The future arrives in San Jose this week. Perfume, one of the biggest J-Pop bands in at least a generation, comes to the City National Civic in support of last year’s Future Pop. Massive, relentless and ever-expanding into new territories, Future Pop is the culmination of nearly 20 years of pushing pop music forward from the boundary-defying Hiroshima group.

One of only six scheduled shows in America, this is the only Bay Area show for the group, which might surprise some. But the fact is, San Jose has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to Perfume’s music. From all the way across the Pacific, they’ve already had a profound influence on the sound of the city’s young musicians, three of whom spoke with us about how the group helped shape their understandings of pop music, their own songwriting, and the transcendent power of a killer groove.

YVETTE YOUNG
Covet | Yvette Young (Solo)

It was about four or five years ago, I think I was just looking at YouTube, listening to different things, and I came upon the song “Polyrhythm,” from the album Game. It kind of blew me away. Listening to it, there was so much going on. And then it got to a part of the song where there was actual polyrhythm and I was like, “This is amazing!” So I started checking out more and more of their music.

A lot of J-Pop can be kind of cookie cutter, but this was something else. There’s a lot of danciness in their music, but in a way that’s interesting. I play, I guess what you could call math rock, but I really try to keep it dancey as well, to keep it fun and engaging. I guess I really have been influenced by them.

BOB VIELMA
Boboso | Tadaima

I kind of caught the beginning of their uptick—coincidentally, probably around 2008, when I moved to Japan to teach. I would always hear their music playing in the background of different places I’d go. I was just like, “Whatever this weird techno is, I really like it.” Then they had this single come out a few months later called “Dream Fighter.”

“Dream Fighter” was just the best pop song. It was the one where I was able to convince all my friends that this wasn’t just some disposable J-Pop.

I think they’re one of the ones that helped me focus and really understand what my interests are in music, which are melody and groove. They had a really good streak, like three albums in a row, where just every song had a killer melody, and they have a few songs that have long instrumental sections with really heavy grooves.

DAN VO
Superworld | Leer

I was just on the computer one day, you know, on AIM, and someone sent me a link. It was almost pre-YouTube, I think. I just remember seeing videos and thinking, “This is the coolest thing.” The music was really cool, the choreography was really cool, and it was like right as I was getting into everything I was getting into. Right around when I started watching anime, started learning about music and playing instruments.

I went to see them the first time they played in America, at the Hollywood Palladium, and I just remember my friend met up with a whole group of Perfume fans, friends from the forum “Perfume City.” I know for a lot of them it was super emotional, like the first time they met after being internet friends for all these years. There was a lot of that going on at that show.

It feels like it does have some bearing on the way I play music, or play guitar. Or maybe on what I like about music, is a better way to put it. There’s something about how intricate some of those parts sound. It’s not complicated, and it’s really poppy, but there’s a lot of layers. It’s a really ingenious thing

Perfume
Apr 17, 8pm, $45+
City National Civic, San Jose

Join this all-female tribute band as they strive to capture the essence of the mighty Led Zeppelin. In true Zeppelin style, the group’s latest release is a live-album, titled Live at Sweetwater. The record features plenty of heavy numbers, including “Custard Pie,” “How Many More Times” and “Moby Dick.” This tribute act gets an assist from show opener and local guitar goddess Yvette Young. Young’s precision playing may not perfectly mirror the endearingly imperfect approach of Jimmy Page, but she rocks just as hard.

Zepparella & Yvette Young
Sat, 8pm, $10+
The Ritz, San Jose

Her fingers fly up and down the guitar frets. Both hands strike at chords, hammering on and pulling off, hitting notes high and low, occasionally triggering a shimmering harmonic and allowing it to ring. Leaning in close, the careful observer notices that the pinkie finger on her left hand flares out at an unnatural angle. And then in comes the arpeggio—or, more precisely, the chimeric, cluster bomb of notes.

The euphoric, rushing sound demands attention—not only from the listener, but from the band as well. And as such, it serves as a reminder that her guitar work is not whirling about in a vacuum. She is, in fact, flanked by two additional players. Her bass player can’t contain contain the sheer joy that the musical eruption inspires within him, and he smiles broadly. Later, after the band has finished playing, he’ll comment that the riff gets him “every time.”

This is Covet. Led by the 25-year-old Yvette Young, the South Bay instrumental rock trio rehearses in a Saratoga garage, preparing for a forthcoming nationwide tour. The song they’ve just run through is “Hydra,” from their debut EP, Currents, released in late 2015.

It’s a fitting name for a record of sweeping guitar, bass and drums. Like the ocean, or a mighty river, the music is complex and multifaceted. Even as it shimmers on the surface, the driving bass and rock-solid drumming of Young’s bandmates and collaborators David Adamiak and Keith Grimshaw course powerfully along. Still waters run deep indeed. And even when the music is ostensibly violent and turbid, there is an undeniable beauty in its thrashing—a flood of sound.

Like an expert crew, Covet navigates these treacherous waters with aplomb, building dynamic, infectious, challenging compositions that rise and fall like the tides. Grimshaw’s spare and purposeful drumming serves as a foundation. Adamiak lays down a plush, low-frequency carpet atop Grimshaw’s rhythmic slab, which at times merges with Young’s rhythmic guitar work, but is not so thick as to prevent her most ascendent melodic strands from taking flight.

Their work has not gone unnoticed. In the three years they’ve been playing together, Young’s band has amassed 13,000 likes on Facebook, culled 1,400 “supporters” on the streaming music site Bandcamp (a large figure for the platform), and they are currently being courted by three separate record labels. Polyphia—another instrumental outfit signed to Equal Vision Records, is taking Covet on a nationwide tour, which kicks off Feb. 18.

Despite all this, Young is nervous about what the future holds—not because of a dearth of prospects, clearly—but rather because she never counted on finding herself here, fronting a band on the verge of breaking big.

SHIPPING OUT

“For me, it’s scary,” Young says, speaking to the prospect of giving herself over entirely to the life of a professional musician. Five years ago, as she was nearing the end her undergraduate term at UCLA, she flirted with the idea of playing in bands. She even took a year off to pursue the dream in Los Angeles. But ultimately, she says, her heart pulled her back to the Bay Area.

That’s when she recorded her debut solo effort, the Acoustics EP. Tracked in a friend’s Oakland garage and released without much fanfare, the five-song collection was never meant to be more than a passion project. Instead, it blew up. She sold out of physical releases four times over. And that was before she started playing with Adamiak and Grimshaw.

“I thought I would just be working a teaching job,” Young says of the life she envisioned. Currently, Young is balancing her band and a part time job as an art instructor. She loves her gig and she says her boss loves her too—there’s been talk of bringing her on full time. But, as it now stands, Young’s boss is looking to hire a replacement for her while Covet is on tour, and while she’s optimistic that the job will still be there when she returns, there are no guarantees.

“I have this chance to be stable, but I’m giving it all up and pushing it all aside to do the touring thing,” she says, giving voice to her deepest doubts.

But it may be that Young is selling herself short. After all, this is the same young woman who once took second place at the San Jose International Piano Competition with a broken finger.

KEEP IT SIMPLE: Covet’s bassist, David Adamiak (left), and drummer, Keith Grimshaw (right), show restraint—never overplaying, so as to allow Yvette Young’s guitar work to shine. Photo: Liz Cabrerra.

ROUGH SEAS

When Young was just 13, she broke her left pinkie finger—hence the awkward angle of her little digit. The way Young remembers it, she fell while walking down some stairs, and in an attempt to catch herself, she snared her finger on the handrail.

In spite of the injury, Young continued rehearsing for the 2002 SJIPC. She went on to nearly win that contest—tying for second place, hobbled as she was.

Of course, wherever there is an athlete working through an injury, there’s also a coach—either tacitly allowing the decision, or actively encouraging it. In Young’s case, it was her parents who pushed her to go forward with the competition. It’s something she can joke about now, though at the time, she wasn’t happy about it.

“It made me hate music,” Young says of her adolescent years, studying piano and violin at the Los Gatos-based Gingis Academy of Music. “I only did it for them. I won them competitions.”

It is said that time heals all wounds. Of course, that isn’t true. In Young’s case, her finger never quite went back to normal. She says sometimes it gets stuck in weird positions when she is playing her guitar.

But at least she doesn’t hate music anymore. These days she says she really enjoys playing piano and violin. “I’m so grateful that they made me do it,” she says, referring to her parents. She’s even come around on her pinkie, and now views the injury from a positive vantage.

“It extends my reach, just a little bit,” she says with a laugh, alluding to the fact that she can stretch her hands a bit further up and down the neck of her guitar.

And, as Young has demonstrated on multiple occasions over the course of her life, the episode at the piano competition is not simply an example of her parents attempting to live through their child. It also speaks to Young’s own determination and grit—and an innate love for music.

LEARNING THE ROPES

Young reconnected with that estranged love after she moved away to college—this time on her own terms. She began tinkering on the acoustic guitar and, with little formal training on that instrument, taught herself to play, developing the complex and impressive finger-picking and finger-tapping technique she now deploys in Covet. And she did all this while earning a double major in fine art and arts education—completing her dual degree in just two years and one quarter, by taking 20 units nearly every quarter and attending summer session.

“I didn’t intentionally develop a technique or anything,” she says of her playing. “I just did what felt comfortable.” Apparently, what felt “comfortable” for Young, was to let her picking hand wander up from its common position near the bridge of the guitar, to assist in tapping out notes on the neck of the guitar, playing the instrument like a piano.

In some ways it makes sense that someone who started out playing music on piano would gravitate toward finger-tapping on the guitar. The piano, after all, allows an individual to plonk out polyphonic arrangements—to play chords, bass lines and melodies simultaneously.

“It’s like a language,” Young says of music, drawing a parallel between the way many people must translate words, phrases and sentences spoken in a second language back into their native tongue before achieving complete comprehension. “In order to figure out what I want to play on guitar, I have to think of it in terms of piano first.”

Here one suspects that Young—an inherently humble person—may be attempting to deflect the suggestion that her style is in any way extraordinary. She insists that her approach to the guitar was born out of necessity, and even goes so far as to suggest it may be due to personal awkwardness and a lack of friends.

“I didn’t really have a bass player or any other band,” she says, recalling her college years. Back then, Young says, she wasn’t interested in attending parties and preferred to keep to herself in her room. This, combined with her ability to hear polyphonic arrangements in her head, led her to tapping, she explains. “I said, ‘OK, if I tap this, I could pick this other part and I could use these other strings to fill out the sound.’”

Simple, right?

Hardly. Some of rock & roll’s best-known guitar heroes—Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Slash—only occasionally employ this advanced technique. Young’s entire sound is built around it. And that’s not even to mention that Adamiak, Covet’s bassist and a talented musician in his own right, says he can’t hear polyphony in his head.

“She is a very gifted person,” says Nataly Gingis, Young’s piano instructor from the ages of 4 to 16. The co-founder of the Los Gatos academy Young attended speaks highly of her former pupil’s abilities on the piano and violin. And while she hasn’t been in as close contact with Young in recent years, Gingis says she’s heard good things about Covet. “As far as I understand, her guitar technique is pretty advanced.”

TAP IT IN: Playing guitar like a piano, Yvette Young hits chords, basslines and melody simultaneously. Photo: Harry Who.

Other musicians agree. Brent Walsh, guitarist of the Bay Area prog-emo outfit I The Mighty, has long appreciated Young’s work and counts himself a Covet fan.

“She got really good, really fast,” he says of Young’s playing. Walsh has known Young since before she even began playing and says the discipline she learned on the piano has definitely played a role in her rapid development. “She’s one of the most driven people I’ve ever met.”

Plus, Walsh adds, Young is a rock star when it comes to social media. “She’s always been really engaged,” he says, noting that she is great about responding to her fans and giving them sneak peeks into her process. Mainstream radio play, appearances on late night shows and record sales don’t matter as much for a band like Covet, Walsh says. For indie groups, he explains, it’s about slowly building a fan base and keeping them engaged, so they’ll come to shows, buy merch and continue to show support.

“I think they can expect the typical indie rock band process,” he says of Covet. “Keep putting out music and keep touring and if it’s genuine and it’s good, they’ll keep climbing.”

BOYS CLUB

If Young seeks to downplay compliments concerning her guitar chops, it may be more than a function of modesty. As a female in a male-dominated field, she says, fawning praise can quickly take a condescending or creepy turn.

She explains that sometimes fans approach her after shows to tell her how impressed they were with her abilities. Often these people offer genuine praise, but sometimes there is a not-so-subtle subtext: that she is an amazing guitar player… for a girl.

And then there is the outright sexism—the suggestion, which she sees online more than hears in person—that the only reason she has found success is because of her gender and appearance. That she’s a novelty act and little more.

In an effort to head off haters at the pass, she and her bandmates have sought to take their physical appearance off the table altogether.

“I don’t want to rock the girl-guitarist angle,” Young says, quickly adding that she would never judge any woman who decided to do so. It’s just not her personal style. And so, in music videos, like the one Covet just completed for their forthcoming single, “Aries,” Young, Adamiak and Grimshaw wear costumes. “Just to completely take that problem out of the equation, I’d rather it just be about my instrument. I just want to be a guitarist, a musician, a person.”

ANCHORS AWEIGH

For someone who has had their doubts about pursuing the life of a rock star, Young certainly doesn’t act like it in the “Aries” video. In the clip, she and her band completely destroy a room—which they built specifically for the shoot in Young’s parents’ garage. She laughs as she excitedly explains the concept. The video, she says, should come out around the time she and her band hit the road with Polyphia in February.

The fact that her parents have the garage—and were willing to sign off on her crazy music video concept—is not lost on Young. As a touring musician, it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to afford a home of her own in Saratoga anytime soon, if ever. She says that now, at 25, she feels   the pressure to find a place of her own and to fully support herself.

But at the moment, her resolve is strong—as it was when she was powering her way through college and playing through the physical and mental pain of that piano recital at age 13. And so, she is committed to ride her current wave of good fortune, allowing it to take her where it may.

“Everything in my life is pushing me to do this,” she says. “It’s not the ‘smartest’ move, but my gut—and my heart—tells me this is the right move.”

Despite some dazzling math rock chops, and a growing fanbase, local singer, songwriter and guitarist Yvette Young is still green when it comes to playing in a band. Her new math-prog rock group, Covet, makes their South Bay debut this Saturday at Homestead Bowl, playing their second show ever.

This doesn’t mean Young is new to music. She’s simply been going it alone for the majority of the past five years. She started posting videos of herself playing music to YouTube in 2009, when she first moved to L.A. Young quickly found an audience, but still only occasionally played shows, and never in L.A.—only in San Jose when she was visiting home on vacation.

“I got a lot more fans through Facebook and YouTube than shows,” Young says. “It just comes with the territory of the Internet generation, where everything’s online. It’s funny because I don’t have a lot of local fans. I have fans across the sea, in other countries—that’s just how I got most of my fans.”

Her solo material is a natural fit for YouTube. Unlike Covet’s hard-edged, driving prog-rock elements, Young’s solo material is intimate acoustic music—a blend of gorgeous singer-songwriter folk tunes and technical math-rock licks. The songs are catchy and emotional, but part of the appeal lies in watching her fingers work their magic, as they fly between the bridge of the guitar and its fretboard, picking and tapping what sounds like multiple guitar parts at once.

Earlier this year, Young released her solo Acoustics EP, but Covet is where she’s placing her focus these days. Upon moving back to San Jose, the songwriter immediately set to assembling her band. It took a while, but she found Ben Wallace-Ailsworth (drums) and David Adamiak (bass) to play with, and together they started developing several songs she had written on her electric guitar specifically for an ensemble. As a trio, they are able to wow audiences with their combined technical prowess, but showing off isn’t what Young is going for. With Covet, as with her solo material, her goal is simple: to make music that sounds good.

“When I write, I want it to sound pretty,” she says. “That’s all I really care about. I listen to a lot of post-rock, and a lot of it is very beautiful. There are moments of planned dissonance, but it’s to create tension to resolve it again with something beautiful.”

Young has developed a unique finger-tapping technique, which she attributes to having learned to play piano before ever picking up the guitar. “I started piano when I was four,” she says. “It helps with separating your right and left hand, so you can do different things. As a soloist, I’ve had to find ways to play so that when people close their eyes, they hear something really full.”

Her success on YouTube led to a solo tour in Japan earlier this year, where she played in front of as many as 100 people at one show. Before going there, a friend showed her some fan-made cover videos of her songs, but it was still a shock when she went there and met people who’d waited years to see her live.

“I was super surprised I even had fans there. It’s so crazy,” Young says. “A ton of people came up to me after the show for pictures and autographs. I’ve never signed autographs before, so it was very awkward, but also flattering. It felt like a dream.”

She hasn’t made many solo videos for YouTube lately. When she uploads something it’s generally to show off new gear or give people a sneak peek of something Covet is working on.

“The band is my priority right now because I’ve been sitting on these songs for so long and I want to get them fleshed out and recorded,” she says. “I love playing as a band way more than solo because the attention is dispersed and not only on me. I’m bad with crowds. I definitely still value my solo work. I am working on a few more acoustic songs. I always feel like there is so much to do, so many ideas, but so little time.”

Covet play Homestead Bowl in Cupertino on Saturday, Dec. 20 at 8pm. More info.