‘We were treated like enemies of society’: Japan’s dangerous hardcore punk scene looks back to its roots

The pressure to conform in Japanese society made being a punk risky – even before you factor in the flamethrowers. As a new rash of reissues arrives, 80s stalwarts Lip Cream, Death Side and the Nurse recall the thrills and threats

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few short years after punk’s initial shock-and-awe inspired thousands of teenagers to spike their hair and learn three chords, the genre mutated into hardcore: a leaner, meaner and fiercely independent hybrid that would soon be tearing up squats, church halls and dive bars around the world.

Forty-five years on, hardcore is enjoying a moment in the mainstream thanks to bands such as Turnstile, Speed and Knocked Loose. There are hardcore bands on talkshows, in fast-food ads and on $40 T-shirts – all things that the 1980s artists would probably have gobbed at.

Anyone longing for hardcore’s original underdog spirit may be minded to look to Japan, and a range of newly reissued albums that document the early hardcore scene there. “It was extremely violent and frightening,” says Ishiya, frontman of the band Death Side, one of Japanese hardcore’s linchpin acts (he and many of his punk peers reject surnames or use stage names). “At every gig, someone would be beaten bloody, and you never knew when it might be your turn. That tension was something you could never experience in ordinary life – it was thrilling.”