“I don’t think that just because it’s punk or metal, you have to be angry. I don’t think about it that way anymore,” says MAH, founder and singer of the Japanese hard rock of SiM (Silence iz Mine). The band’s hard edges come from a collision of metal and punk, reggae and hardcore, and melody with throat-ripping screams. “I’d rather have moments where you can almost chuckle or smirk. I think that makes the music more accessible to a wider range of people. I always try not to lose that sense of irony or humor.”

On SiM’s new album, Hooman After All, the chaotic blend of genres continues, but for MAH, the secret ingredient has always been his deep love for reggae. He first heard the Jamaican sound growing up, as played by older local bands. That soon led him to the punk-reggae hybrids of SoCal acts Sublime, Pepper, and Long Beach Dub All-stars.

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Amid the noise of SiM’s songs, reggae taught MAH when not to explode. The singer calls those moments “the quiet spaces,” the “silence” embedded in the band’s name. He says they are as crucial as the quartet’s most punishing passages.

“We had this idea: Let’s become a band that can freely control the moments when we’re not making any sound,” MAH says.

“If you were screaming at full force for the entire three minutes of a song, I’d get bored listening to it,” adds MAH, who sings in fluent English. “To make those brief peaks stand out, I might add more melody in other parts, or sometimes do the opposite.”

As a band, SiM self-identifies as “Reggae PUNX,” but the obvious influences are just the beginning, MAH insists. He is inspired by a much wider range of music, from the extremes of metalcore to Amy Winehouse, Adele, and the old blues records his parents played at home when he was growing up.

“If you took every artist on my playlist and threw them all into a blender, you’d get SiM,” says MAH. “I know it’s a cliché thing to say, but that was really the idea—I wanted to try something I hadn’t done before.”

For a master of chaos, MAH looks remarkably calm on a video call from his Tokyo studio. Two small bats are tattooed on the side of his neck, and a black L.A. Dodgers cap is pulled low over his eyes. A guitar rests on a stand beside him, while videogames and Pokémon memorabilia is all around him. 

Onstage, in spooky eye makeup and a pink tie, another persona emerges. “When I put on the makeup around my eyes,” he says, “it’s like—bam! My whole personality changes.”

MAH grew up in Shonan, Kanagawa, an area he compares to the American West Coast—and Long Beach, California, in particular, with its own surfing culture. During high school in 2000, he formed the first version of SiM. He then found the band’s definitive lineup with guitarist SHOW-HATE and bassist SIN—both friends from Shonan—joined two years later by drummer GODRi.

“In Japan at the time, melodic punk was still really popular. I wanted to make heavier music,” says MAH.

His musical imagination was shaped not only by metal and punk, but by manga, videogames, professional wrestling, and the examples of Korn and Linkin Park. SiM’s 2009 debut album, Silence iz Mine, even included a spooky, dubby take on the Beatles’ “Come Together.”

The early years were bumpy and stressful, and sales were slim. Band members sometimes grew distant from one another. 

“Back when we weren’t doing very well, there were definitely periods when we were really not getting along,” MAH recalls. “There were times when we barely spoke to each other—we wouldn’t say a word to each other unless we were onstage. But even during those times, they would always stand behind the decisions I made for SiM. They trusted me and followed my lead when it came to the band. I think that gradually deepened the trust between us.”

Their evolving brotherhood was tested unexpectedly in 2010, when guitarist SHOW-HATE collapsed from a stroke immediately after a SiM concert in Sapporo, Hokkaido. He was 24.

The tour was cancelled, as the guitarist was hospitalized for two weeks, followed by months of rehabilitation. But he fully recovered and returned to the band. “We were at a point in our lives where we were thinking, ‘We’ve still got so much ahead of us. We’re going to keep working hard and moving forward,’” MAH recalls. “And then we were confronted with the reality that death is actually right there, right beside us.”

Less than a year after the stroke, Japan was hit by the 9.1-magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, leading to nearly 20,000 deaths. The band responded to both traumas with the album Seeds of Hope, released later that year. On the track “A Song of Hope,” MAH sings: “Even if the passing of times fades our memories / We will recall that tragedy and recovery / With these melodies.”

“I was very careful with the lyrics,” MAH says. “There were a lot of words and ideas about hope, and about continuing to live and moving forward.”

Grappling with the low points led to a career breakthrough in Japan. 

“That album became a hit, and it’s like my life suddenly became brighter. It was a really important period in our lives” he says. “We’ve been through all sorts of things like that together. So now, we’re really like a family.”

This lineup has now been playing together for two decades. “I really can’t imagine doing this with anyone else,” says MAH.

Their visions of international rock stardom were nearly derailed by SiM’s first trip to the U.S. in 2016, when the band played the Knotfest Meets Ozzfest heavy metal summit in San Bernardino, California. Though SiM had already headlined the massive Budokan arena only a year before, they barely attracted 100 people for their Knotfest set.

“That was the moment I thought, ‘Ah, there’s no way we’re ever going to make it in America,’” MAH says now. “So I gave up on that dream.”

All of that changed abruptly with “The Rumbling,” a grinding heavy-metal anthem with soaring melodies written for the anime Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2. The track hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Hard Rock Songs chart in 2022, and it remains their most famous song.

“After that, people started asking me all the time to write another song like ‘The Rumbling,’” MAH says with a smile. “But honestly, I have absolutely no desire to do that. I kind of think, Well, if you want to hear ‘The Rumbling,’ just listen to ‘The Rumbling.’

“I always want to do something new—something I haven’t done before. That feeling is still really strong in me.”

For SiM, touring the U.S. and elsewhere around the world is now normal. After postponing a fall run of U.S. shows this year, the band returns to America for a spring tour.

“We might look like a new band, but we have more than 20 years of experience behind us,” MAH says. “Now we get to show people music they’ve never seen or heard before. There’s something really exciting about that.”

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