On the up: The Watanabes

It might be said that The Watanabes are Tokyo's answer to The Smiths (it's a name thing), or possibly The Kinks (it's a brotherly thing). Either way, they've developed a style that finds comfort in nostalgia; a style that seems to suit the fleeting loneliness of life in a vast, occasionally numbing metropolis. With a new album about to hit the stores, we played word games with vocalist and chief self-deprecator, Duncan Walsh, in the hope of finding out a little more about the city's least assuming band.

The Watanabes got their name from...
...a character in Haruki Murakami's novel, Norwegian Wood. 'Toru Watanabe is a slightly troubled, over nostalgic kinda guy and he can’t decide which girl he’s in love with most. Our bassist, Ash, felt a connection! We were also living in Ehime at the time and Watanabe is a popular name in the region, so we thought it would provide the perfect opportunity to ingratiate ourselves with the locals. Being big fans of The Smiths too, it all just seemed to make sense.'

Their latest album was recorded in an atmosphere of...
'Er...coastal Kanagawa air, smokey studios, empty beer cans, significant numbers of chocolate bar wrappers, dirty nappies, sandy socks, bruised feet, beach football, crashing waves and humming insects. We did most of the rhythm section at Hamon studio in grungy Otsuka, while vocals and all the other bits and pieces were recorded at our producer, Dave Naughton's home. Dave and his young family lived near Fujisawa, not far from the beach – which is where we ended up most of the time.'

The story connecting The Watanabes with Flipper the dolphin goes like this...
'Anyone who's seen The Cove will know Ric O'Barry, Flipper's trainer. Ric came to Tokyo for a dolphin convention at which one of our musical friends was asked to perform, and we had just the song for him – our very own dolphin number, inspired by The Cove, called 'Whales Can Sing'. We wangled our way on to the guest list to watch our friend perform it, and of course, we bumped into Ric. The next day he invited us to a party to perform the song live and a few days after that he forwarded us a mysterious mail. It was a message from '60s Byrds legend Dave Crosby saying how much he liked the song. We’ve been friends with Flipper ever since.'

Other than 'Whales can Sing', the three songs by The Watanabes that you simply have to hear are...
''Hot Water Hills', because the wonderful Kate Sikora helped us sing it; 'Guilt', on account of my brother Selwyn’s stunning, Shania Twain-esque, falsetto backing vocals (imagine early Beatles, but higher); and 'Love Princess' – an anthem for gaijin in Japan that we like to think can be appreciated by all. It’s about being in a strange environment and getting to grips with it. We were recently sent an email from a fan saying that her 80-year-old mother loved it. Now that’s what The Watanabes are all about [laughs].'

The Watanabes follow in a long rock'n'roll tradition of sibling bands. As children, the Walsh brothers mostly fought about...
'The contentious results of brutal one-on-one kitchen football sessions, many of which resulted in injury. Mainly to our little brother. And sometimes our mother.'

As adults, the Walsh brothers fight mostly about...
'Selwyn’s inability to tune quickly. My inability to tune quickly. Song titles. The contentious results of kitchen football matches... In general though, The Watanabes don’t fight much. We are a true international band of brothers. Excuse the pun.'

In Tokyo, The Watanabes spend most of their time hanging around in...
'A tiny little curry shop outside Harajuku run by a solitary, jolly old Japanese man that we have, rather originally, christened Old Man Curry. It’s got about four seats, it’s open every day of the year except New Year, and he serves up a little feast for us after every band practice. We’re pretty sure that it must be one of his busiest times of the week. We don’t understand much of what we say to each other, but we have a very jolly time indeed. You’ll know whether it’s our one, because you’ll find a faded old Watanabes flyer stuck on the chopstick box. We didn’t put it there. Old Man Curry did.'

To see our Watanabes photo gallery, click here

Click here to attend the release party for The Watanabes' new album, 'You're Dancing, I'm Absorbed'