Looking back with DJ KOO on his past with Avex
and his future in the entertainment industry
(Featuring: SAM [TRF])

This interview with TRF’s leader, DJ KOO, marks the first in a special series of talks to celebrate Avex’s 35 th anniversary with a variety of different artists and entertainers who have defined a generation. Our guest this time is SAM, a widely active dance creator and a close friend of DJ KOO who together helped build an era at TRF. They'll be discussing how they created their hit movement as well as the past, present, and future of music and entertainment from the perspective of artists as they reminisce about their past successes and the path their careers have taken.

Abandoning becoming
a doctor in high school
and the thrill of dancing
at discos at night

DJ KOO and SAM are two members of the well-known TRF, a group that defined an era in the Japanese music entertainment industry with their respective DJ and dance skills. Avex considers TRF their first group in a long line of legendary Japanese musical acts.

SAM's family has been running a medical clinic in Saitama since the Meiji era (1868-1912), and as a result, all of his male siblings have become doctors. Of course, SAM himself pursued medicine since he was a young child, but one day was confronted with the thought of, "Is becoming a doctor really truly what I want to do?" It was then that a high-school-aged SAM happened upon disco.

SAM "The high school I attended was a preparatory school, but a friend who was in the same class as me inspired me to go to a disco for the first time when we were freshmen. I remember being shocked by how the regulars at a club in Shibuya called BLACK SHEEP danced back then."

DJ KOO (hereafter, KOO) "And that was all it took for you to get totally hooked on dance music."

SAM "Yes. That's when I started frequenting discos. At that time, my parents had given up on me becoming a doctor, and I'd even run away from home when I was 15. My parents asked me, 'What is it you want to do?' I answered, 'I want to be free.' Then my father told me, 'You can do whatever you want as long as you tell us where you are and finish school,' so I would go to the disco at night and did my best to go to school the next day. Then after school, I'd be off to the disco again that night."

Obsessing over dancing in
the ‘70s and ‘80s
and aiming to go pro as a disco dancer

SAM first got into dancing in the '70s and '80s, and back then there were many different discotheques all over Tokyo. However, all the discos had regular customers, and SAM felt that he couldn't stand out among them, so he focused on going exclusively to newer venues and formed a dance team called Mickey Mouse with some of the regulars at those places he frequented.

SAM "By that time, I had made a lot of connections and started to make a name for myself as a member of Mickey Mouse. Not just that, but a record company had even entrusted me with a promotional campaign for a new album they were promoting."

KOO "Those were the days when record companies were doing promotions at discos. Back then the discos really were something straight out of Saturday Night Fever."

SAM "As for the dancing, there were older dancers whom I admired at the time, and I learned their moves by copying them and dancing in front of the mirror."

KOO "Discos all had mirrors, and it was par for the course to dance when you went there."

SAM "It's just that there are many people who are good dancers who were our seniors, but there wasn't anyone back then who was making a living from dancing. They would work as waiters in coffee shops or as clerks in electronics stores during the day. I'd think to myself, 'Why don't any of them go pro?' and I was confident that our performances were cool, so I decided then and there to go pro. Then, in my senior year of high school, I was approached by Don Katsumoto, the head of the National Disco Association and a pioneer in the Japanese disco world."

Debuting in an idol dance unit
and getting on TV to make it big

SAM joined a team belonging to the National Disco Association and for the first time learned disco dancing from someone other than himself. Later, in 1982 when he was 20 years old, he was approached to join a new idol dance unit that included a vocalist called Champ.

SAM "Due to an incident in the news at the time involving disco, we had to hastily change the lyrics, and as a result, our debut song did not sell well. After that, we made our debut again under the unit name RiffRaff and gained some popularity, but there was a time when we were far from the ideal I'd held of becoming famous and spreading the joy of dancing across the country."

Listening to his anecdotes up to this point, one can tell how rooted SAM's activities were in the disco scene of the time, and how obsessed he was with dancing.

SAM "The disco dancing we were crazy about was cooler than any other kind of dancing, so we knew we had to somehow make it onto a major event, and the only way to spread more was to appear on TV. But the members I was working with at the time were kind of gradually losing their enthusiasm. After that, I went to New York to train as a dancer and ended up joining several dance teams."

SAM debuted as an idol in order to spread his dancing throughout the world, but there was a significant gap between what he wanted to show off and the music and dancing that TV at the time demanded. Not only that, but the notion that a "dancer" was simply someone who was a "back-up dancer" prevented him from pursuing the path he wanted to.

Meeting Tetsuya Komuro,
the man who would change
SAM’s life, and
the tumultuous start of TRF

Then came a turning point for SAM when he was invited to participate in a late-night TV program around 1990 called "Dance! Dance! Dance!" It was on that late-night TV show when Tetsuya Komuro (hereafter Komuro) discovered SAM.

SAM "At that time, I belonged to a dance group called "MEGA-MIX," and CHIHARU and ETSU—before they formed TRF—were regular dancers on that program. When I actually met Mr. Komuro, he asked me, 'What kind of music do you usually dance to?' I answered, 'I like dancing to hip-hop and jazz,' and he said, 'Why don't you try dancing to some original music?' I immediately jumped at the offer."

It wasn't all smooth sailing from there, however; it was a time where SAM wasn't sure how to proceed. Komuro called SAM in to record an original song, but it ended up being a techno song, a genre that SAM had no experience with. Komuro was also active with TM NETWORK at the time, so it was only natural that he was shocked at Komuro's proposal.

KOO "Up to this point, you'd been working with the goal of going to dance competitions, but when you joined TRF, some conflicts started arising, didn't they? You and I had heard of each other at the time, so I kind of wondered if we'd actually be able to play together as a four-piece."

SAM "In terms of dancing, it was right around the time when house music was coming to Japan, so I thought I would be able to handle techno as well. On the other hand, I wasn't familiar with techno music, and with you as DJ and YU-KI singing, it really kind of jarred with what my original expectations for the group were, so I was quite conflicted when the group first started."

EZ DO DANCE strikes gold
and becoming one of
Japan’s biggest artists

In 1993, produced by Komuro, trf (lowercase at the time of their debut) debuted with the single "GOING 2 DANCE/OPEN YOUR MIND" and the album trf ~THIS IS THE TRUTH~. Little by little, listeners started to recognize the group at clubs nationwide, and it was with their second single "EZ DO DANCE" that they really made a name for themselves.

SAM "Although I was conflicted about the techno sound, I was really happy to finally be able to show off what I thought was the coolest kind of dancing on TV. I just wanted as many people as possible to recognize our dancing for what it was."

Without any time to wonder if they were really pursuing what they wanted to, TRF was suddenly on top of the Japanese music entertainment industry and managed to create a kind of format for dance shows that hadn't existed up to that point.

SAM "When TRF became five members and there were only three dancers in total (myself and two female dancers), I had to think a lot about how to make the performance attractive. For that reason, I can vividly remember all our gigs back then. I learned from Mr. Komuro how to make a concert from scratch when it came to the production of the even 'dAnce to positive (Overnight Sensatio)', and I think that was a show where I really grew a lot as a performer."

KOO "TRF has been a pioneer of dance shows in Japan, so we have created our own ideas from scratch rather than basing them on something that already was around."

In the 1990s, TRF created a huge movement, including five consecutive million-seller albums, which triggered the subsequent TK boom (Komuro Family) and laid the foundation for Avex.

Avex’s past and future according
to DJ KOO and SAM,
"living proof" of the company’s success

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, TRF was the first Japanese music group for Avex. SAM and KOO both have witnessed the entire history of Avex, and are living proof of the company's success.

SAM "In the beginning, Avex had only about 30 employees, so I knew the faces and names of all the staff, but after the office moved to Aoyama, more and more people joined. They'd listen to all our ridiculous requests, and the company was really alive and vibrant. I think Avex is a great company."

KOO "When TRF performed ‘EZ DO DANCE’ at gigs, I would see all the employees getting really excited during that song, and that's when I knew that Avex was a good place to be."

SAM "Yeah, that's why I think the company will be even more influential if we all move forward in the same direction, and I hope they can produce even more artists who can put out hits."

KOO "If you think about it from the perspective of Avex, after TRF, there was Amuro (Namie Amuro), Ayu (Ayumi Hamasaki), and Koda (Kumi Koda) with whom I had the pleasure of interviewing a while back. You and I feel this way since we were able to experience it for ourselves, but I really hope we can keep on producing more and more lively artists for Avex moving forward."

SAM "Today, Avex is diversifying its business to include visual content and animation, but I hope that we can make the most of our position as a leading dance music company to further boost our musical endeavors. I'd like to see the company build on these pillars."

Becoming something more than
just an artist by invigorating both youths and the elderly through dance

Since the 2000s, SAM has choreographed and produced concerts for numerous artists, including SMAP, Tohoshinki, BoA, and V6, and has also focused on training the next generation of dancers, including running the dance school SOUL AND MOTION since 2004.

The exercise DVD TRF EZ DO DANCERCIZE, in which three TRF dancers teach viewers dance moves to help lose weight, has been a huge hit, selling a total of 3.8 million copies since its release in 2012.

SAM "I had never dared to get into exercise classes before, but when I thought about the possibilities of making dance more enjoyable for the general public, the idea of combining exercise and dancing together really started to come together in my head."

KOO "From what I know of you, SAM, you have a pretty stubborn personality, but at the same time you're also very open to new things."

In 2016, SAM established Dare Demo Dance, a general incorporated association, with the aim of creating a dance-friendly environment and extending the healthy life expectancy of active seniors. Last year, he debuted Revival Dance with the idea of training both viewers' minds and muscles for those 60 and older.

SAM "There was no model when it came to dancing for elderly persons, so I consulted with a dementia specialist and a physical therapist whom I knew, and also completed a master's degree in gerontology at an American university to create a program. As a result, I came to the conclusion that moving one's own body under one's own power is the pinnacle of healthy living, which led to Revival Dance."

A pioneer for 30 years talks
about his love for music and dance

However, SAM says that he has only been able to create a dance program for the elderly because of the foundation he has as a currently active artist as well as his educating younger performers. Everything he does is thanks to "SAM the street dancer." Both SAM and KOO, the two members of TRF celebrating the group's 30th anniversary, take this opportunity to reflect on the importance of the feeling of "love."

KOO "I think that the things that we loved and kind of put aside when we formed TRF, the things we were really truly passionate about, are things that, at this age, we can look back on and realize just how important they were to us."

SAM "That's right. Music and dance are made up entirely of positive elements, such as being able to uplift and energize people's spirits. And when it comes to dancing, it is more effective to dance with a large group of people than to dance alone. That's why I really want everybody to come together and dance."

SAM, who has maintained his love for dance and has been an active dancer throughout his life, shows no signs of slowing down as a member of TRF, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, nor does he as a solo artist, while at the same time nurturing young people and helping the elderly through dance. He is proud to be a dancer who embraces the mission of "energizing Japan through dance," and is fully committed to continuing his journey and evolving even further.

Next year, on Sunday February 18, 2024, TRF will hold a concert at their 30th anniversary concert the Nippon Budokan titled "past and future." Both SAM and KOO will be 62 years old at the time of the Budokan concert, and the female members of the group will be themselves approaching 60. The event will function as the culmination of TRF's 30th anniversary celebration.

KOO "I want everyone who grew up with TRF to see the Budokan show. I hope that those who have been listening to TRF for a long time will see the TRF of today and feel that they, too, will want to keep working as hard as we are. I also hope that people who don't know TRF will watch the show, too. I hope that our music can give them energy and courage. We're all friends, we're all family."

SAM "We are trying to create a show that can be enjoyed by all generations, involving children, adults, and even grandparents. We want to make the show exciting not only in terms of dance and music, but also in terms of production. We are aiming for a show that will definitely make people say, 'That was fun!' as they are walking out of the show."

The pioneers who brought a frenzy of dance music to Japan continue to reinvent themselves even after 30 years. Their performances, which embody their desire to entertain their audience, will continue to inspire and energize us for the rest of our lives.