INTERVIEW: HEALTH Bassist John Famiglietti on Being Featured in Anime of the Year Winner Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

 

Article written and interview conducted by Crunchyroll Title Marketing Manager Alex Lebl.

 

Fresh off the heels of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Anime of the Year win at the Anime Awards, we had the chance to chat with the band HEALTH, who had a song featured in the series and the game, to discuss what it's like to go from being an anime fan to being in a show.

 

Could you give a brief intro as to who you are and what HEALTH is all about?

 

John Famiglietti: I'm John, or Johnny, Famiglietti from HEALTH. I'm the bass and software player (I guess if you listen to our band that will make a lot more sense). We have two other members. Jake Duzsik, who is the singer and plays guitar, and BJ Miller who plays drums.

 

We are an industrial group from LA and we've been around for a long time. I could describe it for you but you could just look it up really fast.

 

I'd love to hear about your anime journey over the years.

 

 

For me (I'm going to really date myself here), when I was extremely young I think I was in the original wave of anime that hit over here with stuff like Akira. Akira was actually the first one I saw, I got it from Blockbuster Video and it blew my mind. I remember just going to school and me and my friends were talking like, "What happens at the end? I don't get it." "I don't get it either. It's great." Then I bought it on VHS and used to watch it all the time. 

 

Then from there I went on an anime journey trying to get into more and I kept trying to chase that high of Akira. I watched Ghost in the Shell and thought, "Ehhh that's pretty good," and then I kept going and getting lighter and lighter and kept trying to chase that high and eventually I really couldn't. I actually stopped following anime for quite a while after that as I got into high school and stuff like that because there were no more Akiras.

 

I did get super into the Ranma 1/2 manga when I was in middle school because that's appealing title to a middle schooler. I was going really broke because they had a show for it and back then you'd buy a VHS and it'd have two episodes on it and it was $35, which was a shitload of money at the time. So you'd pay a ton of money for like 40 minutes of video. I only got to eight in because you don't have money when you're a kid. 

 

I went to Anime Expo a few years ago and then more and more things started creeping in. And with our fans constantly hammering me with, "Hey man, you must really love Neon Genesis Evangelion," and I was like, "I've never seen it." They kept hammering me and eventually I decided to check it out and was like, "Oh man, this is great. I should have watched this at the time because I remember when this came out." But better late than never.

 

So now it's been this renaissance for me. I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion and now I've been watching Chainsaw Man, which is probably my favorite show in years. I haven't been this excited for a show in forever. 

 

I'm also reading the Berserk manga right now, which is crazy that I haven't before. It's got everything that I love. Like I love Dark Souls. Now for the first time ever I'm writing down a bunch of anime I'm planning on watching and a ton I've missed. I haven't been this kind of fan in a long time.

 

Chainsaw Man was fantastic. There's something very Tarantino about it.

 

Totally! I had thought that too. But it's also really funny. It makes me feel like a kid when I'm laughing my ass off. And in this show people are MOVING. In old anime, characters seemed much more jerky and static, but with this one, you can tell the level of production quality has come a long way.

 

What else is on your list?

 

 

I also just started Dorohedoro! A lot of stuff that's recommended to me has too many episodes. Most of it's like 200-250 episodes and I'm like, "I don't know if I can get into that." So I'm trying to go for stuff that's more current, stuff with less episodes. I'm going to check out Ranking of Kings next.

 

It's kind of like with video games. Everything used to be 15 hours and if you're busy with work and had the weekend off, you could beat the game over the weekend and that's it. I've been playing Elden Ring all year and it's bananas. 

 

Where on your anime journey did you become the anime meme lord?

 

All the memes come from our Discord group! So it's kind of this weird feedback loop where people are attracted to the memes, then they come in to join the community and share the memes, and you get this meme economy of the fan base. Everyone really "gets it." We're really active there with our fan community. I mostly just respond to what our fans like. I get into to it too because to me it's really funny and self-perpetuating. 

 

A lot of people are like, "Why are these memes so weird?" And I'm just like, "You know I just go with the flow."

 

What was it like to, in a sense, complete the fan journey and see and hear your music in an anime? Was that like a crowning achievement? 

 

Image via Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Twitter

 

It really was. Because also it's not just that it's an anime. I think Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is one of the best pieces of cyberpunk media there is, period. There is Akira, there is Blade Runner, there are all these great ones. Edgerunners for me is one of the great ones, it is in that top 10 cyberpunk things I've seen in forever. It was really moving and I loved it.

 

So when they told us, since we were in the game, that they were also down to use our song for the anime, I was like, "Oh, hell yeah!"

They showed us this animatic a while back and then I totally forgot about it but everyone was saying it's really good and then I watched it and it was totally amazing. So that was also another one of my recent favorites.

 

So you had no idea when you were making the song for the game that it would eventually end up in anime?

 

Oh no that was a total out of nowhere. No one really saw this coming, that this anime spinoff would be so amazing. The series saved the game. The series is so good, it's actually good, and you can't fake that.

 

Is there a headspace you get into for all of the projects that you work on? Since you write your band's music, you were writing for Cyberpunk, you did the Max Payne 3 soundtrack, you've written for commercials, etc.

 

 

There is. For Max Payne, we were really thinking about the narrative and where we had the most control of trying to tell the story and portray these emotions from Max's perspective. That's by far our most highfalutin one. But with a lot of our stuff, like cyberpunk, our band its aesthetic, are like that anyway, so not much of this stuff is a stretch. Our music is that already, so it's a good, natural fit.

 

Now that you've got the taste, is that a continuing goal for the band moving forward?

 

I would love that more than anything. Because there's new anime being made all the time, so why not?

 

Are there any scores or openings and endings you go back to from anime that inspire or guide you?

 

 

For me, it all comes back to Akira. It has one of the greatest soundtracks. Actually, I bought it on CD, once again dating myself, at San Diego Comic Con. Ghost in the Shell soundtrack too is pretty amazing. Now we've got this connection with Edgerunners too. And at our shows we play the Neon Genesis Evangelion opening before each set and everyone just loves it. So I don't think that's going anywhere any time soon. 

 

Side note, but I also bought a shirt on tour that said "Hentai 69" on the back and I wore it for one show and when I turned around it got a huge cheer from the crowd (laughs).

 

People also bring us gifts on tour. Someone made me a necklace and someone else brought a bunch of plushies and we set them up on the merch table for seven shows or so. Then someone showed up who was obsessed with the show they were from and we were just like, "Oh, you love this show? Take them!"

 

A lot of people cosplay as NGE characters at our shows, it's fun. It's really fun. I'm not going to say no to any of that, you know? It feels like a convention sometimes at our shows.

 

That's a fun note, because you said you went to San Diego Comic Con and Anime Expo, do you try to go to as many cons as possible?

 

 

I used to go to San Diego Comic Con a lot but then it became this thing that's way too big. Actually on tour though, we had a show in Atlanta and almost the entire audience was in cosplay and I asked them, "What is going on?" and the fans let me know that Dragon Con was going on down the street.

 

So after the set we went and tried to get in and they were asking us about tickets and finally we had to pull the, "We're touring, the place is closing in an hour, we'll buy some drinks in there, can you please let us in?" card and they finally let us in after me trying to be slick. 

 

Anime Expo is here in LA and I go to that one a lot too.

 

What do you think it is about your music, which is industrial and heavy, that resonates with anime fans?

 

I don't know, but it really does. There's so much crossover. The more I've learned about music, as we've been in the space for so long, is that there's a certain type of person that likes your music and you need to market and cater to that person. And our real fans like anime. Now anime is way bigger than when I was a kid, and more mainstream, so I assume most people have seen it or heard of it, and for the most part, it's so much less "weird" now.

 

Are you able to watch or read anything on tour?

 

 

On tour it's hard. I can't watch anything, I can't read anything. We're either busy or in tour mode trying to sleep. I watch everything when I come back.

 

So Chainsaw Man is what I watched when I got back and I've been watching every episode. I know the manga is out but I don't want to ruin the story for myself so I've been trying to not get it in my internet feed. It's also taken a pretty crazy turn and getting weirder and weirder. So I'm like, "This is great, where is this going to go?"

 

Anything coming up for you and the band that you would like our readers to know?

 

I don't have a date yet, but there is going to be a lot of exciting stuff coming out later this year. We're going to be experimenting a lot and it should be really fun.

 

You can follow HEALTH on Instagram here to see all of their great anime memes.

You can also follow HEALTH on Twitter and Facebook.

You can listen to HEALTH here.

 

Watch the Anime Awards on Crunchyroll or check out the winners' list here.

 

Source: Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!