“It’s quite an honor,” according to Boris drummer Atsuo, who like guitarist-bassist Takeshi and guitarist-keyboardist Wata uses only his given name. “When Boris first started out, they were our biggest influence. To think that we’re touring the U.S. together, it’s an unbelievable thing.”
Atsuo made his comments by email through a translator to avoid any stumbling over language barriers. Although the band often uses English in its lyrics and song titles, the words Takeshi and Atsuo include when they write songs are always ones that have been assimilated into everyday Japanese, Atsuo explained. “We use a lot of words like that. That said, you could say our lyrics are almost entirely written in Japanese.”
The wildly prolific Boris has released three albums in the last 13 months, one made with Uniform, a New York industrial-rock trio. That record is just the latest in a long string of the Japanese band’s collaborations. Boris’s repertoire includes heavy metal; raw noise; minimalist drone; and dreamier, more melodic material that often features Wata’s soprano. (All three members sing.)
The band’s various styles are linked by a common compositional approach, rooted in jam sessions and a reliance on electronic timbres and textures. “Effects pedals themselves can yield songs,” Atsuo said before turning mystical. “Without the feedback produced by the mega-volume of our amps, we could not be connected to this world.”
With three new albums, the band has plenty of fresh material. But this tour won’t feature any of it. Instead, the concerts highlight the first U.S. release of a 2002 record, one of three the band has released with the same title, “Heavy Rocks.” Long available as an import only, the album has just been issued stateside by Jack White’s Third Man Records.
To celebrate, Atsuo said, Boris proposed playing a few joint shows with Melvins to that band’s singer-guitarist, Buzz Osborne. “We said, ‘We’d love it if you could you perform the album ‘Bullhead,’ since it’s the album that has the song ‘Boris’ from which we took our name.’ Buzz kindly agreed, and then it became a full tour.”
“We’re watching them perform and absorbing their show every night, and that reflects in our own show,” Atsuo added. “We’ve already learned so much from their working methods and their playing.”
“Every night we resonate off of each other.”
Boris is using the album’s two slightly different versions to keep things fresh, Atsuo noted. “On this tour, we’re alternating nightly between performing the Japanese version and the overseas version, including the order of songs. Some songs have also been arranged and extended” into Boris’s present-day style.
Comparing the response to Boris in its homeland and abroad, Atsuo distinguishes not between the audiences but between the broader contexts. “We have enthusiastic fans both in Japan and overseas, but the respective music scenes are completely different,” he said, because Japan has no intrinsic rock culture. “In a sense, you could say we’re an American band.”
Sept. 22 at 9 p.m. at the Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. thehowardtheatre.com. $35.