From their first performance in Okinawa to building a growing identity through their music, this band has been on a journey of exploration, creativity, and connection. Blending catchy melodies, emotional storytelling, and a dreamy indie sound, they continue to develop a style that feels both personal and authentic.
In this interview, the band shares their experiences of creating music together, the challenges of finding their unique identity, their approach to balancing creativity with the modern music industry, and the stories behind their songs. They also talk about their latest single, upcoming releases, live performances, and their hopes of bringing their music to audiences beyond Japan.
As they continue to grow and evolve, their goal remains simple: to create songs that connect with people, bring energy to every performance, and make listeners feel something real.
Could you introduce yourselves to our readers and tell us how GIRLFRIENDZ came together in Tokyo?
Hey! We’re Mayu on vocals, Ido on bass, Raphael on guitar, and I’m Miguel on keys and composition.
I had the idea to start the band and began looking for musicians through online communities and sites like Craigslist.
Mayu and Ido had actually known each other for years, but they joined the band separately without realising the other was involved. They had not seen each other for a long time, so meeting again through the same new band was a pretty funny coincidence.
Raphael joined more recently, and his guitar style, sound-design skills, and creative ideas have added another layer to our mix of indie pop and synthpop.
The name GIRLFRIENDZ was suggested by Ido during our very first meeting, and somehow it immediately felt right.
So, a few online searches, an unexpected reunion, and one first-meeting idea became GIRLFRIENDZ.
The band was formed relatively recently. What inspired you to start this project, and what was the vision from the beginning?
We had all previously worked on solo music or other projects, but we wanted to build a band together with a clear identity and a serious long-term vision.
From the beginning, the idea was to combine the feeling of retro music with modern production and create something we could fully dedicate ourselves to, rather than treating it as just a casual side project. We would love for GIRLFRIENDZ to eventually become the main focus for all of us.
How would you describe the sound and identity of GIRLFRIENDZ to someone hearing your music for the first time?
Catchy indie pop, synthpop, dreamy, and a slightly cinematic feeling.
We love music from the ’80s and ’90s, but we are not trying to recreate those decades exactly. We want it to feel nostalgic and familiar, but still like something happening now—maybe music for walking through the city at night while imagining you are in a movie.
Your music blends indie pop with cinematic elements. What artists, genres, or life experiences have influenced your sound the most?
Our influences come from different generations.
We love artists like Phil Collins, Prince, and Michael Jackson, as well as bands such as LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead.
At the same time, modern artists like The 1975, CHVRCHES, and M83 have influenced the way we combine electronic production, pop songwriting, and cinematic atmosphere.
We also take inspiration from everyday experiences, relationships, and the strange situations people deal with in modern life.
How does the songwriting process usually work within the band? Does everyone contribute differently?
Most songs begin with a demo that I bring to the band.
I usually start with a lyrical idea, then develop the melody, chord progression, and production around it using synths, virtual instruments, samples, and different textures.
Once the basic demo is ready, everyone brings their own personality to it through the vocals, guitar, bass, and arrangement ideas. That is usually the point when the song stops feeling like a demo and starts becoming a GIRLFRIENDZ song.
Everyone hears music differently, so their ideas often take the arrangement somewhere one person would not have reached alone.
Could you introduce yourselves to our readers and tell us how GIRLFRIENDZ came together in Tokyo?
Hey! We’re Mayu on vocals, Ido on bass, Raphael on guitar, and I’m Miguel on keys and composition.
I had the idea to start the band and began looking for musicians through online communities and sites like Craigslist.
Mayu and Ido had actually known each other for years, but they joined the band separately without realising the other was involved. They had not seen each other for a long time, so meeting again through the same new band was a pretty funny coincidence.
Raphael joined more recently, and his guitar style, sound-design skills, and creative ideas have added another layer to our mix of indie pop and synthpop.
The name GIRLFRIENDZ was suggested by Ido during our very first meeting, and somehow it immediately felt right.
So, a few online searches, an unexpected reunion, and one first-meeting idea became GIRLFRIENDZ.
The band was formed relatively recently. What inspired you to start this project, and what was the vision from the beginning?
We had all previously worked on solo music or other projects, but we wanted to build a band together with a clear identity and a serious long-term vision.
From the beginning, the idea was to combine the feeling of retro music with modern production and create something we could fully dedicate ourselves to, rather than treating it as just a casual side project. We would love for GIRLFRIENDZ to eventually become the main focus for all of us.
How would you describe the sound and identity of GIRLFRIENDZ to someone hearing your music for the first time?
Catchy indie pop, synthpop, dreamy, and a slightly cinematic feeling.
We love music from the ’80s and ’90s, but we are not trying to recreate those decades exactly.
We want it to feel nostalgic and familiar, but still like something happening now—maybe music for walking through the city at night while imagining you are in a movie.
Your music blends indie pop with cinematic elements. What artists, genres, or life experiences have influenced your sound the most?
Our influences come from different generations.
We love artists like Phil Collins, Prince, and Michael Jackson, as well as bands such as LCD Soundsystem and Radiohead.
At the same time, modern artists like The 1975, CHVRCHES, and M83 have influenced the way we combine electronic production, pop songwriting, and cinematic atmosphere.
We also take inspiration from everyday experiences, relationships, and the strange situations people deal with in modern life.
How does the songwriting process usually work within the band? Does everyone contribute differently?
Most songs begin with a demo that I bring to the band.
I usually start with a lyrical idea, then develop the melody, chord progression, and production around it using synths, virtual instruments, samples, and different textures.
Once the basic demo is ready, everyone brings their own personality to it through the vocals, guitar, bass, and arrangement ideas. That is usually the point when the song stops feeling like a demo and starts becoming a GIRLFRIENDZ song.
Everyone hears music differently, so their ideas often take the arrangement somewhere one person would not have reached alone.
Your debut single, “Tonight,” introduced listeners to your music. Looking back, what does that song mean to you now?
“Tonight” will always be special because it was our debut and remains one of our most popular songs.
It also came together incredibly quickly. We recorded it only a few days after finding our vocalist, and the entire production, recording, and mixing process was completed in around two weeks during the Christmas and Japanese New Year holidays.
It was a great song to begin with because it proved that we could work quickly, trust each other, and create something we were proud of even under unusual circumstances.
Songs like “Would You Stay Tonight?” and “Romanticising The Almost” explore heartfelt emotions. What stories or feelings inspired these tracks?
Both songs came from looking at the way people experience relationships now.
“Would You Stay Tonight?” is about wanting to be honest with someone, but being afraid that once they see the more complicated parts of you or your stories, they might leave.
“Romanticising The Almost” is more about dating apps and those connections that feel like they could become something, but never quite do.
Everyone online seems confident, emotionally healed, and completely fine—at least until around 10 p.m.
We like using modern situations, so not every lyric is a diary entry, but the emotions behind them are very real and hopefully recognisable.
As a multicultural band, how do your different backgrounds shape your creativity and the music you create together?
It gives us a wider mix of ideas, experiences, and ways of approaching music.
Everyone has worked on different projects in the past, so each member brings something different to the sound and to the way we think about the future of the band.
Having people from different cultures and musical backgrounds also makes the creative process less predictable and much more fun.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced since debuting, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge has been creating a consistent identity across every part of the project.
Because we all come from different musical backgrounds, some of our early songs naturally moved in slightly different directions.
Over the last seven months, we have spent a lot of time finding the right balance between the music, visuals, fashion, and overall concept without forcing every song to sound exactly the same.
I think our most recent work is the result of everything we have learned during that process, and we now have a much clearer understanding of what GIRLFRIENDZ should feel like.
Tokyo has one of the world’s most vibrant independent music scenes. How has the city influenced your journey as a band?
Our music is not directly J-pop or J-rock, but Tokyo has definitely shaped the atmosphere around the band. The city constantly mixes different cultures, fashion, music scenes, and visual styles, so there is inspiration almost everywhere. Tokyo is also where people from completely different countries and musical backgrounds can somehow meet, enter a rehearsal studio, and decide to start a synthpop band together, which is essentially how GIRLFRIENDZ began.
What has been your most memorable live performance so far, and what made it so special?
Probably our debut performance in Okinawa.
Playing your first-ever show is already unforgettable, but travelling almost 1,500 kilometres from Tokyo to do it made the whole experience feel like a small tour and a band holiday at the same time.
Starting the band so far away from our home city was slightly ambitious, but it made the performance much more special.
When preparing for a live show, what do you hope audiences take away from the experience?
We want people to feel the energy of the music, stand up, dance, and enjoy themselves without overthinking anything. Even when some of our lyrics explore complicated emotions, the live show should still feel uplifting and fun.
If people can forget about their real-life problems for a little while and feel like it is a Friday or Saturday night, even when the concert is on a Tuesday, we’ve done our job.
If you could collaborate with any artist or band—Japanese or international—who would it be and why?
We are still a very new band, so we have not had the opportunity to collaborate with other artists yet, but it is definitely something we want to explore. There are many artists we would love to work with. Nightly would be a natural fit because of their emotional songwriting and modern indie-pop production. CHVRCHES would also be a dream collaboration because of the way they make synthpop feel huge and electronic while still keeping the emotion at the centre.
How do you balance artistic authenticity while continuing to grow and reach new listeners?
It is a difficult balance, but we try to make music that is catchy and accessible without following a specific formula or creating songs around what might work for a campaign.
We prefer to finish the music first and then build the visuals and social media content around the final song, rather than allowing the content strategy to decide what the song should be.
Of course, understanding how people discover music is important in the current industry, but the song itself still has to feel honest and original to us.
Social media has become an important part of connecting with fans. How do you approach building that relationship online?
We’re still figuring out the best way to use social media and finding a visual style that really supports the music. We’ve learned a lot over the last few months, but we’re definitely still experimenting—sometimes a reel works, and sometimes the algorithm decides nobody should ever see it!
More than simply promoting songs, we want fans to see the process behind them: how we build the music, what happens during rehearsals and recording sessions, and a little of our personalities outside the finished photos and videos. Hopefully, that makes people feel like they are growing with the band rather than only hearing from us when we have something new to release.
Is there a particular lyric or song in your catalog that holds a special place in your hearts? What makes it meaningful?
A song that feels especially meaningful to all of us is an unreleased track called “Further Into You.”
We have performed it many times at our concerts, and whenever we practise or play it live, there is a moment when the entire band seems to enter the same zone and nothing else matters.
It combines deeply romantic lyrics with a dreamy indie sound, and it is one of the songs that feels most natural for us to perform together.
One of our favourite lyric parts in the chorus is: “How’d you get so far inside my head? It’s the quiet thoughts, the words you never said.”
We hope to release it on streaming platforms in the coming months, but until then, people can still hear it at our live shows.
For listeners discovering GIRLFRIENDZ for the first time, which song would you recommend they start with, and why?
I would probably start with “Tonight.”
It is the song at the foundation of the band, and all of us connected with the lyrics and emotion from the beginning, so it is a good introduction to who we are.
After that, I would recommend our latest single, “Stay Asleep With Me.” It feels like the beginning of a new era for the band and shows everything we have learned over the last six months, especially in the production, arrangements, and overall sound.
Are there any upcoming releases, live performances, or projects that fans should look forward to in the coming months?
We have only just released our latest single, but we have already started working on the next one—we are not very good at taking breaks!
We also have a live performance in Osaka on August 14, which we are really looking forward to.
Beyond that, we are working toward releasing our first EP before the end of the year. It is still taking shape, but we hope it will bring together everything we have been developing as a band this year.
Looking ahead, what are your biggest goals and dreams for GIRLFRIENDZ over the next few years?
The first goal is to keep releasing music consistently and continue developing the identity of the band.
We would also love to tour across Japan and eventually take the project outside the country. Touring Southeast Asia is one of our biggest goals.
We know several artists who have performed there, and they always talk about the incredible energy, warmth, and passion of the audiences. It would mean a lot to bring our music there, meet the people who have discovered us online, and create a real connection with them.
Hopefully, that can eventually grow into touring in many more parts of the world.
Finally, do you have a message for your current fans and for our readers at City Stories who are just discovering your music?
To everyone who has supported us so far, thank you for making these songs feel bigger than the room where we made them. And to anyone discovering us through City Stories, thank you for finding us this early! We hope you’ll come dance with us at a live show one day. Join us now, before your friends start recommending us to you.
Leave a comment