We caught up with rising rockers DYGL, who released their latest offering ‘Crawl’ on 6 September 2024 via their Easy Enough imprint. ‘Crawl’ premiered on acclaimed tastemaker EARMILK, and received support from Yahoo Japan and Billboard Japan. Pronounced ‘Day-Glow’ (DYGL), their single gives us a taste of their forthcoming album Cut the Collar due for release later this year. DYGL have been featured in publications like NME Magazine, Japan Times, The Line of Best Fit and Headstuff to name a few. They’ve toured globally and have performed in China, the USA, the UK and Europe.
In our interview, we chat to vocalist and guitarist Nobuki Akiyama about their songwriting process, what they’d change about the music industry and what they have cooking in the pipeline. Stream ‘Crawl’ while reading our interview with Nobuki below:
To those not familiar with you, how would you describe your sound?
Indie Rock, Post-Punk, Garage, Psychedelic, a bit of Metal lately (regarding some new songs for the future releases! So stay tuned with us if you like heavy stuff). We have been trying to write good melodies, but now we’re more focused on the beat so that people can feel it more physically. Just realised that rock music is also dance music.
Which three albums have influenced you the most creatively?
It changes a lot all the time, but nowadays the albums below are some of the biggest influences:
Snõõper – Super Snõõper, Blue Smiley – Return, Fugazi – 13 Songs, Gang of Four –Entertainment!
Sorry I couldn’t choose just 3! There are still a lot more great records that’s been influencing us.
Take us through your songwriting process. Are there any particular steps you take when putting music together?
It all changes too depending on the phase we’re in. I’m usually the one to bring first demos to my mates, but very recently we started to do more song writing sessions together and it works very well. It feels right to make something that we can play live energetically, the same way we play in the studio in the first place. So yeah, lately we do jamming, record it on a voice memo app, then we play it again on a different day to fix the arrangements. Then we hit the studio to give an eternal life to those songs, for all of our fans!
What are or were some of the challenges for you in producing or performing while keeping true to your vision of your music?
‘Making music is not only about music’, is the thing I’ve learnt in experiences I had. Sometimes it’s about communicating with people, sometimes it’s about understanding someone. When I was immature (I still am but I mean when I was worse!), I always easily got trapped by my own ego and made things more difficult for no reason. But eventually I (‘& we’, I suppose) have learnt how to communicate to respect each other and create something great together. That’s been the big challenge that we’ve faced many times, it’s tough but also a fun part of doing music.
As a musician, it becomes apparent that there is a huge difference between the art and the business. Is there anything about the music scene that you would personally change?
Wow, it’s a big question. Also a good question. Obviously music scene, both creative and business side of it affects each other to form what it is called ‘music scene’ right now. So it’s been making so many things possible for many people so I appreciate both sides in the first place. But, it also seems to have problems for sure, like, such as music trends have sped up too much so people nowadays listen to music like eating cheap burgers without appreciating it.
I don’t know if I want to change it for the others, but at least I often manage to listen to albums and stuff carefully than before. Like trying not to skip songs, or something like that. Everything is fast these days, so I try to face things reasonably slow instead, hoping I might be able to pick up something which was ignored by people who went ahead hastily. You know, trying to live like Momo by Michael Ende.
Who are three musicians you think the world needs to hear right now?
Sword Ⅱ, ShoppingTexas, 3000 Oasis
Studio work and music creation or performing and interacting with a live audience, which do you prefer?
I’d say music creation! It is the most fundamental part of my life. Writing a song in my own room, finding, or dragging something from deep in my heart feels the most relieving, exciting, and religious experience. All the other parts, which I’m enjoying a lot too, comes after that. You know, we can’t play anything live if we haven’t got songs anyway. Writing songs from 0 (nothing) feels the most powerful moment for me.
Any “strange tales” or things that may have happened during a show that seemed too weird to be true?
Hmm not really, yet. Hope we had some tho. Please someone, give birth to a three-headed horse during we play the next show so we can answer to the same question perfectly the next time we’re asked again!!
Breakdown the news for us: what can we expect from you in the near future?
Japan Tour will start in 2 months! We’ll also come to Indonesia and China during this year too. We’re really looking forward to go around to meet new people and old friends here and there.
Also, we already got massive amount of rough demos for new songs now so we’d like to get to work on them whenever time allows between those show schedules. We’re very excited for what we’re making, and we’d love to bring these songs for anyone who wants to listen. Invite us to your hometown and we’ll be there! 😉 See you somewhere in the world very soon.
Follow DYGL:
Website – Facebook – X – Soundcloud – TikTok – Youtube – Instagram – Spotify
