BAND-MAID drummer Akane Hirose approaches rhythm as something of a chimera. Under normal circumstances, a rock band expects the drummer to provide a solid grounding in the beat. The drummer’s role is to keep the entire exercise under control. But when Akane plays drums, belief in the beat can be an illusion. Akane’s playing is liberated from musical time and space. The songs are usually in 4/4 time. Her drumming never seems as simple as that.

The non-drummer who sits down at a drum kit and tries to play the beginner’s rock beat will quickly discover that coordinating hands and feet is much harder than they imagined. Limb independence is a truly wonderful thing. The experienced drummer who picks up a copy of Jim Chapin’s jazz classic Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer will also quickly realize that there are always new rhythmic tricks to master. The advanced drummer who hears Akane for the first time may find themselves saying, “She’s not just a rhythm player. Her drums are a lead instrument. I need to learn her tricks.”

Maid In Japan

Band Maid began its career as a studio-dominated pop/rock group. All of the songs on the group’s first mini-album, Maid In Japan (2014), were written by non-band members. Maid In Japan is 30 minutes of glistening power pop. It is great fun to listen to. But the band was clearly subservient to the whims of the producers. Akane demonstrated a high energy approach to her drumming, but the patterns were for the most part straightforward. Yes, there were some deftly placed hits of the bell on the ride cymbal (listen to “EverGreen”) and other neat tricks. But there was really no indication of the untapped potential that would be unleashed in the future.

On the next two mini-albums, New Beginning (2014), and Brand New Maid (2015), BAND-MAID demonstrated a harder edge. The songs were significantly more aggressive. Saiki’s vocals suddenly had a darker and more mature timbre. Bassist Misa began playing around with contrapuntal patterns and speed slap octaves. Lead guitarist Kanami began flexing her creative chops in riffs and solos.

Just Bring It

Most importantly, Akane truly came into her own. Her drums became as much of a lead instrument as Kanami’s variously colored PRS guitars. “Real Existence,” from New Beginning, is a tour-de-force. The galloping beats during the verses and guitar solo are as powerful as a locomotive with its throttle wide open. But Akane also demonstrated a willingness to bide her time until her full forces were needed.

Just Bring It, released in 2016, is BAND-MAID’s first full album. It is also the album when when Akane and her bandmates took charge of their own careers. The band wrote nine of the thirteen songs. There was a noticeable upgrade in the material, the performance and the energy.  An example is the song, “Ooparts,” one of two songs not written by the band. Written by Nora, “Ooparts” is a power pop masterpiece. The first two minutes are a great example of Akane’s ability to sit back and let the song dictate her rhythms.

Choose Me

The single “Choose Me,” released after Just Bring It, is one of BAND-MAID’s most supercharged “what the f*c* is wrong with you” love songs. It is one also one of the highlights of the group’s live shows.  Akane maintains a clear “one and two and three and four and” beat. But even in this more traditional approach to drumming, Akane is so aggressive in her fills and cymbal work that the sense of onward momentum is relentless. “Choose Me” also includes some of Akane’s most spectacular rolls. And it is worth pointing out that Akane’s rolls are absolutely exhilarating.

World Domination

By the time of the breakthrough album World Domination, the band were in total control of their sound. The listener can tell that these women were aware of their new-found power. They were out to prove something to the world. World Domination can be exhilarating to the point of burnout. Fortunately, Band Maid throw in a few mid-tempo ballads towards the end of this onslaught. Otherwise, World Domination would be one of the most exhaustingly aggressive albums since the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks.

On “Dice,” Akane’s drumming is frantic, raucous, chaotic, and insistent. The song begins with Akane’s drums and Misa’s bass. Lead guitarist Kanami takes over with a bone-crunching riff. One is never quite sure what Akane’s doing during the verses – maybe biding time? – until Saiki gets to the chorus, when Akane’s driving beats take charge. Of course, the chaos, and Akane’s focus on spacing between rather than on beats, will return.  Just when you think a normal beat has returned during Kanami’s solo, Saiki re-enters with a couple of vocal parts over which Akane reignites the manic rhythms that actually hold the song together.

The 2019 April Fools’ Day “BAND-MAIKO” song “祇園町” is a perfect example of Akane’s rhythmic genius. Rather than try to dissect what Akane is doing, just listen to the song. Focus on the spaces between the hard-to-find beats, because that is where Akane’s rhythm truly lives. She creates space for the guitars and bass to drive the song and for vocalist Saiki to assert control over the entire proceeding. When Akane starts a snare roll, it’s more of a tacit agreement to assent to the decisions of the other instrumentalists than to drive the beat on her own.

Conqueror

BAND-MAID’s most recent album, Conqueror, provides many examples of Akane’s tricks. She is masterful in stitching together different musical themes. Listen to the tour de force “Dilemma.” The song is persistently fast-paced, but it actually contains a number of subtle themes.  After the hard charging intro, Akane’s fill is the perfect transition to a slightly slower first verse. Another exotic sounding theme emerges prior to the chorus, necessitating another change in drumming approach. Even the subtle clickety-clicks during the relatively quiet pseudo-bridge add rhythmic interest. Finally, Akane explodes into the final chorus with one of the most glorious “here we go – wait a minute! – here we really go” fills you’ll ever hear.

Akane doesn’t always go rogue. She can use drums as conventional weaponry and simply drive the beat forward. Nevertheless, she always finds a way to create sonic interest. For example, the way she turns “Smile,” the B Side of the single, “Bubble,” into an upbeat jam, all the while remaining firmly on beat, is a marvel of control.

Live In Concert

Akane tends to be more straightforward in concert than in the studio. This is what one would expect given the necessity for the drummer and bass player to be in total sync. They have to hold the band together. There are at least two positive trade-offs for this simpler approach. First, the intensity of the performances is amped up. There is a noticeable increase in the beats-per-minute of the songs. Coupled with the occasional rawness of Saiki’s voice, the result of endless touring, the songs take on an urgency that is irresistible.

Secondly, one gains an appreciation for Akane’s listening skills. In the truly amazing instrumental “Onset,” each of the members get their solo moments. Akane first locks in with the band as a unit, then with Misa’s bass solo, followed by Kaname’s solo histrionics, which sound as if they were inspired by ex-King Crimson and ex-Talking Heads guitar master Adrian Belew. Akane then effortlessly accents Miku’s power chord interlude. One gets the feeling that Akane understands each of the band members as well as they understand themselves.

BAND-MAID are an incredibly exciting live act. There may not be another band in the world that exhibits such joy in performance. The concert at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City in the fall of 2019 was a tour de force. It was notable how often the other women in the band gathered around Akane, smiling in encouragement or laughing in admiration at her skills. During Akane’s drum solo, the other women in the band did not leave the stage as other bands might do. Instead, they gathered around her, sat down and watched.

In concert, the barefoot yet statuesque bassist Misa is usually having a private (but wild) party of her own. As much time as she spends on the B and E strings of her five-string bass keeping the beat, she is just as often found above the 12^th fret on the D and G strings providing ornamentation and filagrees.  Lead guitarist Kanami Tono, the hardest working guitarist in rock music, is earth-, water-, fire- and air-bending (yes, she is the current Fire Nation Avatar).** Ring leader/lyricist Miku Kobato, the Queen of Power Chords, thrashes away like Kirk Hammett on steroids. She is an underrated rhythm guitarist, as is obvious from a close listen to her guitar on the live DVD from Shinkiba Studio Coast (2017), on which her guitar is prominent in the mix.

Take Me Higher!

For those who have not had the opportunity to see BAND-MAID in person, there are at least three concerts available on DVD or BluRay –  (1) Shinkiba Studio Coast on November 23, 2017, (2) Zepp Tokyo on April 13, 2018 (both as bonus discs to CDS) and (3) the recently issued show from Line Cube Shibuya on February 14, 2020 (available as a standalone DVD or BluRay). Akane’s drumming on “Real Existence” from the DVD of the performance at Zepp on April 13, 2018 is the drumming of a woman who is truly teetering on the edge of control.

Akane is the master of using fills to create a sense of anticipation. In “Take me higher!” from the live performance at Shinkiba Studio Coast in 2017, the listener can tell that Akane can’t simply wait to get going. In the introduction, she uses at least five different brief fills to bide her time before Miku picks up from Kanami’s riffs to kick the song into immediate overdrive.

Akane seems to have a particular love for her toms, which increases the sense of a relationship with bassist Misa. In fact, there truly is an uncanny symbiosis among the women in the band. Kanami doesn’t make it easy for Akane. Kanami doesn’t have a home studio so much as a mad scientist’s laboratory. She concocts mysterious brews of riffs and chord progressions. The women then slap these bits of pieces of musical material into something akin to a medieval tapestry. Miku adds empowered lyrics, bassist Misa devises Jaco-style ornamentations. And the commanding yet graceful vocalist Saiki Atsumi never lets the listener forget who is in fact the World Dominator and Conqueror. Akane creates the transitions that ensure that the whole can be called coherent.

Raw Power

The February 2020 concert at Line Cube Shibuya reveals a completely different side of Akane. In a way, it has little in common with Akane’s studio work, which is subtle and interesting. Her drum work at this concert was an exercise in brute force. Akane provides an absolutely punishing beat throughout. Many of the songs begin with extended introductions featuring Akane and Misa, who are prominent in the mix. Eleven of the twenty-one songs are from Conqueror. This was not simply a greatest-hits show. The songs from Conqueror are clustered at the beginning of the concert. In addition, the editing of this performance is notable for how many times the cameras focus on Akane. And it wasn’t just the editors of the video who were impressed by Akane, based on the number of times the other women, alone or together, gather around Akane to watch her in awe.

BAND MAID describes itself as an “impossibly hard rocking band.” The is a fair description of the mayhem they release. But ultimately, the glue that holds the mayhem together is Akane. She relentlessly drives the beat, all the while playing exercises from advanced drumming technique textbooks. There are many great drummers in Japanese Rock, but Akane of BAND-MAID is in a class by herself when it comes to the ingenuity and inventiveness of her grooves.

** A reference to the American animated TV Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender. The concept of the series is that only one person in the world is capable of mastering the four elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water. The Avatar serves as the link between the natural and spirit worlds and maintains harmony among the four nations that represent those elements.

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