{"id":20454,"date":"2026-07-29T01:40:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20454"},"modified":"2026-07-29T01:40:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:40:56","slug":"band-maid-talks-energetic-single-okyu-ji-hiatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20454","title":{"rendered":"BAND-MAID Talks \u2018Energetic&#8217; Single, \u2018OKYU-JI&#8217; Hiatus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBAND-MAID released their new single, \u201cENERGETIC,\u201d on June 24, which marked their first release of 2026. The band has announced that in 2027, they\u2019ll be taking a short break from their \u201cOKYU-JI\u201d (live shows) to recharge, so one can\u2019t help but see their frame of mind reflected in their new songs, along with the message they\u2019re trying to share. They recently finished their last European stop on their ongoing world tour and returned to Japan, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/t\/billboard-japan\/\" id=\"auto-tag_billboard-japan\" data-tag=\"billboard-japan\">Billboard JAPAN<\/a> was able to speak with them at length about everything from their impressions of the tour to the process of creating the new single.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-related-artists \/\/ lrv-u-margin-tb-1 lrv-u-flex u-flex-direction-column@desktop-xl u-flex-direction-column@desktop-xl-max lrv-u-align-items-center lrv-u-margin-l-00@desktop-xl a-glue@desktop-xl lrv-a-glue--t-0 lrv-a-glue--l-0 u-margin-t-29px@desktop u-margin-t-250@mobile-max u-margin-lr-auto@desktop-xl-max u-max-width-400@desktop-xl-max u-width-100p@mobile-max u-max-width-80@desktop-xl\">\n<h3 id=\"title-of-a-story\" class=\"c-title  lrv-u-color-white a-font-primary-fancy-m lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-u-text-align-center a-article-related-module-title lrv-u-padding-tb-050\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tExplore\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<div class=\"a-article-related-module-wrap lrv-u-flex u-flex-direction-column@desktop-xl lrv-u-flex-grow-1 u-width-100p\">\n<div class=\"o-card lrv-u-flex u-flex-direction-column@desktop-xl u-flex-direction-column@desktop-xl-max u-align-items-center lrv-u-position-relative u-flex-basis-100p lrv-u-padding-b-075\">\n<div class=\"o-card__image-wrap lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column u-width-80 u-width-160@mobile-max lrv-a-glue-parent lrv-u-flex-shrink-0\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-height-100p\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/billboard\/\" class=\"c-lazy-image__link lrv-a-unstyle-link\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"a-crop-1x1 lrv-u-height-100p\" style=\"\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"\" width=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"o-indicator lrv-a-glue a-glue--b-n050 lrv-a-glue--r-0 a-glue--t-auto a-glue--l-0 lrv-u-margin-lr-auto u-pointer-events-none lrv-u-background-color-brand-primary lrv-u-border-radius-50p u-width-20 u-height-20 a-icon-related-artist lrv-a-icon-after\"><\/p>\n<p>\t<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"c-tagline  a-font-secondary-fancy-xxxs@desktop-xl a-font-secondary-fancy-s@desktop-xl-max lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-u-color-black u-padding-t-13 lrv-u-padding-b-2 lrv-u-margin-tb-00 lrv-u-text-align-center lrv-u-border-t-1 lrv-u-border-color-black lrv-u-width-100p\">See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>You played at five cities on the European leg of your world tour (Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris and London), and you performed at Download Festival in the U.K. How was it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KANAMI<\/strong> (Guitar): This was our first time in Europe in seven years, so I was nervous and a bit worried. I was like, \u201cHow receptive are they going to be? Will the crowd get into it?\u201d But there were no problems at all. You could tell that everyone had been listening to our music and waiting for us. I was relieved, and happy, and filled with this feeling like \u201cWe\u2019re going to be coming back here again!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>AKANE<\/strong> (Drums): There were a lot of people who had never been to an OKYU-JI before, which surprised me. Over half the audience at each show. It really made me happy knowing how many new people had found us over the past seven years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Before you left for Europe, you announced that you\u2019d be putting your OKYU-JI on hiatus in 2027. The singles came out after that announcement, so it really feels like you\u2019re baring your hearts, especially on \u201cDays.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>MIKU KOBATO<\/strong> (Guitar\/Vocals): We wanted to make a song that resonated with the sadness our Masters and Princesses will feel not being able to see us for a year, and a song that would provide us in the band with emotional support during this period of separation from our Masters and Princesses. We wanted it to be like, with this song, we\u2019re fine, and people know we\u2019re doing alright.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BAND-MAID \/ ENERGETIC (Official Music Video)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NpZjslVGhbE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>SAIKI<\/strong> (Vocals): We started playing \u201cDays\u201d on the world tour starting with the Yokohama show (in April). We revealed it pretty early on, because we\u2019d made the announcement (about our OKYU-JI hiatus) and with \u201cDays\u201d we wanted to let everyone know how we were feeling. I wrote really raw lyrics that were honest to a fault, and we wanted to share that message directly through our OKYU-JI. I think of \u201cDays\u201d as being a promise. \u201cENERGETIC\u201d was written while picturing a bright future, and when talking about it, KANAMI even said \u201cThis year, we\u2019re going to make them get out there and dance!\u201d (laughs)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KANAMI<\/strong>: When I wrote the song, I was imagining everyone at the 2026 OKYU-JI going wild dancing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>SAIKI<\/strong>: We want to create some fun memories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>AKANE<\/strong>: \u201cDays\u201d has a message we want to share with our Masters and Princesses, and we want people to pay close attention to the lyrics of the chorus. That\u2019s why I went with a simple beat, a drum phrase that would highlight the melody without getting in the way of the singing. After the second chorus, I reproduced the programmed rhythmical phrase that KANAMI had put in the demo, but at the same time I applied my own technique.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>MISA<\/strong> (Bass): When I got the demo, I hadn\u2019t yet heard that the song was a promise, like SAIKI mentioned earlier. But I found it to be a very emotional song. I thought about how I could complement that emotionality, and I put in a lot of horizontal slides and glissandos in the bass line. I wanted my own emotions to come across through the music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KOBATO, what did you think when you performed \u201cDays\u201d for the first time at an OKYU-JI?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KOBATO<\/strong>: It was right after the announcement (of our OKYU-JI hiatus), so more than anything else, I wanted to convey this message of \u201cWe\u2019re here, right beside you\u201d to the saddened Masters and Princesses out there. When we play \u201cDays,\u201d the Masters and Princesses nod along, and they have these gleams in their eyes, like they\u2019re moved. Every time we play it, we feel truly connected as one with the audience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>I hear that you only recently finished the new single\u2019s title track, \u201cENERGETIC.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KANAMI<\/strong>: In BAND-MAID\u2019s 13-year history, this is the first time we\u2019ve ever moved so fast, going into recording right after the song was written and then going on to play the brand new song in OKYU-JIs. When we played it for the first time at an OKYU-JI in the European leg of the tour, it was like all of our energy just exploded on stage. It was the crowd\u2019s first time hearing it, but they were all going crazy dancing. And in the intro I sang \u201cLALALA,\u201d but then when we got to the interlude, everyone started singing along. It was our first time debuting the song, but it was like we swept everyone up in it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>SAIKI<\/strong>: There were even people putting their own spins on it, right? There were people who were harmonizing during the \u201cLALALA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>\u201cENERGETIC\u201d starts out with a bass line. So, MISA, they put you in charge of getting the song off to an explosive start?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>MISA<\/strong>: I was so nervous about that. I wanted to see everyone dancing in the OKYU-JI, but I had my hands so full with my part that I couldn\u2019t even look. (laughs)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>AKANE<\/strong>: The song has a four-on-the-floor dance beat, a relatively simple one for a BAND-MAID song. But if you want to sweep everyone off their feet and create a sense of unity, a repeating phrase clicks better than a busier sound. It\u2019s easier to remember. So I kept that firmly in mind when we made the song. But because of its simplicity, there were parts where I could really show off, and parts with a lot of movement in the phrases that stand out, so I was able to give the phrases some variety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>KOBATO<\/strong>: Our past title tracks have tended to be half-English, half-Japanese, or a little more on the English side. That\u2019s why I tried to keep a good balance, like on \u201cDOMINATION.\u201d When I started writing the lyrics for \u201cENERGETIC,\u201d we\u2019d already decided to make it the title track and to pair it with \u201cDays,\u201d so keeping \u201cDays\u201d in mind, I tried to write lyrics that were evocative of our future and the dancing and running around we were looking forward to seeing in our upcoming shows. SAIKI also shared her image of the artwork, and how we might wave around a flag during the tour, and I wanted to include elements that brought to mind something like a BAND-MAID board game. That\u2019s why there are lyrics like \u201cLive or Dice,\u201d or the gamelike \u201cPlay it or end with this hand.\u201d And in the musical part where we want people to dance, the lyrics \u201cMax gain.\u201d I also added lyrics like \u201cProve it\u201d and \u201cTo the top\u201d from our past hits, to give a feeling of BAND-MAID\u2019s history. And I tried to write lyrics that would also give a sense of our future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Where did the board gamelike image of the artwork come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>SAIKI<\/strong>: I think that BAND-MAID\u2019s career itself has been like a game. There are a lot of different topics, so it\u2019s easy to break it up into spaces (like those of a board game). There\u2019s so much content in our history that you could make a game out of it. And it\u2019s not just us. Our fans also enjoy our music like people enjoy games. We have people coming from all over to join our OKYU-JI, so I also reflected that in the artwork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard-japan.com\/special\/detail\/5367\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">This interview by Takayuki Okamoto first appeared on Billboard Japan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BAND-MAID released their new single, \u201cENERGETIC,\u201d on June 24, which marked their first release of 2026. The band has announced that in 2027, they\u2019ll be taking a short break from their \u201cOKYU-JI\u201d (live shows) to recharge, so one can\u2019t help but see their frame of mind reflected in their new songs, along with the message&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/BANDMAID-press-2026-bbjapan-cr-ayaka-horiuchi.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}