Regallily Share How Being Women Influenced Their 10-Year Career: Billboard Japan Women in Music Interview

Regallily band members sat down with writer Rio Hirai for the latest installment of Billboard Japan's Women in Music interview series, featuring female players in the Japanese entertainment industry. The WIM Japan initiative was launched in 2022 to honor artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to music and inspired other women through their work.

Regallily recently released “Kirakira no Hai” (“Twinkling Ash”), the final theme of Delicious in Dungeon Season 2. Currently a two-woman group, the band was originally formed by frontwoman and guitarist Honoka Takahashi while in high school . Bassist Umi joined later and the band is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Regallily just finished touring small clubs in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka as a means of returning to their roots. In this interview, the two members looked back on their 'girl band' careers and talked about what they're looking forward to now after going through an identity moratorium period as described in the lyrics of their song '17'.

Congratulations on your 10th anniversary. Honoka, you formed the band when you were in middle school. Did you intend to keep the band going for a long time from the beginning?

Honoka Takahashi: When I made the band, I didn't think that far ahead to be honest. I didn't even have a goal in mind. Before Regallily, I was in a band with male members, but I didn't fit in well with them. I ended up leaving because they told me they would only be playing with kids. We were only in tenth grade or thereabouts and I guess it was normal to treat people of the opposite sex like strangers… But it pissed me off and I thought, “I'll make an all-girl band then!” [Laughs]

Umi: I have also played in bands since high school, in a pop music club at the time. There weren't too many boys, so I was always in bands with girls. I never really thought much about being in all-female bands before I joined Regallily, but it was probably easier for me to imagine myself in that band than in one with male members.

Some of the artists we've spoken to in this series say they feel uncomfortable being categorized with titles like “girls” or “female” (as English loanwords, e.g. “girl band”, “female rapper”). How do you feel about being called a “girl band”?

Takahashi: I didn't think anything of it at first. But later, a group came along that publicly stated that they didn't want to be referred to as a girl group, which helped me see that there are people who don't like being called that.

Umi: I mean, it's a fact that these are female-led bands, but compared to rock or punk, the classification (genre) is a bit sloppy, don't you think? [Laughs] There are genres in girl bands, so when a playlist is made categorizing them as “girl bands” for example, I wonder if it's possible to get to the core of those acts. I don't have a negative impression of the term itself, and I'm sure there have been events we've been able to play in because of that categorization.

Takahashi: I'm used to the term 'girl band', but when you think about it, 'girls' means children. Since men and women have different voices, I'm starting to want to separate them into different groups, but I'm not sure “girls” are appropriate when all the stages of our lives change in the future.

SCANDAL was certified last year as the “longest-running rock band with the same musicians (female)” by Guinness World Records after 17 years together, which ties into the issue of the difficulty of female bands staying in the business for a long time. Is there anything you make sure you do to keep doing what you're doing for a long time and in a healthy way?

Takahashi: Basically I never really understood what common sense is since I was a kid. My life has become detached from what is considered a norm such as “husbands go to work and wives stay at home to do the housework”. If I ever get pregnant, I would like to sing (on stage) until the last minute. I saw (singer-songwriter) Seiko Omori stand on stage during the last stages of pregnancy and I wondered if I could do it too.

Umi: Pregnancy is something you can't understand until it happens. I'm looking forward to it. I wonder how much I can take during pregnancy. I am 25 years old now, and I was thinking how the stage of my life will change and that I will have to face various things in the future. When I discover new sides of myself, for example as a wife after getting married, or as a mother after having a baby… I think about how I will be able to balance these things when my identity is not just an artist anymore.

I guess our twenties are when we start to feel the reality of life's changing stages. You released a single called “17″ in January, and this age is also a time when we feel various changes in our lives. Why did you focus on 17?

Takahashi: I'm turning 27 this year, so 17 was about 10 years ago. I used to listen to a lot of seventeen-themed songs at that age and had a lot of favorites. I was thinking of writing a song called '17' when I was 17, but I couldn't do it when I was in the middle of all that. At about 26, I felt that I gradually understood what I was like at that time and what kind of person I am. So now, ten years later, I looked back on those days and put it into words and the music was born.

Umi: I used to go to music clubs a lot back then. It was also a time when I was so full of myself and so self-conscious that I was embarrassed about a lot of things and couldn't have fun. The time I spent going alone to music clubs and the only person I knew was my anchor.

This question is one of the topics of this interview series, but how do you think being a woman affects your music career and life in general?

Takahashi: I recently realized that I am really at the whim of hormonal imbalances in life. There are times when I have to take care of myself, and the more I take care of myself, the more I can take care of my work. But on the other hand, there are times when my nature makes me want to do something dangerous. Like going somewhere that's really cold. [Laughs] Taking risks like this takes a toll on my body and my hormones go wild as a result, so sometimes I wish I had a body that could be more reckless.

Umi: Even just to live normally and safely, you have to be tough when you're a woman. Like choosing an apartment to live in, if you want security and need a place on the second floor or higher that has an automatic locking system, it costs more money.

Takahashi: In terms of bands, I look at the careers of the generation above us, like (Japanese rock band) Chatmonchy, and think about what we can and can't do.

But there aren't many precedents for all-female bands compared to male bands, so if we can give more examples, it might become easier (for the next generation). Even now, I'm sure there are many girl bands being born.

Umi: To be honest, there are places (for male bands and artists) that I'm kind of jealous of, but we've been doing this for a long time, and if there are people out there who think we're good, that's how (our music) resonates and is spread.

—This interview with Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan