, with Yuming and Karen Kirishima each taking turns at the helm, but it was to be an approach from Kirin Beer that would lead the group back to the top of the charts 17 years after they last worked together.

With Mika long out of the picture (after divorcing Kato, she went on to marry SDM producer Chris Thomas), all the group needed now was a new singer. The British connection came to the fore once more with the addition of 22-year-old J-pop it-girl Kaela Kimura, who is half Japanese and who also provides the basis for the band’s new name. “I had heard her album, but we hadn’t met,” Kato says. “It was actually her grandfather who told her it would be an honor to do it.”
After the success of last summer’s “Time Machine,” the record company asked for a full CD. “Yukihiro was scared at first, not having played live for years, but finally everybody ended up bringing three or four songs. Sometimes when an old group gets back together, someone has retired or is old, but we are all still doing [lots of] things,” affirms Kato.

The new album, Narkissos, shows a band clearly at ease and enjoying their reformation. “It’s frustrating being a producer, controlling budget and management and such. This time I am just the guitarist and vocalist, so it’s easy,” Kato explains. One track, the intriguing Swedish-language “Sockernos,” sees the band team up with renowned English lyricist Chris Mosdell (Eric Clapton, Sarah Brightman, YMO). “We’ve been close friends for years—since before he realized he had a talent for songwriting,” Kato jokes.

Asked where he sees the current state of Japanese music, Kato becomes contemplative. “The singers sing well, but I don’t feel anything,” he says. “Whereas David Gilmour and Bob Dylan immediately went to No.1 in the US and all the baby boomers bought it. Our album has had the same reception here, so I’m very glad.” With a long-awaited tour to launch in March, fans will finally have a chance to experience the group’s British-influenced rock firsthand. “We can’t help that,” says Kato of the band’s English-ness. “It’s in our blood.”

NHK Hall, Mar 8. See concert listings (popular) for details.

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