BIG IN JAPAN

"Ape shit"

There's a story behind every cover - and so it is with our new cover for BIG IN JAPAN. What's the meaning of these signs? You probably asked yourselves this question if you took a look at our webside in the past few days. Friedel, our guy responsible for all our artwork, covers and the webdesign, had got hold of a Japanese picture that suited us best for the mood of the cover version of BIG IN JAPAN. It contained some hieroglyphs that, natch, nobody of us could decipher. He then went to the Goethe institute and asked some Japanese students. But the answer was simply banal - it read "STOP", then he hit on the idea of having our band name's synonym translated into Japanese language. But it wasn't that easy.

In the end, he was surrounded by a small Japanese crowd who fiercely discussed in German, English and Japanese how to translate GUANO APES into their language, whether with or without Chinese symbols or old Japanese...and, actually, it wasn’t possible. But after a little while, they agreed to the compromise/translation "APESHIT", and that’s what the signs above and on the cover mean.

Back home in the studio, Friedel faxed these signs to BMG, our sales department where a Japanese woman is supposed to work. For, the signs could have meant anything, and he wanted to check it out. But that turned out to be very difficult. He couldn’t find out anything apart from a few "...rude word..." and a giggling "...hi,hi,hi...", obviously with a face as red as a beetroot. One hour later, the department manager phoned and said his Japanese employee had told him that our new cover "...contains a rude word which will make sales in Japan impossible. First of all, we will have to make enquiries in Japan - it surely isn’t okay!" But Friedel just said he supposed that the manager could speak English and asked him if he had ever tried to translate our name from the English language. That was the end of the conversation, and Friedel went on working on our cover. And then, two days later, there was a reply from Japan: "...kool, superkool, cheeky little monkeys - go on!" Would have done it anyway - and besides that, our record company SUPERSONIC has been standing firmly behind us. But some "superkool" Japanese people have given us encouragement. Will they finally release this record in Japan - but that’s a different story!?

Rough designs for
the single cover:

 BIG IN JAPAN’s first track is the Alphaville classic "Big In Japan" which we recorded last summer for Herbert Groenemeyers project POP 2000 (50 years of German rock music). "Herbie" asked several bands about their favourite songs from the time of their youth or rather "child-hood" ;-) which they would like to interpret. And we could quickly agree on "Big In Japan". As a Rock band, we didn’t want to co-ver a Rock song, that would be boring. The point for us was to try out a new approach for ourselves and for all listeners by presenting a new interpretation. The thing to do was to transfer an originally electronic song into a Rock context. First, we wanted to do something by Kraftwerk, but there were no lyrice for Sandra to sing. We think that we have given the track a really wild treatment, that it suits our style and that the power and fun that we had by working on it can be heard.

"I Want It" is a really straight uptempo Rock track, rather old, and we never managed to tape the live flair to our demos; now, finally, we nailed it to the record.

"Gogan" is one of our favourites! The music and the lyrics go absolutely hand in hand. "Gogan" is a dwarf who is silly and hip in the verses, but who can be very evil and weird towards the refrain! Just like "I Want It", this is a song taken from our second album "Don’t Give Me Names".

"La Noix" is a very old song of ours from our early days, which we have often jammed towards the end of gigs. Recorded in 1996, it was meant to be released on our first record; now, we’ve finally finished it with a little help from Adrian Ils (he plays accordion)! Our desperate attempt to break into the French market!?! ;-)

The remix of "Big In Japan" comes as a special bonus track for the digipak and was mixed by Dirk Riegener.

The video for "Big In Japan" was produced in accordance with Sandra's idea and script (130k). Starting out from Sandra's concept, director Ercin Filizli and his Cologne based production company "Vision Unltd." (with whom we also shot the spontaneous video for "Lords Of The Boards") shot the new Guano Apes Video for "Big In Japan". The foyer of the Tonhalle in Duesseldorf was the location on the 9th February 2000; the interval cuts were shot one week later in Barcelona.

The shot in Duesseldorf lasted all night long; the last shootings were not finished before 8 o'clock in the morning. In order to manage the tough camera work, a special computer-controlled crane had to be hired. This crane drives on rails, it can be programmed up to exactly one millimetre and weighs several tons. The gate in the video does not exist in the foyer; it has been constructed especially for the shot and placed between the pillars.