The Japanese rock band Voodoo Club has been making waves since the release of their debut 7-inch single “Theme of Voodoo Club” reached #8 on ORICON magazine’s rock singles weekly list. The band consists of university students and are influenced by a variety of musical traditions, including the rock and roll and rhythm and blues of the 50s, the British rock of the 60s, and the punk rock of London and New York in the 70s. Their latest single, “If You Fall in Love,” came out, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day, backed with a cover of “My Coo Ca Choo,” originally a hit for 1970s glam rocker Alvin Stardust. To learn more about the Voodoo Club, I reached out to bassist Hinako “Rosie” Kido with a few questions.

I’m curious about the band’s name. What does “Voodoo Club” mean to you, and how does the name relate to the music that you make?

I named our band! Actually, there is no meaning for “voodoo.” It’s just wordplay. Our Japanese version band name is 暴動クラブ(bo-do-kurabu) officially, which means “riot club” in Japanese. However, I wanted an English band name because I wanted our band to expand abroad since we got together so I just named “voodoo” which has similar pronunciation to 暴動（bo-do).

Although voodoo has no particular meaning for us, I took inspiration from Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” and “Voodoo Lounge” from The Rolling Stones and so on. I didn’t know what the word “voodoo” means at that time, but I just thought that it sounds and also its spell looks so cool and I’ve known that word has been used by such cool rock musicians, which we all love, so I chose this word for our English name.

That’s very interesting! How did the band come together?

Rize (guitarist), Ippo (drummer), and I met each other when we were high school students. Rize and Ippo were in same high school and they played in same band. I was in other high school, but we were member of band music club in each school. There were some joint activity ,which is like some school gets together and do gigs at the same time, and we met there. We became friends soon because we all have similar taste in music, like 50’s to 80’s rock music which has fewer young listeners these days, and we promised to do band together after we graduate from high school.

After we got together like that, we met Gen (vocalist). Rize and Gen is in same university, Gen is 1 year older than us, and they met at the music club there.  One day, the freshman welcome party of the club was held, and Gen got really really drunk there (I wasn’t there tho), and he applied to Rize to let him join our band. Although it was beer talking, he decided to let him join, then our band activity had started. (Gen didn’t remember that next day–haha.)

In terms of your own musical education, how long have you been playing bass, and what do you like about playing that instrument?

I started to play the bass on a full scale as soon as  I graduated from high school, so it was almost same time as the band starts!

My part was actually drums when I was high school, but I changed to the bass because  it was too hard for me to play rock-n-roll, punk, hardrock style drums.

I’ve also been playing the piano, and a little bit guitar since I was little but the bass is the easiest for me and it suits best me so I love playing it.

Everyone in the band is a university student. How do you balance your musical interests with your studies?

Yes, we are all university students, so we go to university in the daytime, and we do band activities, like rehearsal or making songs, at night. Gigs are almost on weekends but sometimes on weekdays so we do gigs afterschool.

In exam week, we focus on studying!

How extensively does the band tour?

It’s not so large scale yet. We do gigs at music club or bar about three to five times a month, almost, in Tokyo, but during long vacations like summer, we tour other prefectures–Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Kobe–and play at music clubs and bars there.

We sometimes play at music festival these days!

Do you enjoy touring?

Definitely YES!  We love gigs!

Your music draws on many different influences. Do those influences have anything in common?

Yeah, we are influenced a lot kinds of music and each member has different influences, but almost all of them are 50’s to 70’s rock music, which is based on blues, I think.

And all of us are also a big fan of Japanese 60-80’s rock music in common!

What do you like about those different styles of music?

It’s hard question haha, I don’t know well but I’ve been just feeling that these kinds of music are more cool and nice for me than today’s pop music since I was younger than now.

You released your first single as a seven-inch single. What was behind the decision to release the song on vinyl rather than sticking with the much cheaper option of only releasing the song digitally?

It was our producer who suggested it at first. All of us willingly agreed with his idea because we are all vinyl lovers,  and also we thought releasing on vinyl is perfect for our band style, classic rock style. He understands us well and we have very similar perspective for rock music. He always does for us very well, and we are under good relationship each other.

I’m also curious about the decision to cover “My Coo Ca Choo.” I had never heard the song before, so, to me, yours will always be “the original.” Why did the band choose to cover that particular song?

I appreciate for you saying that!

Actually, we’ve been playing this song at live gigs since much before the first single has released.

We chose this song to cover because it’s very simple and we thought we can arrange a lot how we  like and represent our own  sounds.

We always try to cover such simple and not so much popular one.

What’s on the horizon for Voodoo Club?

I can’t imagine what will happen to us and how our future is gonna be at all, but all I want to do is not changed since the beginning, which is  to expand overseas, become famous, and hold big world tour by our private jet! hahaha

We wanna be a super rockstar!

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you too! We Love you!