It's not every day you get to exchange thoughts on punk rock with a talking wolf.

"When people talk about punk, they talk about being rebellious and being frustrated with society," says Jean-Ken Johnny, guitarist for wolf-headed alternative rock band Man With A Mission. He speaks to The Japan Times in character after a show at Shibuya AX. Despite his sharp fangs and deep, intimidating gaze (his yellow eyes didn't blink once during the whole interview) he is polite and articulate. "The impression I get from punk is more about the energy that comes out from within, the way people unleash music freely."

Johnny and his bandmates, vocalist Tokyo Tanaka, bassist Kamikaze Boy, DJ Santa Monica and drummer Spear Rib, have taken Japan's rock scene by storm with a musical cocktail of punk, heavy metal and electronica, gaining notoriety for their wolf-masks (though the band adamantly insists that these are their actual faces — I was too afraid to pinch Johnny's cheeks to find out) and out-of-this-world back story (they were created in a laboratory by Jimi Hendrix and left frozen in Antarctica for many years before coming onto the scene).