The group sounds "The Wild Ones" appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on March 4th. The self-proclaimed "oldest group," with three members now 78 years old, talked about why they have remained with almost the same members for 60 years and what their daily lives are like.
The group sounds boomed for about five years from around 1966. Eventually, it died down, and the bands around it started to drop out one by one. The Wild Ones' members emphasized their close friendship, saying, "We could have quit, but we got along well and there were no problems, so they said we could carry on, and if they said so, we thought we might as well continue, and so we continued."
Leader Kunihiko Kase passed away in 2015, and Kase's second son, Tomoki, joined the group. Tomoki says he is often asked in interviews why the group has continued for 60 years. "After I joined, I realized that (the members) must really love performing together as a group called Wide Ones. To love something means to cherish it. To cherish something means to be considerate. I think the reason the group has continued on so well for so long is because everyone has created relationships that have a good boundary between what they like and dislike about each other," he says.
Tomoki also revealed, "We often have meals together as a trio, and we often talk about things like medication and which hospital we went to last time."
Kuroyanagi is surprised to learn that "the members don't have any belly fat at all." Some members do simple exercises at home, and when they go on tour, they bring mats to train their abdominal and back muscles, and have been doing so for around 50 years. Another member had three-quarters of his stomach removed from stomach cancer in 2003, which has left him with a small stomach and no way to gain weight. When he's not working, he says, "I live like a normal old man," but "when we go to work, each pick up an instrument and play a little, we go back to the way things were." They perform twice a month at a live music venue in Tokyo's Ginza district, which was run by former leader Kase.
Tomoki describes his father, a leader, as "someone who enjoyed life to the fullest." He said, "I think a lot of people lose interest as they get older, but he was interested in a lot of things, and as he got older his interests grew. He would ask me a lot of questions like, 'What kind of clothes are popular among young people these days?' or 'What kind of music do they listen to?'"
