INTERVIEW: Moodring Goes All-In on Anime With Exclusive Track Reveal on Crunchyroll News
Article written and interview conducted by Crunchyroll Title Marketing Manager Alex Lebl.
Metal music fans, listen up! Along with our friends in Moodring, we’re excited to premiere the music video for “BLACK_WAVE,” the band’s latest single, exclusively on Crunchyroll News!
The members of Moodring wear their anime fandom on their sleeves, with merch, posts, photoshoots, and even this new music video being heavily inspired by the medium. Check out the music video below and let us know what you think. Want to see more exclusive music reveals from Crunchyroll News? Tell us in the comments!
As part of this exclusive track debut, we had the chance to sit down with Hunter Young from the band to learn more about how anime makes its way deep into his mind and can be seen in everything the band creates.
Thanks for joining us today. Great to have you here, and excited about launching the new single with you! First and foremost, could you introduce yourself and your band?
My name is Hunter, I sing for a band called Moodring, and we are a weird band from Florida and now Georgia.
I think that’s what every listener is going to get out of listening to the old stuff and the new single, which is the reason you’re here!
We’ve got an exclusive launch of your new single, “BLACK_WAVE,” on Crunchyroll News. But it wouldn’t be on Crunchyroll without anime, so we also wanted to dive a bit deeper into your anime life. What is your experience as a fan?
I mean, I’ve got a 6-foot poster of Broly to the left of me in my studio. So every day I wake up and I look in the mirror and I say, “How can I be more like Broly today?”
I’m just kidding. But no, I’ve been into it for a really long time. I was exposed to a lot of the ‘90s classics like Yu Yu Hakusho, Inuyasha, Gundam, Dragon Ball, etc. All the big Toonami names and then later I got into Neon Genesis Evangelion and so on and so forth. It’s been a part of my life for an extremely long time.
And one of your cats is also named after an anime character?
Both of them. The little chunky one’s name is Champa like Beerus’ brother, and my other cat is Migi from Parasyte because she’s a Sphinx and hairless and disgusting. And she’s got a gelatinous body. Maybe I messed up not doing Beerus and Champa.
Out of the ones that you’ve watched and what you’ve grown up with, do you have a favorite?
All time? Neon Genesis Evangelion all day, you know? Nothing like existential dread. And for more lighthearted? DBZ all day. I actually just rewatched all of it.
When I grew up, I grew up with it, you know, with the Faulconer soundtrack. I’m used to the ripping guitar solos and all the tension and now with the original Japanese music it’s definitely a lot different. I can’t imagine being a kid and watching the Cell Saga without the Faulconer soundtrack, but I just did it recently. And it was very different, but it was still awesome. I just rewatched all of the non-canon movies too.
So yeah, that is kind of a nice segue because your music and feel would fit right into the soundtrack of Lord Slug.
Yeah, that would be super sick. So the three of us have been Dir En Grey fans for a long time. I like a lot of Japanese bands like Maximum the Hormone, especially with us being a more nü-metal leaning band. So, we definitely pull influence from that and the whole visual kei scene in general.
And even just the English soundtrack that had a different soundtrack with Deftones and Finger Eleven.
Dude, the first Broly movie had Pantera on it when he goes Super Saiyan for the first time. it plays the song “10’s.” And I remember being a kid and being like, “This is nuts.”
That’s actually what made us want to come together. Your music fits really well with just the anime vibe. You brought up Neon Genesis Evangelion, which could almost be considered the series of heavy music, with people being sad and having breakdowns and listening to breakdowns.
Having watched so much of it, has anime made its way into your songwriting process at all?
Yeah, 100%. Anime has made its way into our songwriting, especially with the newer music. So I wrote some tracks and workshopped some ideas of friends who are also into anime. We talked about more popular chord structures, and J-rock and stuff like that as well. So 100% it has.
Has that bled over into the overall aesthetic of the band? Like when it comes to music videos and album covers? Is it just something you’re trying to capture the feeling of and put it in a way that works for you?
Yes, and no. We’ve dabbled in it with merch. But, we always walk this weird line, especially as American music listeners where we like to pigeonhole everything. It’s not like that anywhere else. So it’s very hard.
So we are dabbling in anime stuff, and we’re promoting more anime-looking stuff. We’ll do it, we’ll get out. And then we’ll come back being like, “Yo, by the way, we’re still weebs.” And then we’ll come back again, you know, just to not get too stuck in it. Because at the same time, we want to be our own individual human beings with our own musical identity, you know?
Right. It’s something that you like, not something that you are. The band walks that line really well, and can bring so many different feelings that way into your music.
It’s a blessing and a curse. People can be very confused by what we are as a band, but at the same time, I think that’s cool. Though it doesn’t help in the short term. Because again, it’s hard for people to stick a label on something that it isn’t, like “it’s this type of band.” Well, if they listened to one more song, they’d see there’s so much more.
But I hope that our variety pays dividends in the future.
You mentioned at the beginning that you’re in a “weird” band, and you just mentioned labeling things but how would you view your progression as a band? From the first EP to the last full-length Stargazer to what’s coming up.
So with the first EP Showmetherealyou, the majority of that EP is a version of me that is a bit younger, very sad in my room, writing sad relationship songs. They’re more on the grungy side if anything. I was really into that (still am) but that’s where I was at the time. I wasn’t too concerned with heaviness or anything like that.
After it came out, it did decently well on its own. When we started writing for Stargazer, I just knew I wanted to expand on what I had already done, but together with the other members of the band who are now much more involved. We did everything we’d done before, but turned it up a notch and then added a bunch of new elements as well with Stargazer and I think that compared to Showme it’s like the sadness is turned up to 11. But the sadness isn’t “I’m upset over a relationship.” The sadness is dread.
When it comes to this newer music that we’re gearing up towards and this new single, it’s just, it’s a different animal. It’s just writing from different perspectives and not focusing on writing a song for the sake of vocals, but just writing a song that could be badass.
What can you tell us about “BLACK_WAVE” specifically? Is there anything new that you tried? Or is it simply heavier?
I would say it’s probably the heaviest song we’ve ever put out. It’s the weirdest for sure. I think that new Moodring has a lot more energy than old Moodring does in general. Whether the energy is sadness, anger, your more typical musical emotions, it’s way more driving, like the music is going forward. It’s not stopping till it’s over. There’s a lot less meandering around, and we’re not focused on creating an atmosphere anymore.
I think “BLACK_WAVE” is pretty visceral, especially considering the type of band we are. I think that even though we are a rock band with primarily singing vocals, I think that we could play with bands twice as heavy as us and that song could fit right in.
I think we’ve both seen across the heavy music scene, like we’ve talked about with Neon Genesis Evangelion and we talked about the anime-inspired merchandise.
It seems like a lot of anime fans and heavy music fans kind of gravitate together and there’s such a strong overlap between those two fandoms. Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?
Probably just because they evoke similar emotions. In extreme music, of course you’re dealing with the extremes generally. There is a lot of the drama to it. I think that’s probably the similarity that they share.
Speaking for myself, when I listen to something, I want to hear something that evokes emotion, whether that be pain, anger, dread. But at the same time, something that is so heavy, it literally makes me laugh.
I think heavy music is comedy, in a good way. How many times have you heard a riff or a breakdown that was just so sick you busted out laughing? You know what I mean?
Like it helps you process.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, every single time I watch Neon Genesis Evangelion, I just go into the sunken place for a couple days and then come back out.
Are there any series that have come out more recently that you’ve been influenced by?
Definitely the Chainsaw Man adaptation. I read it so long ago and I’m up to date with it constantly. But when the anime came out, I was like “This is awesome!” So sitting with my girlfriend or my roommate while it was airing I just kept saying over and over again, “You have no idea. You have no idea what’s coming.”
I was also keeping up with My Hero Academia as it was coming out, and I’m still reading the manga as well. I like the arc that they’re involved in right now, the Dark Deku arc. And before that the League of Villains are so sick. I like Shigaraki a lot.
I’m a villains guy. Not even in terms of just My Hero Academia, but in anime across the board the villain is generally 99 times cooler than the protagonist. You give me a cool villain? I’m probably going to like it. Frieza is sick; Broly is the sickest thing to ever exist.
That certainly gives fans some insight into what’s going on when you’re writing these Moodring songs.
Oh, yeah. It’s real villain hours out here. Especially “BLACK_WAVE.”
I’m trying to think on the lighter side too. I just finished SPY x FAMILY. That was nice and an easy watch. Adorable, wholesome, fun, funny. I really hope they end it with them not actually ending up together. So the entire fandom is like, just destroyed shatters. And I could see it happening.
Another recent favorite of mine is, and I feel like everyone in the entire world who watches anime feels this way too probably, but JUJUTSU KAISEN is huge on my list. I keep up with JUJUTSU KAISEN in my reading life too. I’ll probably check out Hell’s Paradise too.
Going back to Chainsaw Man, what did you think of the different ending songs per episode, especially as a Maximum the Hormone fan?
So sick, especially when they got to the Maximum the Hormone song. I’ve been a fan of theirs since Death Note. This song had so many assaulting electronic sounds and stuff which I thought was super cool. To branch out and to do a different outro song for everything, it gives a lot of people an opportunity to shine as well.
It lets them set up the vibe of an episode right. For instance, how many episodes have you watched and it’s the same outro song, at least for that arc? Someone brutally dies, and then it’s the happiest song you’ve ever heard in your life right after it.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see more anime series using bands like Paledusk and a lot of the younger bands coming up as well.
That lines up with how you find meaning in anime, too. Sometimes people don’t know what to think, or are unsure of what they just saw, but they know they like it.
Yeah, it’s, yeah. Different strokes for different folks, man. Like, like it or don’t, it’s the beautiful thing about the world. I think more people should be more open to the idea that you don’t have to like everything. People are at such odds all the time.
There’s plenty of stuff that I don’t like that you could like, and that does not bother me. I’m happy. I’m happy you like it! Not everything is for everyone. I’m very aware that you know, Moodring and “BLACK_WAVE” are definitely not for everyone. But at the same time, I’m just excited about the future of music in general. It almost already feels dystopian, and I think that’s a very cool thing.
