There is no smoke without fire, and so it was when Kemuri, which means smoke in Japanese, toured the US for seven long weeks and set more than 40 cities on fire with their powerful ska-punk.

DIY with PMA - that's how it was.

"Well, that's what we are, y'know - Do It Yourself with Positive Mental Attitude, in every aspect of life. That's the way it should be. And the reason I believe it is because nothing is impossible. A dream will come true if we really try... I can do it, so why not you?"

Right after Kemuri, seven-piece Japanese ska-punk band, finished their first major tour of the US, leader and vocalist Fumio was saying these words to his fans in Japan during a video interview. Indeed, the tour was the result of their DIY with PMA.

The band was formed in 1995 by Fumio, who used to play reggae with a heavy Bob Marley influence, and Tsuda, a bass player who had rocked in several punk bands. The sound they were trying to create was a fusion of ska, roots reggae, and punk with full-throttle energy to blast their voice out.

Straight after making a demo tape, Fumio flew to LA, where he had spent some years as a high-school student, to make contact with indies labels and musicians, and with anyone he could work with or get help from. It was then that he met a Korean-American, Mike Park, who was running a small indies label and playing saxophone in a ska band.

Perhaps because they were both in love with the same kind of music with up-front lyrics, as well as both being Asian, they got on well and instantly felt close. This meeting resulted in Fumio adding two tracks to a compilation album called "Misfits Of Ska Volume 2" that Mike was producing. One of the tracks that got slotted in was "New Generation," Kemuri's anthem for PMA, and the other was "Ato-Ichi-Nen" (meaning "One More Year To Go"), which became a smash hit on a mini ska-punk circuit in California.

Through lady luck and heavy trials, Fumio was also able to make a three-album deal with an Amsterdam based semi-major label called Road Runner. The deal included their debut album, titled "Little Playmate," which was recorded in LA with the help of Mike Park as co-producer, and Robert Berry and Kemuri as the main producers. The album-cover illustration was done by Taiyo Matsumoto, one of Japan's hippest cartoonists. It was released in June 1997 packed with 14 songs that reflected their struggle with life in the concrete jungle, and also packed what they call PMA.

There were no big features in any of the major Japanese music magazines, however, and the album received no air-play on the radio as their sound was far removed from the mainstream of J-pop. Also, except for one track, all of the songs were in English, which made it extremely difficult for them to get into the commercial world of Japanese pop music.

Instead, what they did was simply to play their music loud and lots of times. Having no manager, they looked for their own bookings taking on countless gigs anywhere and everywhere possible. Gradually word about Kemuri started to spread.

Their first major US tour was born of their same PMA attitude.

"When I visited Mike's, I read his statement on the issue of racism, which was to be sent out to all the press... and I realized he was heavily involved in the movement. So it was no wonder that he wanted to organize this tour under the banner of Ska Against Racism. Well, the only thing I did wonder about was, "Why us, a Japanese band, doing this tour... but, then again, why not? We have the same attitude as Mike and I thought it would be a good chance to let American people know the real Japan and Japanese 'cos they really don't know much."

Fumio was probably conscious of the issue of racism toward Koreans in Japan, which mostly comes from the latter's fascist approach and colonization of Korea before the 2nd World War. So did Mike. But they never talked about it or discussed the issue.

"I never tried really 'cos... I don't know really why, but felt I needn't," said Mike, who was glad to know that all of the boys in Kemuri were discussing what they could do to help the 600,000 Koreans born in Japan, who pay taxes without having the right to vote in spite of the fact that the majority of them can't even speak Korean, only Japanese.

Hiring a tour truck from the Ft. Collins, Colorado, based Descendents, who were scheduled to produce Kemuri's new album to be recorded right after the tour, Kemuri and seven other bands kicked off the first day of Ska Against Racism in Auburn, Washington. It was the beginning of life in a bumpy truck. Getting to a venue at about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the first thing they had to do was set up their merchandise (T-shirts, CDs, etc.). Everything had to be done by themselves - there was no budget to hire roadies as fees for the tour didn't even cover costs. Next was the task of setting-up the stage. They gave more than 100 percent if their energy for each one of their shows, and without a sound check. Without taking a break, immediately after the show they would head over to their small corner of the venue to sell their wares and chat with the audience.

Nothing was different from what they do in Japan except one thing: the distance they had to travel between one town and the next every day. The furtherest was more than 1,000 miles away and they couldn't afford to stay in a motel, not only because of their financial situation but also because there was simply no time. In fact Kemuri was not only touring for Ska Against Racism - when they had down time from that bill, they gigged with other bands and only managed to take a couple of days off throughout the entire seven-week tour.

"I did know that it would be a hard tour... and I did tell everyone in the band that we had to be well prepared for that. Especially to some of our newer members, I mentioned it a thousand times...," said Fumio.

As nobody really knows Kemuri in the States and also because the main reason for the tour was to campaign for the anti-racism movement, fees received for the tour were the bare minimum. Perhaps it would be better to say that Kemuri went there to loose money...

"We all knew that we wouldn't make any money, only loose. We also knew it would be harder than we could imagine, but then we thought, 'Why not have a good time playing anyway?' That's the way we are."

Hearing Tsuda say this, Fumio smiled back and said, "That's PMA, y'know."

None of the guys in the band ever complained, but instead had fun throughout the whole tour - even if the venue was empty.

"The best audience we had..., if you're talking about how many people turned up, was about 4,000, but the worst was... hahaha... I couldn't stop laughing about this, but only 20. Man! I could actually count exactly how many people were there. And... I have to tell you, only five or six of them were up in front of the stage... The others were far away from us."

One of their gigs outside of the Ska Against Racism tour was with Less Than Jake, one of the strongest ska bands in the States - so popular, in fact, that nobody cares about the supporting band.

"I suppose I enjoyed that one the most," said Shoji, Kemuri's drummer, "and... I felt I would knock 'em all down and give them the best show ever, and so we did."

Imagine a wicked band giving the best ever live performance in front of only 20 people.

"Y'know what happened? That day we sold more than 10 copies of our albums after the show."

Due to a lack of support from their record company to supply CDs, they ran out of stock a third of the way through the tour. The result was that they sold all of the 780 copies that they managed to take with them. On their best day alone they sold 80 copies. After the album sold out, they had to answer to a lot of kids asking for their album. "Sorry, man, our record company is real shit, y'know, and they didn't send us any," was all they could say. They also had to face hundreds of emails from newly made fans saying, "I couldn't find your CD. Where can I get one?" In fact, hearing that there might have been a chance of getting a copy at a venue Kemuri was heading for after a show, one girl drove four hours in the hope of buying one. Unfortunately, though, none had been sent by the record company.

In Chicago, the show was sold out and at one gig in New Jersey, they played in front of a wall of smoke-like steam rising out of the audience as fans became soaked with heavy rain at an open-air venue.

"I don't remember where we played or what we did... Maybe I will someday, but mostly I was just sleeping in a truck then doing a show. That's it. A short while after the tour started, I saw the view through the window of the truck, but there was nothing but wild fields or desert or... I just got bored and actually I was so tired, too," said Fumio, in an interview on the day after the final show in Helena, Minnesota. "I felt like... it all finished in a moment, but really it was a long seven weeks... In fact the beginning of the tour seems like ages ago."

All together, Kemuri played in front of more than 30,000 people who had probably never heard of their music. But the reaction was so good that, from the moment they started their first song, "New Generation," the kids were dancing, jumping, shouting and kicking. Perhaps the most memorable moment was hearing them shout a phrase in Japanese. Receiving their cues from Fumio, like, "Can you say, Aishite-mas?", they were really shouting out the words without knowing what they meant, till Fumio left the stage saying, "Yes, we love you, too," in English.

"There was no difference between playing here in the States or there in Japan. The only difference was... nobody knows us here except a few who'd bought the compilation album that Mike produced. Maybe because of that, I was mostly singing right in front of the audience with the monitor speakers behind me. I suppose I just wanted to get closer to the crowd."

When the tour finished on May 10, Kemuri was back in Ft. Collins recording their as-yet untitled new album. Perhaps the album will reflect their experience on the tour, but they still have a long way to go, as with one of their songs called "Along The Longest Way."

"This is just the beginning, y'know. You may call it success or whatever, but in this huge country what we did is nothing like that kinda hype. I know lots of Japanese bands have been doing that shit, but backed with a hell of a lot of money from a record company just to use it for promotion in Japan. But that's a bloody lie! The importance is the fact that we did it by ourselves, y'know. We don't care how successful it was as such, the important thing is that this might open up the door for a lot more Japanese bands to start doing something here, as well as back home. I don't give a shit about any band who isn't trying to do it by themselves, but I do know that there are thousands of kids playing great music there and they've been bloody ignored."

Yes, Fumio is right. Behind the mass production of The Lowest Common Denominator-type of disposable pop music hyped by the media, there are millions of bands playing their own great music but with nowhere to go to be heard.

"America or Japan or what? We don't care. We just want to play music to as many people as possible. That's it. Music has got nothing to do with country or race. And... a hell of a lot of bands from America and the UK have toured Japan, and not all of them have released an album with a big hit through a major record company. They can do it so why can't we? It's as simple as that."

Back home from the States as of June 8, Kemuri will be doing a series of gigs in Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo at the end of the month, but they are all sold out. They will also appear at this year's Fuji Rock Festival, as well as other important events, and are planning to organize a major tour in Japan with the release of their new album in September. Get ready and don't miss this chance to watch the smoke rise...