Christof: We played some shows. The rest of the time we tried to cope with everyday life which is very hard when you've started drinking beer and smoking grass in the morning already. But it´s getting better and better.
2.You have a new album coming out in March, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
Christof: The songs on the forthcoming album are about 18 to 20 years old, stuff from the very beginning of JAKA. These songs are more punk than most of the material we've written after that. Most of them became every greens over the years, so it had been kind of necessary to record them in a more proper sound. At least for the fans that were born after JAKA.
3.Over the years you have referred to your music as 'grindpunk' or 'popgrind', can you tell us a little bit more about these terms?
Christof: The early and now rerecorded stuff was more grindpunk. Since 2007 the sound has become more popgrind. Today we describe our style as lebensbejahender death metal which means life-affirming death metal. We are very optimistic guys despite all the devastating information you get through all the devastating mass media.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the newer music?
Christof: The latest lyrics are about the ordinary grindcore topics like naturkatastrophen and krieg. Former lyrics deal with more interesting stuff like kneipe and ficken. If you are further interested, you can buy the song book JAPANISCHE KAMPFLEKTUERE. But in that case your German should be better than my English! Or you need a very good translating program.
5.I know that the bands name means 'Japanese combat audio drams', how does this name fit in with the musical style you play?
Christof: Totally.
6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Christof: One of the best shows we ever played was in a basement bar in New York in front of ten or eleven guests who had only been there for a drink or to kill time. The room had been cleaned half an hour before we arrived and the chlorine burned our lungs. But as always we delivered very well. Our performance is very energetic with a lot of jumping and running around and destroying instruments and other things. On the other hand we are known as the band that tidies up backstage rooms, doing the dishes, making the beds, you name it. We never threw a TV set out of a window. Only once a remote control.
7.Do you have any touring or show plans once the new album is released?
Christof: We are going to do another FLEISCHMARSCH at the end of the year together with our friends of EXCREMENTORY GRINDFUCKERS which is a comedy grind band you might know. The first two FLEISCHMARSCHs in 2005 and 2008 had been great successes. People seem to enjoy the mixture of pure fun and absolute seriousness.
8.A couple of the band members also run 'Unundeux' what is going on with that label these days?
Christof: It´s not a label anymore but a store where you can buy T-shirts and stuff. Just take a look at www.unundeux.de. Running a label needs a lot of discipline and mercantile ability -skills none of us really has.
9The band has also been a part of a great amount of splits, can you tell us a little bit more about the bands you have shared these recordings with?
Christof: We did splits with DAS KRILL from Germany, BATHTUBSHITTER from Japan, ARE YOU GOD from Brazil, EISENVATER from Hamburg and KILLER which is a side project of Junge from EA80. There are some more for sure ... Oh! We just did a 4-way-split called "Grind Cuts" with NERVOUS IMPULSE from Canada, BRUD from Ukraine and MEAT CUTTING FLOOR from Russia! So as you can see JAKA is kind of a global band.
10.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of grindcore?
Christof: I really don´t know why but most of the world´s population seems to like us. I´m sure that if we opened ourselves more for social media, even housewives from Bangladesh would give us a like or a click or a view. I can´t say how many of our fans are fans of grindcore at the same time. But are genres that important anymore? Doesn´t anybody consume everything at once nowadays?
11.What is going on with some of the other bands or musical projects these days that some of the band members are a part of?
Christof: All that was recorded and released for a very small group of connaisseurs. People who still find the leisure to get obsessed by things in a world which has become distracted more and more. Neither MADCHENDRECK nor DAS OLDSCHOOLFORMAT DER ZUKUNFT nor TITI NITI nor FAKE IDYLL were founded to enter stages. We just recorded these tunes for fun and for to avoid boredom. Only Robert´s band PHOBIATIC plays live shows. But I guess PHOBIATIC is his real band while JAKA is just a project to him.
12.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
Christof: I don´t know. To me JAKA is still just a project anyway. From the start we've just let everything come. Personally I´m convinced that if you don´t bother, you´ll make it and vice versa - when you try too hard you better don´t even start. I´m a big fan of taking the line of the least resistance. That´s not very German, I know.
13.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your newer music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Christof: Lyrically it´s the first album of EXTRABREIT, musically FRANK ZAPPA. Of course JAKA´s music is not half as ingenious as the music of FRANK ZAPPA, but the lyrics are better than the ones by EXTRABREIT. However, EXTRABREIT showed me that German lyrics work. That was in 1980, I think. As for ZAPPA, I like the synthesis of the arts. I don´t see myself as just a drummer or a lyricist. I´m interested in the entire thing. Of course, we all listened to thrash metal, death metal, black metal and metal metal when we were younger. That´s why we still play metal - we never learned anything else! But we don´t consume metal all day. When we are on the road, we listen to softer tunes like YUNG HURN or HGICHT.
14.What are some of your non musical interests?
Christof: Reading, cooking, talking shit.
15.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Christof: No. As an optimistic lebensbejahender death metal dandy I´m hoping that the world will not perish too soon.
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