Plant Cell

I think I first came to know Plant Cell from a Shoegaze contact on Twitter some years ago about the time their first CD Landscape was released. I loved their sound and still think that first CD is probably their best release to date. Not that I haven't liked the following releases- far from it- both 2021’s Nature Reserve and 2024’s Botanical has seen them hone their music into an art form. Band leader and guitarist Masaki Sato and I entered into a online dialogue, via translation apps, that has lasted for all the years in between and I was honored to finally catch one of their live shows earlier this year at the famous Koenji High music venue where they regularly play. I posed some questions to Masaki to find out a bit more about the band and its origins.
Q: What is your home town or city? MS: I am from and still live in Chiba, just outside Tokyo. The rest of the band are from all over Japan really, Hokkaido, Kanagawa and Tokyo.
Q: What band or musician influenced you to form Plant Cell? MS: I saw a band called Broken Little Sister about 10 years ago and started writing songs after that, they were a big influence.
Q: How did the line up of Plant Cell come together? MS: Originally it was my solo project but I wanted to make it into a band so we could play live. We recruited members via Twitter! We formed at the end of 2015 and played our first show a month later. There has been some line up changes over the years before becoming the band we are today.
Q: Do you or would you like to play other instruments other than guitar? MS: I have also self taught myself Piano. I love Enya’s songs so learn them as best I can. I can play “No Holly for Miss Quinn” quite well”! It might not be obvious in our sound but Enya is also a big influence on my songwriting.
Q: Why 2 bass players in Plant Cell? MS: One is a Piccolo Bass. Its almost between a bass and a guitar in sound and how it's played. It gives the band a pretty unique sonic approach.
Q: Interests outside of music? MS: Travelling, I bought a minivan and travel with family ( Masaki has a son, now aged 6) Sometimes we use the scenery of the places we go as the subject of our songs. We have a very green and natural influence as a lot of our song titles and album names demonstrate.
Q: And the future for Plant Cell? MS: We all have jobs and careers too so can only record and play when we can as the band is not our main focus of our lives although its a great concept of having the band in our lives. Members of Plant Cell also play in other bands too. Its a dream but we would love to play a gig in London, after all the home of Shoegaze! Lets hope that dream may come true, I will be down the front if so.
The current line up of Plant Cell is: Masaki Sato: Guitar Eriko: Vocals and guitar Nao: Piccolo Bass Okada: Bass Rikiya: Drums
The CD Botanical is available in our store.
here