Japan's Texas 3000 set to tour Busan, Seoul

Texas 3000 performs at The Justice in Sapporo, Japan, in 2024. Courtesy of Shiori Ikeno

A lot of bands have insisted they're absolutely not emo. But Texas 3000 seems to claim the title "midwest emo" despite being located in Japan, far from the U.S. Midwest, and also the fact that their complex, noisy sound defies easy classification.

"To be honest, I don’t think any of us have ever listened to emo," Jojo, the band's guitarist and vocalist, told The Korea Times. "Sakiyama, our drummer, loves Tool and Meshuggah, and his Instagram handle is @johnbonhamfreak. Kirin, our bass player, loves Khruangbin, Elliot Smith and jazz fusion. I’m a big '00s-era David Pajo and Jim O’Rourke fan. But we’re a rock n roll band, and our music is definitely emotional."

Their music may sometimes sound a little closer to emo, but things aren't always so straightforward or linear. Their sound is a little more versatile rock if an artist took a pair of scissors to it or a looper.

Their latest album, "Weird Dreams," released April 2, makes great leaps between genres across five songs. Starting with "Strange Cherry Red," a pretty straightforward alternative rock song, before skipping to hip-hop for the Japanese-language "Other," then an indie acoustic song titled "There's Still Time." The fourth track, "Universe Drawer," starts out like a pretty typical jangly indie rock song before delving deeper into their noise pop roots, which intensify in the album closer, "Other #2." The album's at its best when it's weirdest.

Jojo said that the band sounds different live in person compared to the albums, but that's not a bad thing.

"Our live performances are all about entertaining rock ‘n’ roll fun," he said. "Guaranteed good time, but yeah, the live arrangements vary from kind of different to completely different than the album. They all hit a lot harder, I think."

The band came together when Jojo met Sakiyama at a show in Tokyo. At the time, Sakiyama was working at a pachinko parlor.

"His hands were all fucked up from the cleaning chemicals," Jojo said. "I was on a work trip riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Fukuoka and from the window saw an enormous pachinko parlor called 'Texas 1000' and sent him a video. He started calling our band Texas 1000 or 2000 or something, and the number kept getting bigger and bigger, and somehow, we arrived atop the mountain named Texas 3000."

Jojo is from a "hippie town" in California, and his mom was born in the Philippines and raised in Okinawa. He added that Kirin is also not from Japan, coming from Tsingtao, China.

The members of Texas 3000 / Courtesy of Texas 3000

"Somehow, we are all in Japan and play Texas 3000 rock music," Jojo said. "The world is a weird place, and music glues it all together."

Jojo also has a band back in the U.S. as well, named Curling. It released its most recent album in 2023 and toured Japan and the U.S. last year.

When Curling released its first album in 2016, the Korean promoter Park Daham handled distribution for the album in Korea.

"I am a fan of his label Helicopter Records, his parties and his mixes," Jojo said. "He came and saw Texas 3000 at a studio show in Taipei last October, and he met my bandmates, and we all knew we had to party together in Korea."

Jojo said he'd visited Korea a few times before, mainly for fun and to visit friends.

"I even spent New Year's Eve 2018 at one of Park Daham’s parties at Seendosi," Jojo said. "Kirin is a DJ too, so they will join another event so we can see the non-rock side of the DIY scene too. We are all really excited. I saw Kuang Program when they were on tour in Japan, and it was one of my favorite shows last year. Don’t know too much else about the scene, but we are all eager to learn — and party."

The poster for Texas 3000's Korea tour / Courtesy of Helicopter Records

Texas 3000 will play at Ovantgarde this Friday with the local band Soumbalgwang and then come up to Seoul for a show at Seendosi with Kuang Program. The Busan show costs 30,000 won ($20.7) in advance or 35,000 won at the door, and the Seoul show is 35,000 won in advance or 40,000 won at the door.

Listen at texas3000.bandcamp.com and follow @tx3ktx3k on Instagram for more information.