More about: Download Festival
The Fox God is sending them to Download Festival
Prepare for yet more insanity courtesy of The Fox God - as the sensational BABYMETAL return to the UK to perform at Download Festival next month.
After they played a historic and mind-expanding show at London's Wembley Arena earlier this year, now the Japanese metal sensation will be rightly heading to the home of rock when they hit Donington Park to perform alongside the likes of Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Rammstein, Deftones and many more.
"BABYMETAL music is a blend of hard music and metal music with Japanese pop and sounds," Yuimetal told Gigwise, explaining their appeal. "If we were not from Japan, we'd be a totally different band with totally different fans. We are Japanese, we are BABYMETAL."
As a taster of what to expect, when reviewing their Wembley show we said: "Everything is exaggerated to the Nth degree, but with such immaculate clarity that it can hardly seem ridiculous. This is a fully-formed vision that's impossible not to get totally lost in."
Download takes place between 10 and 12 June at Donington Park in Derbyshire, and you can get tickets and more information here.
The band's creator Kobametal said that the name Babymetal came from a "divine message" from the Fox God, or Kitsune-sama as he is also known. It means that they have created a new genre of music that combines Japanese idol pop with metal, hence the term baby in the name. This is why instead of devil horns the band use the symbol of the fox (two fingers), in order to symbolise the band's divine inspiration.
The average age of the group is 15. Moa Kikuchi and Yui Mizuno are both 15 with Suzuka Nakamoto being the oldest at 16. On stage, Suzuka who is also the tallest stands in the middle with Moa and Yui on either side.
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'Headbanger' is about Su-Metal's 15th birthday: "This special night of my fifteen/I'll never forget/All the crybabies, get out of here!/With the legendary black long hair disordered around and gorgeously/blooming crazy/this flower will soon disappear fruitlessly/I'll never come back again and it's so short period/I etch in my heart this special night of my fifteen/I jump lightly and dance in the air/Headbanger!"
The release of 'Headbanger' came with a corset to help ease the necks of listeners into the habit of headbanging. How considerate.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, the trio admitted that they had no prior knowledge of metal: "When I first started, my stamina could not keep up. I did not know what metal was, so I never head banged before I used to have muscle pain that lasted 3 days, but now I am used to it and I have more stamina now," said Yui is now a fan of Cannibal Corpse, Moa likes Iron Maiden and Behemoth while Su is partial to a bit of Metallica.
The translation of 'Gimme' Chocolate' tells a story of worrying about your weight, a subject particularly relevant to the Japanese idol industry: "Check-it-out chocolate. Can I have a bit of chocolate?/But my weight worries me a bit these days./However, chocolate/Can I have a bit of chocolate?/But wait a while! Wait a while! Wait! Wait! Wait!
The producer of 'Gimme Chocolate' is Takeshi Ueda, who is the bassist from The Mad Capsule Markets. Who many will know from the song 'Pulse' which is taken from the Tony Hawks 3 soundtrack, and was really awesome.
More about: Download Festival
Photo: Amuse Ince
