PSYCHIC from EXILE TRIBE, widely known as just “PSYCHIC FEVER,” has had quite the successful year in the U.S. They kicked off 2025 with their first stateside tour and made their first stateside festival appearance at the famed SXSW in Austin, Texas. Finishing off the year, they even headlined ennichi’25, a new festival experience intended to bridge Japanese music and culture with attendees in LA.
The Japanese boy group made their official debut in 2022, but they were formed in 2019 and several members had already begun making appearances in various EXILE TRIBE projects pre-debut. This raised anticipation for their debut, which could be seen in their near-immediate success. Their unique musical color, strong stage presence, and fun personalities all worked to draw in attention, especially from fans overseas. Songs like “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY” were met with unexpected viral success, and the group continued a steady climb.
Now, just three years into their career, they became headliners at a global festival created to bridge Japanese and Western cultures. With their own mixed backgrounds and inspirations, fans could think of no better group to do so. Ahead of their performance at ennichi’25, Asia Blooming sat down with the seven members of the group to discuss their career path, their music, and their global success.
Thinking back on 2025, the first thing that came to mind was the group’s first U.S. tour. “We’ve been here before, but we have never performed here before. We were kind of nervous, but once we were on stage, we were fine. We realized we just needed to be ourselves,” the group shared. “Before this U.S. tour, we would normally tour once a year in Japan. But here, we built a new tour setlist, and it went so well. We changed our strategy a little bit, and we were able to gain some more knowledge on how to do even better.”
Even for their performance at SXSW, the group’s confidence in their abilities allowed them to take the stage with little worry. “We were already inspired by a lot of 2000s R&B and dance music, so we took some essence and tips from back in the day. We took those inspirations and built a genre of our own—the PSYCHIC FEVER genre, so we were really able to just be ourselves.” Their music, their bond, and their personalities are what they believe are the driving force to their success. “We have such different personalities. We have someone who can beatbox, someone who plays guitar, someone who can pop [dance style], we have a DJ,” they began. “We even have a cowboy.”
Aside from their various performances, the boy group has also continued to release new music. Most recently, the members released “SWISH DAT,” a track created for the Japanese drama Masked NINJA Akakage. With the drama’s ninja theme in mind, the group created a song that’s intrinsically PSYCHIC FEVER, combining a modern hip hop beat with lyrics about ninjas and a flow that replicated a battle. “When preparing for this song, we got to read the scripts for Masked NINJA Akakage,” the group revealed. “When we were recording, we imagined being characters within that show. Like for JIMMY, he has a low voice, so his part is like sneaking like a ninja, being lowkey and cool.”
As each member has their own diverse backgrounds and unique skill sets, communication and collaboration become very important to make sure the group aligns and showcases their PSYCHIC FEVER color. “We always talk a lot about what we do. We have meetings all the time to decide things like setlists, concept strategies, and everything to ensure we are deciding together.” Even as they think ahead about music they’d like to release in the future, it always boils down to a general consensus. “Now, we’re getting a bit older compared to when we debuted three or four years ago,” the group started. “We have always focused more on R&B, but now we also want to go a bit deeper in our lyrics. Not just high energy hype songs, but with a more grown-up mindset. We want to portray our messages to the world through our songs, sharing messages of LOVE, DREAM, and HAPPINESS, like LDH’s company philosophy.”
At the end of the day, the group aims to showcase their talent to the world, not just for themselves, but for Japanese music as a whole. “In the West, people may not be very familiar with artists from Japan,” they admitted. “Here at ennichi’25, we have four artists from Japan that are totally different. We each have totally different genres and do different things, but it just shows how versatile Japanese artists can be. We don’t do just anime songs or just J-pop—there are multiple styles. There are so many artists with huge potential in the Japanese music industry, and we want to share that with the world.” Taking it one step at a time, their first goal is to show everyone who they are: “We want to deliver PSYCHIC FEVER globally.”
