(NOAH) "I want to hide a secret word that only wrestling fans can understand" - Funky Kato creates a theme song for Noah's "New Year at The Budokan"
10th October 2021
Funky Kato has decided to produce a theme song for the Pro Wrestling Noah 1st January Budokan event on New Years Day 2021 event, which has become a hot topic. Known as a big pro wrestling fan, what kind of music will Kato (who has just performed at the FUNKY MONKEY BΛBY’S Budokan restart performance on October 1st) produce? Prior to the announcement ABEMA Fighting TIMES asked him about his thoughts on producing the theme song for the 1st January Budokan event.
Q: First of all, please tell us how you decided to make the theme song for the Pro Wrestling Noah Nippon Budokan event?
KATO: After practicing at the kickboxing gym that I have been going to for a long time, I uploaded a video of practicing pro wrestling on social media. When I uploaded Mitsuharu Misawa's rolling elbow, Noah management watched and perceived that "Funky Kato's love for pro wrestling is real". First of all there was a discussion about doing guest commentary on the broadcast.
Q: So the connection came about as a guest commentator?
KATO: So, when I appeared, if I do say so myself, it was very well received by pro wrestling fans (laughs). I have been watching pro wrestling for about 30 years now, and it's practically my only hobby. I prepare 4 or 5 stories of my own with "It is necessary to say this". I think that as it was done well, people thought "Funky Kato is the real deal".
Q: He's not a "business pro wrestling fan" (laughs)
KATO: For that reason, I think that is the story of the 1st January Budokan theme song, and how it all began with the rolling elbow.
Q: "Began with a rolling elbow" seems to be the song title (laughs). But I don't know what the motive will be
KATO: I never thought that my hobby videos would lead to this kind of work. I really appreciate Misawa.
Q: As you have been a fan of pro wrestling for 30 years, how does Noah look to you?
KATO: I am watching all kinds of promotions right now, but the one that is the most exciting and unpredictable is Noah. When you have watched pro wrestling for a long time, you find you read prospects strangely without knowing why. It's a bad habit of veteran wrestling fans (laughs)
Q: Pre-reading (laughs)
KATO: However, I couldn't read Noah at all, and I couldn't imagine just what would happen in this match. "What is going to happen?" It's Noah now that evokes the excitement when I was just a pro wrestling fan. I can't predict what kind of card the 1st January Budokan will be. There are many people who could fill up the main, so I am really excited about Noah these days.
Q: What did you think when Noah asked you to make the theme song for the 1st January Budokan event?
KATO: I am happy to be involved in pro wrestling in some way, so I am very honored and happy. In the past my office wasn't very active in doing things related to pro wrestling, and so recently with the wrestling connection, the people who knew about it and Funky Kato came to see Funky Monkey live. On the other hand, my fans love pro wrestling and it has become a recognized bridge. I am always positive about the work involved in pro wrestling, and I am very happy.
Q: Regarding the theme song for the 1st January Budokan, how do you feel about it for this special event?
KATO: When I first heard about holding the event on New Year's Day, I thought "Noah is amazing!". Recently, for the first time in a long time I got to stand on the stage at the Budokan with Funky Monkey on the 1st October. At that time too the schedule that the office and the event planners had managed to book was a Friday as the Budokan on Saturdays and Sundays is difficult. That is why I can understand how amazing it is to be able to book the Budokan for the 1st January, and I feel that the company worked together.
Q: Do you have any plans for the theme song?
KATO: In making the music this time, I think that "intuition" is very difficult. I think that to get close to wrestling, no matter how much to any degree, making music with only wrestling words would be easiest for me. However, I want to make a song that is going to resonate with both the general public and my own fans.
Q: You want to make it appeal to both pro wrestling fans and the general public?
KATO: The balance will be hard, but I want to make it one of the songs that I have cultivated. I want to make it a song that the fans will love, not just for the Budokan. It feels like my fingers are itching just wondering how to put words for pro wrestling into it.
Q: Then, it's a very rewarding job
KATO: It is rewarding, I have been making songs for more than ten years, so to be honest the phrases that encourage people are exhausted (laughs).
Q: I see. So there is a limit to the encouragement vocabulary (laughs)
KATO: I can't just focus on "doing my best". Therefore, with the theme songs of dramas and movies and the title of a song in an advert, I will get a new perspective that I have never had before and so as a music producer I am grateful.
Q: Then, with the new title of "Noah", it seems that something new will be born.
KATO: Since the name of the promotion is derived from an ark, Noah is often compared to the sea in terms of "Departure" and "Voyage", and so I think it will be a new world of lyrics that I haven't touched on so much before. I am from Hachioji, Tokyo, so I only have mountains and rivers as analogies (laughs).
Q: In that sense as well, there are different inspirations than before. I am looking forward to the completion of a wonderful song.
KATO: When I had a Zoom meeting with Noah about the song, it was like "please leave it to me" and I will go beyond. I don't know why I said that (laughs). It was immediately following a meeting where I had talked about my thoughts. I said "This is the concept of the song" and "leave it to me!". The meeting ended in about ten minutes.
Q: "Then, I will leave it to you" (laughs).
KATO: Noah too said, "I will leave everything to you", which I regretted when I turned off Zoom. I wish I had heard more opinions (laugh). But, there is no choice but to do it other than with an exaggerated confidence. Actually, which I think about the lyrics what I am looking forward to is hard to find. It's a nice song when I listen to it, but I think to myself "Kato, can't you accept this phrase?". I want to hide a secret word that only pro wrestling fans can understand.
Q: There are many invisible hooks (laughs)
KATO: When the general public hears it, to them it's just one line of a song, but to a pro wrestling fan hearing it they will say "That..." (laughs). It's a lot of fun to think about.
Q: Then, I am looking forward to the completion!
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam will be deleted immediately