KATSEYE, MAZZEL Producer Taka Perry Talks Career From Sydney to Tokyo & Appeal of Japanese Music: Unbound Japan Interview
Categoria: Musica
The 28-year-old producer spoke about his career and creative process in this interview with Billboard Japan.
Por Billboard | 27/10/2026
Unbound Japan is an interview series featuring entertainment industry professionals based outside the country and those sending Japan’s music out into the world. This instalment features music producer Taka Perry. Born and raised in Australia to an American father and a Japanese mother, he built his career as a producer there before expanding his work to Japan. In 2024, “Touch” by global girl group KATSEYE, which he wrote and produced, became a massive hit. The 28-year-old producer spoke about his career and creative process in this interview with Billboard Japan and shared how Japanese music looks to him as someone born in Australia and raised on Western music culture. Your launched your career in Australia, where you’re from. I was born and raised in Canberra and lived there all the way through high school. Canberra is the capital, but it has a relatively small population. I’d wanted to do music ever since high school, but in Australia, most people who want to pursue music go to Sydney or Melbourne in order to do it. I chose Sydney and moved there shortly after graduating high school. When did you first become interested in music production? I played clarinet from elementary school, but in junior high I started teaching myself guitar because I wanted to be in a rock n roll band. From there I branched out into bass and piano, and formed a band with friends covering Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Nirvana. I wanted to record our own songs, and after my parents bought me a DAW for my 12th birthday, I got hooked on songwriting and production. I then gradually became more drawn to working behind the scenes than to being in a band. When did you start branching out to Japan? I started seriously thinking about working in Japan around 2019–20, right before COVID. I’d been a producer in Australia for four or five years by then and was getting some great results. But the industry there is limited in size, so once your career reaches a certain point, a lot of people move to L.A. or London, or more recently, South Korea. I speak Japanese and I’m familiar with Japanese culture, so I felt it would be a waste not to get involved in the Japanese scene. Back then, I looked up to JP THE WAVY and WILYWNKA, and started doing sessions in Japan with the goal of becoming a hip-hop beat-maker. I’d come to Japan three or four times a year, for three or four weeks each time. I’d DM artists, do sessions with them, then fly home. As I kept that up, I ended up with more work from Japan than from Australia. I decided I needed to live in Japan, both for my career and personally, so I moved my base here last year. After working in the music scene in Australia, did you face any difficulties when you began working in the Japanese one? By the time I decided to start making music in Japan, I was lucky enough to have already had results and credits as a producer in Australia. If I’d taken that to the U.S., say, it would have carried over to some extent, since both are Western music and