Hardlore's Colin Young on Why He Wore a Suit to see The Boy and the Heron

You’ve probably heard something Colin Young has worked on before. Whether it be in one of his bands (God’s Hate, Twitching Tongues, and Deadbody) or interviewing one of your favorite musicians on the Hardlore Podcast (which he co-hosts with Harms Way’s Bo Lueders), Young is a man whose enthusiasm for music is matched only by his spinkick prowess. But where does all of that energy come from? I spoke with Young to learn how part of it comes from bonding with others over Dragon Ball in school, mixing Dragon Ball Z: Budokai with Pantera, and his deep appreciation for the medium of animation. I feel like half, if not three-fourths, of our audience is looking up anime edits on Tiktok. Are you a part of that group? Colin Young : Dude, if I wake up before 6am and I can't go back to sleep, I'm on Tiktok watching Dragon Ball Z compilations. I'm watching Future Trunks music video edits, I'm watching Cell Saga Linkin Park edits. Whatever comes my way. You’ll get the thing that says “Continue” part 3 of 4. And then, yeah, of course I’m going to do that. That's hours and days I've spent doing that. Maybe that's what you do next time Twitching Tongues and God’s Hate play back to back sets. You just watch Dragon Ball Z hype videos. Young : There's no better way to get fired up than watching Gohan go Super Saiyan 2 in the Cell Saga. I could… I could… you don't want to know what I could do if I watched that. I know Dragon Ball holds a special place in your heart. What does that series mean to you? Young : It means a lot to me. It means a lot to everyone I grew up with. My entire generation was raised by Goku and Master Roshi, you know. My moral compass was guided by “What would Goku do?” He was a better role model to people my age than people we knew in real life. I've stated before that diversity was such a huge part of Dragon Ball and I cannot stress how true that is. I grew up in Van Nuys, California. It is predominantly Hispanic, and being one of a few white kids in school that could talk Dragon Ball at the lunch table helped me make friends. The color of your skin didn't matter. What mattered was, wow Trunks just showed up and cut Frieza into tiny little pieces. Nothing else going on in the world matters. And that's how all anime seems to be. These very personal stories that bring people together. RELATED: Foreign Hands Talks Seinen and the Emotional Hit of Anime Young : I'm a big fan of the Persona games. If you haven’t played them, the main narrative is that you're this kind of loner rebel guy and you always assemble this group, this unbreakable bond with a group. I’ve found that that happens to you in real life by bonding over these things that you're watching or that you're playing. So Dragon Ball did that for me and for most people my age. I'm very grateful for the work of Akira Toriyama. I'm very grateful today that kids are still into it and keeping it alive. But also I don’t think they understand how difficult it was to find just like a Piccolo action figure. And now they have him at Target. I go into Target and I see Broly buffed out of his mind, voided out, and I can't believe that's just a thing you can buy for $20 in a store. Now, what was a counterculture, is now all pop culture, for better and for worse. But also I think that has brought on less bullying for being into objectively cool sh*t like Dragon Ball . Goku did get me to play Fortnite actually. Young : The kids are playing it and they're dabbing as Vegeta. And that's beautiful. To your point, it’s also very nice that there’s no sense of modern fans having to “pay their dues.” Young : I mean, we've been bullied and laughed at for so long and stigmatized for caring about anime. And now I know dozens of people from all walks of life who could probably tell me more about Dragon Ball than I could ever know. That was not the case in my childhood, I'll tell you that much. The access was a huge part of that too. It was Toonami after school or late night, Blockbuster, or nothing else. Young : You’d get those same two VHS copies they had that are three episodes each and you’d just assume that the show is six episodes long and is sick. Even though all three of the episodes are just yelling and it was the most exhilarating thing you'd ever seen. RELATED: Undeath's Alexander Jones on Anime and Metal Serenity Young : Did you see that story about the kid? There was a kid somewhere that was attacked by like hundreds of bees. And because of Dragon Ball Z he was screaming, and like he was turning Super Saiyan, and it somehow saved his life. That is incredible! As part of that school bonding experience, was that how you found out there was more to the Dragon Ball franchise? Young : It was. So I jumped in, probably like the King Piccolo Saga. It's a lot like wrestling actually, where you jump in at the NWO. Then one of your friends was like, no, you got to go back to the Bash at the Beach and watch this Sting match. So it was a lot like that. It was like, no, no, you got to go watch the first World Tournament and understand, because you have to know Goku and Master Roshi’s relationship, how this came to be. Eventually I got to go back and watch. I definitely fell off, much like wrestling where some people are like “I fell off with the Attitude Era” and those of us who have suffered through the painful years think, “Well, you're a poser.” And that may be. But there's so much anime to keep up with. But I would say, where I did fall off was after the first Broly movie, which I saw right after I finished the Buu saga. When [ Dragon Ball GT ] started, I was like, there’s more? How? They already wrapped it up! So I watched some of [ Dragon Ball GT ] then fell off, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about [ Dragon Ball Super ]. Did you get into music around the same time as anime? Do you think one led to the other? Young : They were definitely the same. Having an older brother who was into all of these things and that was very around to show me all of these things definitely was a huge part of that. So playing Dragon Ball Z: Budokai on silent to Pantera in the background or something was a perfect day for me. How would you say the love of Studio Ghibli movies evolved out of these formative years of Dragon Ball ? Did that change your perception of what anime could be? Young : At first it was even hard to connect that those were the same medium. But like, of course they are. Ghibli is the best reminder of what animation can be to me, and what animation should be. Animation is a limitless art form with no rules. And The Boy and the Heron recently, after 10-15 years of stale Disney, had my jaw on the floor the whole time. Simply because it was a literal visual reminder of the middle finger saying, “This is what this medium is supposed to be. It's supposed to be the best one. Because we can do things that humans can't do with their bodies.” RELATED: From First to Last Relase Anime-Inspired Track "Genesis," Discuss Their History With Anime Young : Miyazaki's storytelling as well, where he tells stories in the same way that I write music. He starts with, like, OK, I'm going to start with this kind of basic idea of this thing happening. I'm gonna start animating it. So I can't go back. And I'm just gonna see where it takes me, and by the end it's this bizarre. unexplainable, unpredictable journey that no storyteller has been able to replicate. And that's, I mean, how can any artist not be inspired by that? Early on, so many people think that Miyazaki movies are kids movies because they’re animated. Young : Brother, Princess Mononoke is the most effective eco-awareness media ever made. Japan stopped using paper towels and got bidets because of Princess Mononoke . There's something so special about us being able to experience a new Miyazaki movie in theaters because we all get to experience it together. Young : I wore a suit. You can insert that I wore a suit to the movie. It felt like such an important event in my life because who knows if I ever get to do that again. There are Super Bowls every year, the World Series is every year. The Olympics are held every four years. One of the filmmaking masters, the master of his medium. There's nobody on his level. He made what is potentially his last piece of art. I'm wearing my finest Italian suit and giving it the respect it deserves. Image via Max What would you say your favorite Ghibli movie is? Young : That’s a hard question! Spirited Away is like the godfather of animated movies. So I'm just not even going to talk about it. We all know Howl’s Moving Castle , and that one brings me a sense of magic and inner peace that few other things possibly can. Billy Crystal going full Billy Crystal is like, how did he get that out of him? Christian Bale, reserved and cool, basically playing Bruce Wayne as a sexy magician. That to me should be like a film school textbook type watch. And that is one of the most insane trajectories from start to finish that Miyazaki has ever made. That's my favorite thing about his movies. How batsh*t crazy they get. Howl’s Moving Castle feels like it’s going to end five different times. That's the best. RELATED: Grammy-Nominated Rapper Logic Talks New Cowboy Bebop Collab, The Last of Us, and Top 5 Anime Young : So that one is probably my personal favorite. Princess Mononoke is super hard, too, as we've already talked about. That's like a kind of a scary movie. Earth Crisis would not believe Princess Mononoke . Now that we’ve chatted, are there any other series, or any new anime titles you're interested in checking out? Now that you're kind of getting more immersed in this world? Young : I'm going to go back and do Naruto from the start. Because that and Yu-Gi-Oh! were very prominent when I was young but Naruto was the anime to watch if you liked anime. Old heads were like bor, Naruto is the one that will make you feel most powerful. And that's what it's all about. It's about unity. It's about inner strength. It's about pride. We learn from these beautiful stories and the narrative of that show is all about being harder. And so am I. Final question for you, and I'm going turn it a little bit on you. You always ask your Harlore guests, “Who do you do?” So I want to ask you, who do you do from anime? Young : Hmm. I am Vegeta. I constantly get screwed over and I pick myself back up and at the very last moment I make it happen. I lose constantly, but you will remember my actions. Listen to the Hardlore Podcast here . Listen to Twitching Tongues here . Listen to God’s Hate here . Listen to Deadbody here . Listen to the new Holy Blade EP here .

By Crunchyroll feed