Ramen Rock: These Japanese Punk Legends Sing About Food

Shonen Knife performs at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C., on April 30. For over 35 years, the all-female trio has been serving up catchy punk songs with a delicious twist: Many are about a love of food. Ariel Zambelich/NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

Shonen Knife performs at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C., on April 30. For over 35 years, the all-female trio has been serving up catchy punk songs with a delicious twist: Many are about a love of food.

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

By night, they play gigs. By day, they sample ramen in cities across America.

They’re the three women of Shonen Knife, a legendary rock band from Japan. For over 35 years, the band has been serving up infectious punk songs with a delicious twist: Many of them are about food. Think song titles like “Wasabi,” “Hot Chocolate” and “Sushi Bar.” But don’t dismiss them as bubblegum pop: Over the years, some of their biggest fans have included giants of alt-rock music.

This spring, Shonen Knife embarked on its latest adventure – a ramen rock tour of the U.S.

Why ramen? Well, ramen is really like Japanese soul food, says Daisuke Utagawa, a ramen restaurateur in Washington, D.C., and unofficial ambassador of Japanese food culture. “It’s probably as important as your pizza here.”

(Left to right) Risa, Naoko and Atsuko of the band Shonen Knife eat ramen at Haikan in Washington, D.C., before playing a show. D.C. was one of their stops on a self-titled “Ramen Adventure Tour” of the U.S. By night, they play gigs. By day, they sample ramen in cities across the country. Ariel Zambelich/NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

And the noodles are becoming all the rage in America. So, to promote its latest album, called Adventure, Shonen Knife is on what it calls the “Ramen Adventure Tour” of the U.S. I met up with the band at Haikan, one of Utagawa’s hip ramen restaurants.

The band’s line up has changed over the years, but these days, it consists of drummer Risa Kawano and its two founding members — guitarist Naoko Yamano and her sister, Atsuko Yamano, who plays bass guitar. Like Cher or Beyonce, all three ladies prefer to go by first names only.

For our interview, Risa, Naoko and Atsuko changed into their signature outfits: geometric-patterned dresses, designed by Atsuko, reminiscent of a Mondrian painting. Ariel Zambelich/NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

For our interview, Risa, Naoko and Atsuko changed into their signature outfits: geometric-patterned dresses, designed by Atsuko, reminiscent of a Mondrian painting.

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

Naoko is the most fluent in English and does most of the talking. I kick off by asking the obvious: Why go on a ramen tour?

“Sushi is already very popular, but ramen is now happening in America,” Naoko says.

And — oh yeah — they happen to have a hard-rock anthem called “Ramen Rock,” written for a former band mate who had a habit of dining out on the noodles after playing shows. (Ramen is also a traditional hangover food in Japan.)

Atsuko tucks into a bowl of ramen at Haikan. Ariel Zambelich/NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

Naoko and Atsuko formed Shonen Knife in 1981 in Osaka, Japan. They were inspired by pop punk bands like the Ramones. (In 2011, the band released a tribute album called Osaka Ramones.) These days, Naoko says, she’s more into “’70s hard rock music, like Judas Priest or Black Sabbath or sometimes KISS.”

Naoko has always been the front-woman. And from the very beginning, many of their songs have been about food. “When I started Shonen Knife, I was ashamed to write about love,” she explains.

Naoko says romantic love, the standard stuff of music lyrics, was just too embarrassing to sing about. But love of food was another story.

“I found that eating delicious food is the most important thing for people,” she says. “It’s a kind of universal topic.”

So is dieting. Naoko — who is quite petite — says the need to curb her love of cookies inspired the song, “I Wanna Eat Cookies,” which features a memorable refrain that many listeners can identify with: “I wanna eat delicious cookies …. as much as I want to eat!”

By 1989, Shonen Knife’s catchy, playful songs had attracted some pretty big-name fans – including influential alternative-rock bands like Sonic Youth, Red Kross and L7, all of whom sang on a tribute album to the group called Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them.

In 1991, Nirvana asked Shonen Knife to join them on tour. At the time, Naoko says, she’d never heard of Kurt Cobain and company, but their grunge look gave her pause. “I was so scared because their looking was very wild,” Naoko recalls.

That was just as Nirvana’s seminal album Nevermind was blowing up. But as Cobain told MTV News a couple of years later, he was the one in awe of Shonen Knife, watching them perform night after night from the side of the stage. “I was an emotional sap the whole time. I cried every night,” said Cobain, who frequently shared his love of the band with interviewers.

Naoko leads the crowd in a clapping beat at D.C.’s Black Cat, where the band played to a packed room. Ariel Zambelich/NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Ariel Zambelich/NPR

Unlike Nirvana, Shonen Knife never made it huge. But over the decades, the band has remained a cult favorite. A couple of hours after our ramen dinner, they took the stage at D.C.’s Black Cat. And they kicked things off with a song called “Banana Chips” … of course.

Shonen Knife’s latest U.S. tour wraps up this weekend.