Interview With "Emotional" Idol Group, 564 (Goho Lolita Syndrome) At Japan Expo LA

We recently caught up with rock-idol group “564” (Also known as “Goho Lolita Syndrome”) at Japan Expo LA and talked to them about their shows in the US!

564 is made up of Hiro and Halu and are actually second generation members of the group. They have a very unique sound that is both rocking and cute! Their fans get more than a little wild at their shows too and this was witnessed first-hand by the A-To-J members who were present!

A-To-J: Please introduce yourself.
Hiro: Hi I’m Hiro.
Halu: Hi I’m Halu.

A-To-J: How are you enjoying your time in America?
Hiro: Am I enjoying it here? Yes!
Halu: How should I say this?
Hiro: Well first the cityscape…
Halu: The cityscape is like what you would see in a movie. We look at the buildings and think: “Ah, we’ve come to America, we’ve come to Los Angeles!”
Hiro: Next would be…
Halu: The food! There are a lot of kinds of food that is different from Japan.  Things we haven’t even seen before…
Hiro: The convenience store sells very different things as well so it’s fun!

A-To-J: Have you eaten something very different from back home?
Hiro: Oh! There were strawberries in the salad!
Halu: Yea! You don’t see that in Japan. It was surprising to see strawberries in a salad… Also I bought a sandwich that has cranberry and chicken in it from 7 Eleven, which I’ve never seen before either. I haven’t eaten it yet but that was a surprising combination to see!
Hiro: Putting… “fruits in….” (In English)
Halu: You don’t have to try to say it in English (Laughs)
Hiro: I want to say, why would you put fruits in there??
Halu: In Japan they don’t put much fruits so it was quite surprising…

A-To-J: What was some of the differences performing in front of the US fans?
Halu: The main thing was the language… Since we don’t do MCs, we usually tell the audience “be louder” or things like that during the instrumental parts of the songs but we had a difficult time trying to think of ways to communicate that to the people here. We had to brace ourselves to use English…
Hiro: But if say “wai wai!” the audience will do it with us!
Halu: I think even if it was a little bit, they understood us.

A-To-J: If you had to describe the genre of music you do to someone that has never heard of you before, how would you describe it to them?
Halu: We’re cool and intense, but we would tell them that we’re still Japanese idols!
Hiro: We’re idols that mix the “emotional” style and “moe” or cute Japanese style.

A-To-J: What are your favorite musical artists?
Halu: Since I like bands… I don’t listen to many bands overseas but for Japanese bands, I like a lot of intense bands. I go to lives and watch their live videos as well.

A-To-J: Out of the songs you performed, which one was your favorite song?
Hiro: “Kaika Sensen” JAWEYE-san, the person that was with us, made this song for us. It goes from intense to cute tones so it’s fun.

A-To-J: Where in the world would you like to perform the most?
564: Anywhere??  I wonder where we would want to go…
Hiro: This is actually my second time overseas…
Halu: Maybe a place that we’ve never seen before… Then we can have the people of that place listen to our music so we can see their reactions to it. A developing country maybe…
Hiro: With tribal people or something?
Halu: Yeah! I would like to go to those kinds of places with a completely different culture and perform in front of them. I want to see if they still think we are enjoyable or if they would be surprised.

A-To-J:  Do you have any funny stories from any of your performances?
Hiro: Like the time someone broke their bone?
Halu: The audience is intense as well so they like to mosh so sometimes they end up with nosebleeds or broken teeth and glasses as well… But it happens often with audiences of artists in our genre.
Hiro: Yes, quite often. For us it would be…
Halu: We almost fell off the stage one time… actually we did fell… twice. (Laughs)
Hiro: We get too excited!
Halu: And when we get too excited we don’t see clearly and we fell off because of it.

A-To-J: What are your next immediate plans for your music?
Halu: Since we’ve gotten an opportunity to perform overseas so we want more overseas fans to know us.
Hiro: We want to do lives in many different places.

A-To-J: Please send a final message to your fans.
Halu: We’re very happy that we were able to come to LA for the first time as 564! Since we met a lot of people that heard us for the first time, we hope we can use this chance for them to know us. We’re looking forward to the next time we can meet again! Thank you very much!

For more information on 564/Goho Lolita Syndrome:
Official Website: lolisyn564.com
Twitter: @lolisyn

The above interview was conducted by Manuel Figueroa with assistance by Molly Ring, filming by Eunice Wang, and translation by Tiffany Fujii.