Japanese rock veterans BACK-ON bring summery pop-punk vibes with a new single NOT ENOUGH, featuring anime anthem heroes, FLOW. The two-track is out now to download and stream worldwide and is the first single from BACK-ON during their 20th anniversary year. Despite sharing a similar history and experiences in Japan and overseas, NOT ENOUGH is the first time BACK-ON and FLOW have worked together on a track.
The single also includes a new version of SKY WALKER, which originally appeared on BACK-ON’s latest album Still B/O. This new version, named SKY WALKER (TEEDA’s BEAT JACK) takes the original’s high-energy electro-rap rhythm, that featured J-rock riffs, chilled beats, and massive pop melodies, and reworks the lyrical content entirely to bring a fresh hip hop and urban flavor to the track.
NOT ENOUGH featuring FLOW follows in the footsteps of BACK-ON’s 2021 single Kill the Beat featuring JESSE, a rock icon known for shaping a whole generation of youth culture in Japan and whose band RIZE represented Japan on a global scale with performances at Live 8, Live Earth and the Vans Warped Tour. The track was featured in numerous playlists across DSPs, including Deezer’s ‘Heavy New Rock’ and Spotify’s ‘J-Rock Now’ and ‘Loud Rock Japan’. It’s also the follow-up to BACK-ON’s 2021 summer track ‘WAVES’, which was featured in one of Spotify’s ‘Pop Punk’s Note Dead’ playlists, its largest for the genre, as well as the platform’s ‘Punk Japan’ playlist.
“As we were celebrating our 20th Anniversary, I felt honored to have KOHSHI and KEIGO from FLOW join us on this track, we have so much in common as we have both done theme songs for various anime and have both been active overseas, I felt there was a good fusion of FLOW and BACK-ON’s unique, refreshing and energetic feeling captured in the production of this track. We really had a great time talking about the good old days and how we met, too.
It might be a bit surprising, but this was actually my first time doing a solo all-rap tune and doing it over an existing track. I think it’s impossible to make something better than the original track, so I tried to keep the concept of rapping in a different style than BACK-ON, and look back over the last 20 years until now.
I actually really enjoyed writing the lyrics and it was interesting how some words in the lyrics ended up being removed from the final version. I personally thought ‘this kind of track ain’t that bad too’. Hopefully, you can figure out which part was censored and changed.”
—TEEDA (BACK-ON MC)
- NOT ENOUGH (featuring FLOW)
- SKY WALKER (TEEDA's BEAT JACK)