CLUB SCAR - From Banned Pokémon to Creating Her World in Tokyo
© CLUB SCAR
In Tokyo’s ever-expanding creative landscape, identity is rarely fixed. Its streets have long attracted souls who arrive carrying different histories, influences, and contradictions, reshaping themselves while bringing pieces of their past along the way.
For Nathalie Scarlette, the artist behind CLUB SCAR, her creative output has become a space where these different parts can exist together: Chilean heritage, Japanese subculture, cars, and the creative universes that surround her.
Before stepping into music, Nathalie spent years behind the camera, directing music videos and shaping the visual identities of other artists. She became someone who could understand and translate another person’s vision, yet it took time before she allowed herself to become the centre of her own creative universe.
Now, through CLUB SCAR, she is exploring what happens when those boundaries between musician, director, and storyteller begin to disappear.
From growing up in Melbourne’s Chilean community to finding her place within Tokyo’s creative circles, Nathalie’s work reflects a constant dialogue between different worlds, and herself. Rather than trying to define herself through one genre, one culture, or one artistic medium, CLUB SCAR exists as a reflection of everything that shaped her.
We sat down with Nathalie to talk about music, identity, and finally allowing people into her own world.
Who is CLUB SCAR?
Club Scar is either me or a host club in Kabukicho, according to Google. No connection, but it would be cool to play there someday!
I’m an artist, ex-(ish) director, and photographer. I’m an extremely nerdy human being who spends most of my days watching documentaries about manga artists or hanging out at Nakano Broadway.
I grew up in a small Chilean community in Melbourne, Australia, alongside other Chilean families who had escaped during the dictatorship. I grew up as an outsider, quite literally displaced from my country. But it’s what eventually led me to Japan, so I will forever be grateful for everything that brought me here.
I am also very allergic to okra, haha.
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What did music mean for you while growing up in such a small community?
I’ve been singing since I was a child. I wasn’t very book-smart or particularly good at school. I think not knowing English fluently until I was in my preteens caused me to really reject school, so I just leaned into music heavilyyyyyy.
It’s a long story, but my family was part of a religious group that wouldn’t allow us to listen to non-religious music or watch Pokémon, haha, so I was risking it all to access it in every way possible.
I would sing at the local church every week and was eventually accepted into a music college in Melbourne. Probably a terrible decision in hindsight, haha. Mixing education with music placed so much pressure around it that I took a break from even listening to music for years.
At first, I just wanted a break because it had become so stressful. I was writing essays about the K-pop industry and failing my mixing, engineering, and production classes more times than I can count. I turned to shooting after that. I would photograph other bands and artists and make their music videos. I became really comfortable making everyone else’s dreams come true…except my own.
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You’ve been active in Tokyo’s creative scene for years. What inspired the transition from visual art to music?
When I moved to Japan, I started working with artists and bands whom I loved and believed in so deeply, often giving every part of my life force to see their projects through. When I moved here, I had no idea whether anyone would be interested in working with someone who had such a different background and only elementary Japanese.
But the community took me in with the warmest embrace I had ever felt. They saw value in me when I didn’t even see it myself. It’s truly thanks to them that I found the confidence to pursue my own music. I owe Tokyo everything.
After my third year here in Tokyo, I went on a trip to Seoul with one of my oldest friends. While walking, I saw a huge hand-painted banner. It said:
“Life is short. Go after what you love.”
I kid you not, my eyes welled up with tears. Not just because of the message, but because I knew deep inside myself that I had spent years building the worlds of the people around me while neglecting to invite anyone into mine.
I was afraid. That was the truth.
The fear of: What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m just adding to the noise?
Being vulnerable is terrifying. Believing in yourself is terrifying. When you’re starting something new, people will absolutely think you’re delusional. But, as the sacred scripture states, delulu is the solulu.
And the fear of regret was screaming louder than the fear of failure.
So, with no clue how to even begin, I opened my Discover Weekly playlist and came across a song that completely moved me musically. I checked the credits, looked up the producer, and little did I know how much that one moment would completely change my life.
It’s how I met Tomas, aka RED FINGERS
To my surprise, he was one of Chile’s most successful and talented producers. And one of the kindest people I have had the honor of meeting. Coincidentally, he already followed me because he had come across “Coming of Age Story,” a music video I directed for Brandy Senki, my favorite band in the world.
I still believe we must have magically manifested one another at the perfect time.
He needed a creative director. I needed a producer. But we both walked away with a friend for life.
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What has it been like bringing Chilean and Japanese influences together?
I grew up listening to so much latin music, but I was also deeply drawn to alternative electronic music, breakcore, lo-fi house, techno - all kinds of shit, really.
One of the first hyperpop groups I discovered after coming to Japan was StarKids. I was in absolute AWE. The confidence and visual world they had built as self-proclaimed outcasts was so incredibly beautiful. I went down a rabbit hole of discovering more and more. In Tokyo, it’s truly endless.
Being here in Japan was also the first time I got to meet and shoot with some of my favorite Latin artists, like Tainy (irrefutably the greatest of all time) and Rauw Alejandro and work on the rollout for NVSCVR’s recent album + many more<3 . Funnily enough, being in Tokyo has opened so many more doors and opportunities for me to work within the Latin music scene. It’s such a global city, loved by so many people.
Tokyo is my chosen home. Its music, fashion, and culture have influenced me so greatly that I can’t deny they have formed a huge part of who I am. But Chile runs through my veins. Spanish was the first language I learned to speak and the language in which I first developed my consciousness.
Even though I live apart from it, my dream has always been to create a world in which I can bring Chile and Japan together. That is my greatest truth: not denying either one.
I am still figuring out the sound and how the two can coexist, but that’s my mission. I think our art should be as much of a reflection of who we are as possible. For me, that reflection is Chile and Japan <3
Since you’re the one creating the music now, nobody knows the feelings behind it better than you. Does that make translating it into visuals feel more intuitive?
Since my background is in music video directing, I feel like I can’t separate the music and visuals at all. As Tomas and I build a song, I’m already plotting what colors it feels like and what it means visually.
‘Motion’ was such a fun track to make, and I wanted it to feel like a celebration of Tokyo and how much I love this city.
My dad was a mechanic, so the idea of vehicles being a centerpiece of my work feels like a way of keeping him close. While driving home from school, he would quiz me on car models, and we would spot them together while sitting in traffic.
Since I hated school with conviction, the best part of my day was the hour-long ride home in the car with my dad. I always want to include cars in my videos as an homage to him.
While we sat in traffic, he would pretend to interview me as though I were a famous singer. I think he is my biggest fan.
Funnily enough, when I work with other artists, I often have such a clear vision of their world and how I want to tell their stories. When it comes to my own world, it can be a little more challenging.
Identity has always been difficult for me because I have such a wide array of contrasting interests. I’ve always wanted to fit into some kind of mold so I could be better understood. But I think I’m learning to accept that our differences really do make us who we are.
A lot of people ask me what genre I fit into or what community I belong to. I’ve decided that it will simply be whatever I feel like at the time.
Tokyo is also such a perfect place to be a weirdo. I think that’s the biggest reason I wanted to live here.
‘Ghost’ is quite dark. It’s a song about mental health struggles, particularly the ones that run in my family, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It’s about fighting battles inside your own mind, as though you are at war with yourself.
It’s about the moments when you become your own worst enemy. It metaphorically compares the experience of living to FPS games, viewing every day as a new round you have to win.
‘Motion,’ on the other hand, is about the experience of finding yourself and finding your stride, in a completely foreign place.
They both feel and look completely different, but they are both true to how I feel and what I have experienced.
Ghost marks your second release. What can we expect from CLUB SCAR for the rest of 2026?
The name ‘Ghost’ was also inspired by Ghost in the Shell. I wanted to make a song that could somehow end up on the soundtrack of a Ghost in the Shell show or film.
If anyone from the animation studio is reading this, hello :)
I find the Major’s character incredibly relatable: someone who is strong by every measure but is searching for answers about an identity that was taken from her by force.
Figuring out not only who she was, but also coming to terms with the fact that who she once was and who she has become can coexist.
‘Ghost’ was a song and video that took around eight months to complete in total. Because of its tone and message, I really wanted to make it to the best of my ability.
From here on, though, I have quite a few releases coming back-to-back in rapid succession.
One that I’m so excited to announce is ‘GIRLS,” a song between Latin artists, Japanese artists, and me <333
Thank you for reading <3
And as the banner said: Life is short. Go after what you love.
Xoxo,
Club Scar
© CLUB SCAR
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