HELLO GOODBYE
They started out digging T.Rex in Catford. The end came at their pinnacle, in their spiritual home.
They began as brothers at home. But no one complained when it ended. Steve Jansen remembers Japan.
HELLO 1973
My brother [David Sylvian, né Batt] and I played music together in any free time we had. I started out with guitar, but approaching it left-handed, I found the chord shapes really difficult on a right-handed guitar. So I gave up and decided to focus on the rhythm department. I was a big fan of Tyrannosaurus Rex at that time, and the guitar and percussion partnership of Bolan and [Mickey] Finn seemed like a good road to take for two brothers learning about music.
Mick [Karn] was a school friend in my brother’s year, two years above mine. He was already fairly musical and decided he’d join us by learning to play the bass. When we did our first gig [on June 1, 1974 at Karn’s brother’s wedding] Mick and I had only been playing bass and drums a couple of months, so I can only imagine how awful things must have sounded. I think we were just loud and young! We played the music we’d jammed, so it must have had very little form apart from attempted covers. David had always been the singer [it’s often reported that Karn abandoned plans to be frontman just before going on stage]. I think Mick just backed out of co-singing.
We had a choice of three group names, of which Japan was one. We had to choose one before going on in order for us to be introduced, but always intended to improve upon it. Bowie’s flirtation with things Japanese was the primary influence. Maybe.
Either way, it seemed a colourful, inspired, faraway place to a 14-year-old, poorly educated south Londoner growing up in Catford.
I was still at school when we started gigging and so inevitably dropped out. I was also still underage when we signed our first record deal [in 1977], commencing work on the first album at 17, so it was my first real career option. But the rest of the group were equally committed to it. David being my older sibling meant that by default he was ‘leading’ his younger brother, and I think that since the other members effectively joined him and I, he took on the role of band leader very comfortably.
GOODBYE DECEMBER 1982
We were all in a good place in ’82. Japan had effectively split up in ’81, post the UK tour that year, after the completion of [1981 LP] Tin
Drum. We had no intention of ever working together again. It took about six months to get over the divisions which had occurred immediately prior to that tour.
Then our manager dangled a large carrot in the form of a sell-out world tour, a live album and video, as well as all the various merchandise opportunities, and a healthy bank balance at the end of it – then split up. By the time rehearsals started we were all quite happy to head off down that road one last time. We were not businessmen, and always entrusted our finances to management.
The most basic answer I would cite [for the final split] was a clash of egos between David and Mick. However, it’s not a conclusive one [Karn’s girlfriend left him for Sylvian]. Ultimately, it did boil down to prioritising personal ambition. Which is fair enough. Working relationships can’t last forever, and we didn’t owe one another a living.
Since we’d planned to split for about a year, the end came as no surprise and was a welcome change in a way [their last show came in Nagoya on December 16, 1982]. My next creative project was with Richard [Barbieri, keyboardist], recording an ambient album
Worlds In A Small Room in Japan [the country]. Rain Tree Crow [1991 reunion] was the same creative people making music together, but it wasn’t the same band. The process was different, and the indulgence of abstraction was much greater. Had David come to us with eight songs and said, ‘Let’s make an album together’, it would have been Japan revisited. But that’s not what happened.
Today, I regard Japan with affection and a degree of curiosity. Affection because we were enjoying the journey and really loved being in one another’s company. Seeing photographs or recalling memories from that journey can be emotional. Curiosity because we managed to become relatively successful with some rather peculiar music. But I think the end came at a good time. Better to quit as near the peak as possible.
Japan’s Quiet Life Deluxe Edition is out now on BMG. Book Of Romance And Dust by Exit North is out now exitnorth.bandcamp.com
“Our manager dangled a large carrot.” STEVE JANSEN