When Japanese kawaii-metal outfit Babymetal dropped their most recent album METAL FORTH, one of the immediately noticeable aspects of its release was the fact that there were so many damn collaborations. From Slaughter To Prevail to Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, there were singles from the album that included some of music’s more recognizable names. But one of the first pieces of music that debuted from their latest LP featured the German electronicore juggernaut Electric Callboy on the track “RATATATA”.
With work having recently been started on a new album and their tour currently under way, Electric Callboy recently sat down with Kerrang! for an interview and their work with Babymetal came up. It turns out that what started as a shared interest in each other’s work turned into the collab track. According to Kevin Ratajczak, their first interaction was an… interesting one, to say the least.
“We were in Boston and we got an email from the agent, and they were touring the United States at the same time. They asked if they could come over to meet us and watch a bit of our show. We were like, ‘Crazy! BABYMETAL want to get in touch!’ To be honest, when you see them in public, you cannot get close. They seem to be untouchable. When they entered our backstage area, I didn’t even dare to come close, but they were so friendly, so nice.”
Fast forward a while and Electric Callboy was asked to help out with Babymetal’s METAL FORTH. When it came time to sit down to work on their part of the album, Nico Sallach said working with them proved to be more difficult than expected. Still, having managed to work through everything and come together as a team with an entirely different band altogether helped both Sallach and Ratajczak become better musicians, they said.
“We had, like, 20 different versions of that song, because it was not that easy to find a common ground. They had ideas that we didn’t like, and we had ideas that they didn’t like, so it was not that easy to make it 50/50. But in the end, I can tell you, it was one of the best decisions and one of the best experiences, because it made us grow as musicians to write a song like that.”
Ultimately, the track took two to three months from inception to completion. And that was after multiple instances of scrapping an entire idea and starting anew, according to Sallach.
“The funny thing is, there was actually no space for anything else. We’d been working on that song for weeks and months straight without doing anything. We started with a totally different song. We didn’t know what to do – like, ‘Is it more serious? Is it a fun song?’ When we wrote the first version of a potential collaboration, it took us two, three, four days, and neither side liked it anymore, so we got rid of it and rethought it all over again. We then became pretty sure that we wanted to have something a little bit like [2022’s] ‘We Got The Moves’, but in a more BABYMETAL style.”
Eventually, both sides came to the table with ideas and they worked with one another to get things finished. Hence, the final result we all have today.
You can read the rest of the interview in the special edition Kerrang! Presents BABYMETAL magazine out on store shelves. Be sure to pick up your copy today!
