These articles are reprinted from the Sony Magazines group - PATiPATi, WHAT's IN?, UB, and Gb.
This is a translation of a reprint of an interview that originally appeared in PATi-PATi, October 1996 issue, shortly before the recording of True began. This was reprinted for the Box Set of The 15th anniversary in formation. The translation is based on the reprinted version.
BEGIN INTERVIEW
As intensely hot and sharp as he may appear on stage, the vocalist of L'Arc~en~Ciel is always surrounded by a fluffy yet mysterious air. Now, let us ask hyde for seven wonderful dreams...
---
Autumn
I like this time of year, when autumn turns to winter. Because somehow, human warmth becomes tangible during this season. For example, whenever someone goes out to eat, they'll invite others, saying "Let's go get something warm to eat." I guess I like that atmosphere. It feels nice to sleep, too, you know. Makes me want to spend the whole day curled up in my futon. And I also like the sadness of it. Falling leaves and so on. I think it's kind of romantic, too. What does autumn remind me of?! Uhm.... Bonfires, I guess. I like camping, I used to do it a lot. Bonfires are great to have when it's cold out. Ah, I guess it reminds me of those nights. Oh, and sanma (1). Obviously, it goes with autumn.
---
Self
Right now, I'm mostly interested in recording the next album. Right at the moment, that's all I can think about. When it comes to myself, if I were to analyze myself, I guess I'm a cold person. That, and an optimist. These days, I'm really trying to be more optimistic. But, I think that by doing that, the cold side of myself will end up having even more influence. For example, imagine there was someone at work that I couldn't quite seem to get along with. When that happens, I tell myself "Well, that person still has good points, so there's no helping it." Then, if those good points turn out not to be good enough, I go "Oh well, forget it. I'll just ignore that person." Isn't that cold?! (laughs) You know, I think I want to get better at speaking. I have a feeling my life would be more fun that way. It doesn't occur to me to start talking to people, so my conversations go nowhere. So, I think the girls I date get bored. Because I don't talk to them much. I wanna get better at speaking.
Space
A while back, there was a map of space published in Newton (2). Looking at it got my heart fluttering. There's the Milky Way, you know, that's the centre of our galaxy. The solar system, where Earth is, is just a tiny dot at the corner of the galaxy. Then, if you could see the galaxy from above, it would look round, but from the side it's actually narrow. Like a thread. And then from Earth, we can just see the Milky Way. Because we're looking at the centre from over in the corner. Isn't that fascinating?! What if I could go anywhere?! I'd want to go to another planet that has life. You know, I used to be afraid of that when I was a little kid. In magazines made for kids, they'd draw faces on the planets and stuff like that, you know. Mr. Jupiter, Mr. Saturn, and so on. That always creeped me out. And aliens, that just wasn't cool. What if I could only bring one thing to space?! ........My bride.
Rain
When it rains, I feel rather calm. On rainy days, no one really wants to go outside, right? So instead, I get to look at the day differently, and wonder "What can we do indoors today?" It makes me very excited. When I was a kid, there was a park about five minutes away from my house, and I used to play there with a couple of friends there. This one time, it started raining all of a sudden, and it rained really hard, with thunder and lightning, so intense that I couldn't go home even though it was only five minutes away. Plus, there wasn't anything nearby that we could use for shelter, all we could do was huddle by the wall of the gym next door. There wasn't anything above us so we got soaked anyway. The water went up to my knees, and it was running like crazy. I had to slosh my way through it. (laughs) Sticking to the wall. Then I saw this old guy come running up, sticking to the wall. Of course, he was having a hard time too (laughs).
Love (3)
I hate it. Koi have such an ugly face and they just hang around with their mouths open. It's gross, you know? (Wrong koi! It's supposed to be koi as in Love) Ah yes, you want me to talk about love. Love, to me, is a powerful drug. When I'm in love, my heart is pounding constantly. On the other hand, when I can finally calm down, it means it's another kind of love. When I can relax, it's a different kind of love. I think the passionate, exciting love is just a part of the greater whole. It's just a piece of this great big bond (he makes a big circle with his hands) that connects people.
Dreams
I have a lot of dreams. I had a good one recently, but it's kind of embarrassing so I won't tell you (laughs). A while back, I realized that I was dreaming while I was still asleep. In my dream, I went "Hey, am I dreaming?!" and then started bragging to everyone else in the dream. "Hey I bet none of you realize this, but we're actually in a dream right now." And everyone answered "Oh yeah, I guess you're right." And, in my dream, I knew how to wake up. I could go "Hey this is a dream!" to somebody, then tell them "If you just do this, it'll wake you up." The trick was to just move my eyeballs upward without opening them. Then, in the dream, I woke up, and thought "Aw, I woke up. I should've taken the chance to do bad stuff," like a naughty little kid. I was thinking of all the stuff I'd do if I had a dream like that again, then I realized "Hey, I'm still dreaming!" but then I woke up for real. I haven't had another dream like that ever since. The coolest dream I ever had was like, I was at the top of a mountain, and there was a UFO battling an airplane. That was about two years ago. They were fighting right there, in the sky. With missiles and everything. I was just a normal person, watching from the ground, going "Woooow, awesome~". It was so intense it was almost scary, I guess. Lately, I've been dreaming about Mount Fuji. About climbing Mount Fuji. A while ago, I saw this thing on TV about it, and they said that the mountain doesn't belong to the government. Did you know that?! It actually belongs to a shrine. I think it's called Asama Shrine, and it owns everything from the summit to I don't know how far down, and then everything below that belongs to the government. Apparently they fought over it, in court, after the war. And the shrine won. Oh, and the shrine was given the mountain by Tokugawa Ieyasu(4).
My childhood dream?! I wanted to be Kamen Rider (5). My mom tells me I was really crazy about Kamen Rider, I had Kamen Rider stuff on my bike and everything, and I'd get bath towels to make a cape and run around the neighbourhood like that every single day. (laughs) Then, I'd jump down three flights of stairs, like Wooo~. Sounds like I really wanted that costume (laughs).
Mystery
I like mysteries. They make my heart beat faster. But you know, when I get around to looking up something I find mysterious, I get bored halfway through. But, it's not good to want something to stay mysterious. Things need to be solved. We can't just say "That's the way it is, the end." Obviously, I can't expect to understand things when even the experts haven't figured them out yet. I just get bored when I don't understand. Well, I guess I get bored even when I do understand (laughs). Women are a mystery. I used to not understand them at all, but now, I think I basically understand them.
- Interviewer: Itou Aki
Translated by Natalie Arnold
1. Sanma is a type of fish that is in season during autumn and therefore is a typical meal of this time of year, in Japan.
Go back.
2. Newton is a scientific periodical, probably the most well-read of its kind in Japan. Incidentally, some of hyde's comments about space and the galaxy are not quite correct.
Go back.
3. The word "koi" can mean either Love or Carp. hyde pretended he thought the question was about the fish, at first.
Go back.
4. Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the three warlors who unified Japan at the dawn of the 17th century. He even ruled the country as shogun himself for a few years.
Go back.
5. Kamen Rider is a live-action children's series about a costumed fighter. In English, it is called Masked Rider.
Go back.
This is a translation of a reprint of an interview that originally appeared in PATi PATi, August 1996 issue, promoting the release of 'Kaze ni kienaide'. It was reprinted for the Box Set of The 15th anniversary in formation. This translation is based on the reprinted version.
Note : 'Kaze ni kienaide' means 'Don't vanish in the wind'.
Begin Interview
[Joyous, happy, and yet there is a bit of a depressive sort of feeling thrown in... ...]. Toying with the tips of his freshly-cut hair, tetsu spoke of this new song in a somewhat embarrassed tone. [Kaze ni kienaide] - Let us chase this long-awaited single from L'Arc~en~Ciel.
-----
This song is like the wind.
To be more precise, it feels as though one were riding on the wind, looking down at the world from up in the sky. What it calls to mind is a bird's eye view. What comes after the green earth must surely be the horizon, followed by the blue sky. It's "Refreshing", or perhaps "a bit of dash" of a song. Thinking about these expressions leads one to the conclusion that there is something more to this song than mere words can describe. Even after hearing it many times, it remains a song like the wind, this one.
These are the thoughts that I had upon being handed the tape and listening to the song without knowing so much as its title.
Hearing that it was called 'Kaze ni kienaide', I felt that, wow, they got that right.
- First, let's have your thoughts on the tour.
tetsu : [It was fun. I've got all sorts of memories from every stop.]
ken : [Oh yeah, Ichikawa especially, that's full of memories. Cause, I made my debut as a singer there (laughs). It's like, just before we started, I said "I wanna sing some Earthshaker." (1) Then in Ichikawa, they were like "ken-chan, wanna do MORE? (song title)" and I said "Sure, let's do it." So, I asked the staff "Can we play it?", and well, there were some who were all for it and some who were dead against it, so it was for us to decide. There's no bass in it, so I asked tetsu. I said to him "As soon as the opening starts up I'm gonna run out, so you do the MC." That said, the audience got pulled in. It's one heck of a long opening, though.]
tetsu : [We did it as an encore, and I was introducing the members. I said "The vocalist is a secret." I thought my MC was pretty good, but that intro is way too long. ken-chan just stood there and didn't come out, and I was stuck with the audience. Like "Whaddya want me to do?" (laughs)]
hyde : [Meanwhile, I was watching from the electrical room. I was in the same position as the crowd. He was... ... (whispers something to sakura).]
sakura : [We did all kinds of stuff.]
- What were you doing?
sakura : [Nah, it might not be a good idea to go into that... ]
ken : [Too late now! (laughs)]
sakura : [Fine. That time, I snuck into the crowd and climbed onto the stage from the front.]
- Oh? How did that turn out?
ken : [There was a runway, you know? While I was singing, I looked down and all of a sudden there was this weird, gay-looking person on there. I was just thinking I'd seen him someplace before when I realized it was sakura in a gay outfit. I hadn't thought he'd actually climb up from the audience so I was surprised. Then, he blew me a kiss.]
sakura : [I was wearing sunglasses, so the fans didn't know who I was. I think at first, people really thought I was a chick. I guess I must've looked just like my mom. (All burst out laughing)]
ken : [With a wig and everything......]
hyde : ["Hiya Mommy~" (laughs)]
sakura : [Yeah, well back in the dressing room, I looked like a top model. I was in such a hurry though, so I just went "Quick! The wig!" Then when I took it all off, I stood there with no clothes on and went "Quick! Panda!"]
- P-Panda???
sakura : [Yep. A panda suit. For the first song of the encore I was dressed like a girl, and for the second one I was a panda.]
- Hahahahahahahaha! (<- cracking up)
ken : [He did the panda thing without telling the staff, too. So, they thought a fan girl had climbed onto the stage or something, so they were running around going "That's sakura right? It is him, right?" like they had to make sure. (laughs out loud)]
sakura : ["Obviously, it's me. I go out on stage like this." Anyway, the point is that Ichikawa was the last stop on the tour. We heard that the staff members were planning a prank, and so we weren't gonna let them outdo us.]
- What did the members of your staff do to you?
hyde : [They'd take a clipping of a naked chick and stick it near my feet, or at the bottom of my drinks, or wherever. Sometimes they'd stick notes instead, that said stuff I can't repeat here (laughs).]
- So, while you were on tour, you also managed to record this new song, right? Didn't that make for an awfully tight schedule?
tetsu : [It's not like we went into the tour planning on recording at the same time, so we were pushing it when we scheduled in that recording. We did it by rushing back to Tokyo at certain intervals in the tour and recording during the moments we had there. Like, we recorded the drums, then the bass came a while later. On the other hand, because of that, there was more time to listen to Moto-chan's drumming (2). Since I was listening so closely, the bass turned out to be really easy to play. There was time, so I could listen to it over and over, practicing each part.]
- How was it for you, hyde-san?
hyde : [Normally for lives I shout more, but to go straight from that to the fine nuances needed in a recording was difficult. Also, I took better care of my throat than I had during any previous tour. I brought a humidifier wherever we went, absolutely everywhere.]
- Are you personally fond of any particular phrase in the lyrics?
ken : [Maybe "mou ii yo" (laughs). (3)]
tetsu : [I like "Iki mo Dekinai hodo Kimi ni kowareteru." (4) At a time like that, you really can't breathe, can you?]
- I can relate.
tetsu : [Yeah. It hurts just to breathe. ... ... You know what I'm talking about?]
- Er... ... Ha, hahaha (sneers). tetsu-san, you wrote the melody, right?
tetsu : [I wrote it on the night of Valentine's Day.]
- Wow, you have a good memory.
tetsu : [Yep. My working title was "Valentine no Yuuutsu." (5)]
- Did anything special happen that pushed you to compose this song?
tetsu : [Yeah, there really was. I'm an ordinary guy, you know? I've had a romance or two. There've been happy days and sad days. It's like, joyous, happy, and yet there is a bit of a depressive sort of feeling thrown in.]
- How was the response when you performed it live?
ken : [We did 'Kaze ni kienaide' from Kyoto on, and 'I'm so happy' right from the start, and we got all kinds of reactions. Even stuff like "I've finally memorized the lyrics. It's a good song." A letter like that came after we did it two, three times. I don't get how anyone could put so much effort into learning all the words, though.]
sakura : [Maybe they're taping it or something?]
tetsu : [Or writing it down in shorthand?]
ken : [I guess. Getting it all down in writing that we could never read.]
sakura : [Maybe they can read lips from far away (laughs).]
ken : [Going "That looks like it's gotta be an 'o'" and then writing it down?]
tetsu : [That's gotta be it (laughs).]
ken : [But, they really did learn the most important words and stuff, and they sang along with us.]
hyde : [Oh, and that day, I said to a girl that wasn't coming to the concert : "We're doing a new song today." Then she wrote me a letter saying "I heard the new song was great. I want a chance to hear it soon, too."]
sakura : [I got a letter kinda like that too. "I went to the first half of the tour, not the second half, so I didn't get to hear the new song. You're terrible." Calling us terrible... that's terrible! (laughs)]
hyde : [I wanted to let everyone hear the new song, but we only did it from Kyoto onward. It's cause until Kyoto, the song wasn't done yet. So, I apologize to everyone who came to the first half of the tour, but the song wasn't ready so it couldn't be helped.]
tetsu : [We really wanted to play it from the very beginning of the tour, but we decided to wait until the recording was over, and that didn't happen till Kyoto.]
sakura : [It's 'cause we figured the core of the song was gonna change while we recorded it. That's why we wanted to wait until it was all done.]
- One last question. Is there anything you absolutely must tell people about this new song?
tetsu : [...... "kienaide" isn't kanji, it's hiragana.]
sakura : ["Kaze de kienaide" is mine, all mine. (6)]
- ... Wha?
sakura : [Even if you catch a cold, don't vanish, don't take a day off, you know.]
- Ah. ... I heard you jumped into the pool at the wrap party at NHK Hall.
sakura : [Nah, that didn't make me catch a cold. My leather pants got all wrinkled, but I knew that was gonna happen. Would rubbing some mayonnaise on fix it?]
- Heh... (seems to be holding back laughter)
ken : [Maybe they could be beef jerky pants... ( <- lost in deep thought)]
I have reflected on why it is that people find it so easy to judge others based on 'appearances'. Of the five human senses, sight is certainly the most fundamental. Everyone claims to have their own way of seeing things, yet compared to the other senses this one is the sketchiest. Easy to understand = born from a feeling of safety. It may be a sweetness (or insensitivity) peculiar to mankind.
The sense of sight is directly linked to the visual. For instance, it is impossible to determine a person's inner self from the visual alone, and of course 'appearances' are not how one listens to music. However, knowing a person's "likes", "tastes", "hero figures", "life changes" and so on, allows for a slightly better understanding of them, or so I have come to think.
These four have said such things as "I'm sticking my foot out," and "It's sandal season already," and "I wear glasses to join the intelligentsia," as though they wanted to make fun of themselves (<- Are they being shy? If so, that's so cute), and after a good period of bluster, they also responded with these words: "How is it? The New Visual. It's gotten the best response."
Although these words came during a lengthy period of laughter, there may be a grain of truth hidden within. I could not help but think: "Ah, there's a fragment I can understand."
- Interviewer : Itou Aki
Translated by Natalie Arnold
1. Earthshaker is a Japanese heavy metal band that was most popular in the late 1980s.Go back.
2. 本チャン. I'm not sure who he means... This kanji is not anywhere in sakura's name, so it can't mean him. Go back.
3. Meaning "Enough", this phrase is very commonly spoken by the submissive partner in sexual situations.Go back.
4. This line translates to "Broken by you to the point of not breathing."Go back.
5. Meaning "Valentine Depression," and also possibly a play on the earlier single "Natsu no Yuuutsu".Go back.
6. He is claiming ownership of a bad pun involving Kaze = 'wind' and Kaze = 'a cold'.Go back.
This is a translation of a reprint of an interview that originally appeared in PATi-PATi, July 1996 issue. This is the first interview that Itou Aki held with ken and tetsu, respectively. He is the writer of many of the interviews that appear in these magazines, so it is quite interesting to see these First Impressions This was reprinted for the Box Set of The 15th anniversary in formation. The translation is based on the reprinted version.
BEGIN INTERVIEW
If L'Arc~en~Ciel were a great bird upon the stage, its left and right wings would be the guitarist, ken, and the bassist, tetsu. What are they thinking, right now? Where do they intend to fly?
*****
We discuss his return to Tokyo after spending a long time away: the season had changed.
ken [But you know, I went around the whoooole country in my my leather jacket. No matter how hot it got. And I'm wearing it today too, see? (laughs).]
During the tour, he received fireworks from a fan. Having wanted so badly to set them off, he spares no effort in recounting the episode, his expression like that of a child describing his summer vacation voyage. That emotion effortlessly draws everyone around, myself included, into Joy.
ken [The live was over. We travelled at night, in our bus, so when we got to the hotel it must have been about 1 AM, I guess. The hotel was exactly directly in front of the beach, so I went over to a pier or something nearby, and I had about 50 rockets, WhizzzzzzBANG! Kept launching them like that. And then, I could see somebody in the hotel window and it looked like they were waving to me so I figured it meant "Yay, this is fun," so I went "Allright!" and got even more enthusiastic, and then later on I got complaints from the front desk. We were on tour! Doing stuff like that lets me forget how busy I am and get my mind off things. Because I'm really that busy (laughs).]
It is as though he was born with a switch inside him that can turn negatives into positives. That switch makes itself known, through his music and all of his life's work, without his even noticing it.
ken [But you know, it wasn't even like that before. Exclusive? It gets to be like that sometimes, it does. Even in music, there have been times where I just couldn't not use distortion on my guitar. And then, it got to the point where I was to listen to a whole bunch of CDs, and right now I just need to listen to the ones I like and absorb them completely.]
ken [Interviews? I really like them. Because, you know, there's no other place where I can have someone listen to me talk and go on and on and babble about whatever I want, like this (laughs).]
ken [I get bored easily, you know. But not with the band, I'm sticking with that... It's not like I'm making myself stick with it or anything, really, it's just that it's so much fun, and it stays fun. I guess it's like, since we're going to do this, we might as well have fun doing it.]
When it comes to guitar, he takes back his self-proclaimed easily-bored status.
ken [I have no idea why I haven't gotten bored with it, it doesn't seem to me like I'm any good at it. I don't listen to other people (laughs). But when I do listen to others, they say some really great things. I know how good that feels, so maybe that's why I can't stop.]
Some people can naturally "feel good" and promote that Joy in a a gripping, pleasant atmosphere. That is my first impression.
*****
L'Arc~en~Ciel took off on a two-week journey for the sake of their nationwide tour. In mid April, they began their travels in the north, coming down south in a reversal of the cherry-blossom front (1). It is said that all their travel was done by bus, at night.
This interview was held on the 14th day of the journey, on the day they returned home from Shikoku. The first conversation concerned their travels. (Of course, I was the one to bring it up) He spoke on the subject of long trips, which he does not enjoy.
tetsu [I'm not comfortable being away from my home for weeks at a time. Because then I can't see the people I want to see any time I want to see them. I like the actual lives, though.]
Is it not difficult to pass the time, particularly during these long journeys? Naturally, I had to ask him such questions.
tetsu [No, not at all. I have so many things to do until the live starts.]
It is said that such is always the case, even as the number of lives increases.
What a serious person. That is my first impression.
It may also be a side effect of the strong impression he makes by carefully choosing his words and speaking them at his leisure.
tetsu [What I'm into, lately? Buying CDs. That's always been the case, though. Lately, I've been listening to globe and DREAMS COME TRUE (2) a lot, backstage. globe release about five singles per album, don't they? There's no doubt that those are fun songs, right? (laughs).]
He seems very careful, and though he is quiet, he seems like a good person. That is my second impression.
Charmed by his kindness, I ask him a sillier question: Do you sing along?
tetsu [I sing the whole songs, actually. KEIKO's part. My falsetto is high (laughs).]
10 PM. His first Tokyo night in a long time. Once this chat is finished, he will have work to attend to.
tetsu [Tough? ....It really.... isn't. Because, this is what I need to do to have people listen to our songs. That's why I don't mind doing interviews like this, either, yeah.]
The end of the end. I tried asking him this question: -If you had a day off, what would you do?
tetsu [Play with my friends.]
-And if you had a week off?
tetsu [Play with a lot of friends.]
-If you had a month?
tetsu [.....I'd play with even more friends.]
-Are you the type to constantly stay in touch?
tetsu [Well, no, not exactly. I get told "You never ever call!" Even though I want to treasure all my friends.]
The interview is over. He is holding two weeks of fan letters (It seems that he reads them all in his spare time). He heads to the recording studio to work on TD.
The next day, the new song was finished.
Words - Itou Aki
Translated by Natalie Arnold
1. The cherry-blossom front is the phenomenon that occurs across Japan every spring. Cherry trees, which are common all over the country, bloom first in the southernmost islands, followed by progressively northern areas, in a northward Front pf pink flowers. Go back.
2. DREAMS COME TRUE is a Japanese pop band composed of Nakamura Masato and Yoshida Miwa. They formed in the late 1980s and are still active today. globe is another Japanese pop band, but as they only formed in 1995, they were a new phenomenon at the time of this interview. The group is composed of Komuro Tetsuya, singer KEIKO, and rapper Marc Panther who is, in fact, French.
Go back.
This is a translation of a reprint of an interview that originally appeared in PATi-PATi, June 1996 issue. This is the first interview that Itou Aki held with hyde and sakura, respectively. The other half was printed in the July issue of the same magazine. This was reprinted for the Box Set of The 15th anniversary in formation. The translation is based on the reprinted version.
BEGIN INTERVIEW
L'Arc~en~Ciel has become such a household name that the oddly foreign word no longer bothers the ear. Though I feel it is far past due, on this occasion of their first appearance here in PATi-PATi, I wish to get to know them as more than a band; as individuals. First, hyde and sakura...
-----
Seated directly across from his handsome features, I find that, unlike what I had imagined, his presence fills the room with an amiable air. In that peaceful atmosphere, he was able to do that which should be unthinkable in a first interview (though perhaps only unthinkable to me) and rested comfortably in agreeable silences.
hyde [Recently? Let me see... I've been picking out furniture. Because I moved.]
It seems that he had spent half a year searching and searching for the perfect articles. [I have deep desires (laughs) which is why it took so long.] Such was his explanation, which also impacts his band activities.
hyde [There is a certain perfection that I seek out. It applies to everything. To my work with the band, and to my personal life. This year, I think I'd like to focus on my own life. I think that the more I do for myself, the more I can do for the band.]
It seems that he was extremely concerned with the overall image of L'Arc~en~Ciel, until he saw the video of last year's live at Budoukan (1).
hyde [I saw the video over and over while it was being edited, and kept thinking "This isn't even the kind of vocalist I wanted to be," over and over again. It's strengthened my desire to express my true self, and to do it soon. That's why, this year, I think I want to put more work into myself.]
Speaking of areas where he is confident:
hyde [I've become confident because... because I'm happy, I guess? I'm incredibly happy right now. When I write lyrics, I can feel it. I'm sure it affects my personal life too, and I think it will be clear through the lyrics I write from now on.]
As for the concerns of ordinary life, he says "It all feels like a game (laughs)." He is so happy that it makes him laugh. Heh, I wish he could share that with me.
hyde [Things I want to do? It can be anything? Let's see... I want to go for a drive. I just bought a new car. I have time off once in a while, but I can't really take off because I'm supposed to be writing new songs, you know? Since I have things I'm supposed to be doing, I feel like I'm doing something wrong if I run off to go play. So, I end up staying home. Then, when I tell myself "Time to write a song," I end up arranging my new furniture in my head (laughs).]
Just for driving, he had five MDs(2) filled with his favourite songs, so all that he has left to do is to actually drive the car. However, his songwriting progressed during the tour, and then, he naturally had those songs left over for recording.
hyde [A little while back, I bought a new guitar. I gave it a name. I called it Batman. (laughs) Since I have to write songs, I thought I'd take it on tour with me. Oh, but I showed it to a friend and he was kind of shocked (laughs).]
With these words, my talk with this happy man was concluded.
*****
Halfway through the interview, he unflinchingly pulled to his lips the one-litre bottle that had been in front of him and emptied it in a flash, although it had been one-third full of Pocari Sweat (3). Manly (or perhaps simply chaotic), natural (or perhaps extremely random) and brusque in his actions, I still could not help but feel that he was not allowing me to see his true self.
sakura [Tours? They're such a pain. I like travelling, and I love playing lives, but I think tours are a pain. We have to be at this place at that time on this date, and I really hate having things decided for me like that. I figure I must be a natural free spirit. I hate being in a group. I've always been like that. I'd rather play by myself.]
And yet, he has come far with this band. I said as much, and he replied:
sakura [That's because I like them.] As if it were perfectly obvious. Yet the talk continued...
sakura [Humans are stuck thinking two-dimensionally. Like they can only walk. Multiply this times that. The natural world isn't like that. It's three-dimensional.]
sakura [In India, they have three gods.]
sakura [Hydrogen is the first element, you know.]
sakura [It was humans who decided that there were 365 days in a year. A long time ago, like in Egypt, they had a monthly system that matched the flooding of the Nile river.
sakura [I think that harmony, for humans, has to come from overcoming the five desires and five senses... Oh hey, don't I sound like a priest or something? (laughs)]
sakura [Japanese is 95% expression.]
And on it went. In any case, it seems that his mind moves swiftly. And then, it came to this:
sakura [Sometimes I start thinking about a lot of things, and it's as if the answers are already inside me, and even if I got the answers out, they have nothing to do with the fact that I'm alive, right now.]
He turns a cold eye to the fact of his own existence.
sakura [Cold? Well... I've been told I am, by women. But, I've also been told that I'm nicer than I look. Hm, that one probably happens more often? (laughs)]
It seems that his personality has another side.
sakura [I used to worry about all this tension I had bottled up inside me, you know, like for example on the day of a live, I'd make sure I was in the best possible condition to go on stage, but these days it doesn't matter to me any more. Even if I'm feeling bad, that can be fun in it's own way, too. "Ah, I feel terrible, I'm in bad shape, but this is fun." (laughs) It's great, and I guess this sounds like I'm just saying whatever comes to mind, but I feel really positive lately, you know.]
This ability to laugh and move forward even when feeling down is a mark of the original free spirit, positive thinking. I saw the ease of his far-ranging conversation.
Words - Itou Aki
Translated by Natalie Arnold
1. That would be the final live of TOUR heavenly '95, held December 27, 1995, at Nippon Budoukan which is Tokyo's most famous venues. Go back.
2. In this case, probably stands for Magnetic Disc. High tech for the mid 90s, this would essentially just be a long-lasting and high quality mix tape. Go back.
3. An oddly named Japanese sports drink that does not actually taste like sweat. The name is probably a corruption of sweet, while also being linked to the sweat produced by athletes, to whom the drink is marketed.Go back.