THE OUTSIDERS
FROM CONTROVERSY AND MORAL OUTRAGE TO SELL-OUT SHOWS AND A RABID FAN-BASE...
DIR EN GREY - JAPAN'S ANSWER TO MCR - ARE ABOUT TO TAKE THE UK BY STORM

LAS VEGAS is the weirdest city in America. Bang in the middle of the desert, where humans were never supposed to live, a fake Empire State Building stands next to a half-size Eiffel Tower, overlooking a pretend Egyptian pyramid. Inside these fake plastic landmarks are flashing, ringing casinos full of tourists desperately trying to win their money back. It's loud, vulgar and proudly trashy.

But inside The Pearl Concert Theater, housed in Playboy's hotel The Palms, sit five men who represent the exact opposite of this adult playground. Dir en grey - frontman Kyo, guitarists Kaoru and Die, bassist Toshiya and drummer Shinya - are one of Japan's biggest bands, regularly taking their claustrophobically intense rock to venues bigger than London's Wembley Arena.

And somehow, with no radio play, media interest or real profile, they've already become an underground phenomenon in Europe, too. In August they'll play two headline shows in London's Islington Academy, their first ever shows in the UK. And with no publicity whatsoever, the first gig sold out in minutes.

"We were all very shocked by the fact that it sold out, because we've never been there and we had no idea that there were fans there," says Kaoru, through and interpreter. "So it was almost unbelievable news for us, but we were very happy that it happened and there were people who want to listen to the music."

It's a typically modest response from a band who, onstage, turn into beasts. Later on tonight when they're supporting Deftones at The Pearl, Kyo will howl, claw, and at one point rip bloody chunks out of his own face. Offstage, though, he's shy to the point of almost total silence. Dig a little deeper, though, and their startling success starts to make a sense.

WHEN THEY started out 10 years ago, the Osaka quintet emerged from Japan's highly-stylised 'visual kei' scene - where flamboyant clothes and make-up are as central as the music.

"The scene has changed so much I don't really know what visual kei is right now," admits Kaoru. "When we were growing up, the bands who were called visual kei played very hard music. But as the time passes and we see the visual kei scene right now, it's different, they're just cute, and pretty and colorful."

Even with the language barrier, it's easy to sport the word 'cute', spat out with the same disdain hardened punks reserve for 'sell our'. But for all their rejection of the scene, it's the band's continued attention to visual detail that has gained them such and adoring fan-base. On YouTube, their 'Saku' video has been viewed well over 650,000 times, while the clip for 'Obscure' comes plastered with warnings. It caused outrage among the Japanese press on its release, and on watching it, there's little surprise why as it features an orgy of disturbing, explicit images - from Kyo spewing vomit to geishas being violated and bloodied by a demonic penis, to a girl plucking babies from a tree and taking psychotic bites from their heads.

"'Obscure' was actually one of the videos we didn't put much thought into!" laughs Kaoru. "It just kind of happened, there was no concept. The main reason why made that video was we wanted to create something that would have an impact on the viewers."

HE MAY leave the talking to the guitarist - the talkative Pete Wentz to his reserved Patrick Stump - but it's the enigmatic Kyo who leads the band into the uncomfortable shadows they lurk in. You don't have to speak Japanese to understand the anguish he's singing about - it's all there, plain to hear in each mournful lament and every blood-curdling screma.

"All the anger comes from my everyday life," he whispers. "It's not about what every word means, and it doesn't even matter what the whole song is about. I just write about whatever's on my mind, but I don't have a particular message that I want to convey. The person who is watching the concert or listening to the music will have to interpret what everything - the words, music and performance combined - what it symbolises.

"Even Japanese fans might not understand what I write," he adds. "I want everyone in the whole world to feel the music on the same level, so it doesn't matter if you don't understand Japanese. It's just being able to understand music as a whole."

Clearly, he's a man with his fair share of demons, and they come flooding out onstage, where he sometimes claws at his chest until it's dripping with blood. "Sometimes that happens, but it's not something that is too big of a deal," shrugs Kaoru of his bandmate's antics. "But there was one time when the blood would not stop!"

Despite the fact that they can quite easily sell out the world famous Budokan arena in Tokyo (which holds over 14,000 people) or the Yokohama Arena (17,000), they say they're "not liked" by many people in their native country. But don't be mistaken, they're "not liked" in the same was that MCR and Marilyn Manson are not liked by the vast majority of America; they massive partly because of that wilful outsider status.

"In Japan, it's not that we're not known, but not many people actually like us," insists Kaoru. "Our fans consist mainly of really hardcore fans. The Japanese mainstream music scene consists mainly of pop artists. So it's very difficult for Dir en grey to actually go out in the mainstream in Japan. Of course we want as many people as possible to listen to the music, but we're not going to go out of our way to just be accepted by the mass public."

On tour with Deftones, Dir en grey have carved out a loyal American following. In Japan, they're rock royalty. And now they're heading our way to take London by storm with their two sold-out shows. They may not be going out of their way to fit in and be accepted by the world at large, but the ride this band are on seems to be out of control, hurtling towards international success at a dizzying speed. Get ready.

DIR EN GREY PLAY THE CARLING ACADEMY IN ISLINGTON ON AUGUST 1 AND 2.

CRAZY FANS
You know you've made it when you've got a certain number of mentalists following your band...
"Sometimes we get sent raw meat," Kaoru reveals. "It's pretty scary so we don't eat it!"

BAD PUBLICITY
This lot are always hitting the headlines in their native coutry...
"Anything that we put out, all we get is criticism!" says Kaoru. "Every time we send it out to the censorship board, it always comes back saying, 'No, we can't release this'."

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
They may not understand the words to Dir en grey's songs, but American fans sing along just as passionately as they do to English speaking bands.
Expect the same response in London...
"It's amazing that American fans are singing along in a foreign language," smiles Kaoru. "They're memorising their favourite phrases and singing along. It's probably natural for fans to do that, but for people who don't speak Japanese to sing along in Japanese is something we're very happy about."