– You quite like alcohol, don’t you?
[I do like it. Well, maybe? I guess I don’t really like it all that much.]

– Well, I guess you don’t drink your way to a pounding headache then? But, it is fun to drink a little, right? Did you start drinking a long time ago? I somehow get the impression you didn’t drink much in the past.
[I get told that by everybody but I haven’t changed much, really. It’s just that before, I didn’t open my heart much at all, so I didn’t go out drinking with people. Even when I did go, I didn’t get all that casual, did I?]

– I see. What kind of alcohol do you drink the most? I’d guess beer?
[I start off with beer. “Beer first” (laughs) (1). While I’m drinking my “first beer” I think of what to have next. Which way to go. Well, it depends on who I’m with and on the time zone, too. Sometimes I stop after that one beer, sometimes I move from beer to wine. If there are wine drinkers among the group I’m with, then we’ll get a bottle. That or shouchuu(2). If nobody else wants to get wine, I’ll drink shouchuu by myself.]

– You must drink a lot of ume no oyuwari(3) and the like, right?
[Yeah. But I was a late bloomer for shouchuu. There was a shouchuu fad just recently, too. Lots of young people drank it, right? It’s image used to be that it was the drink for old men who did manual labour. But now it seems like even young women drink it, it’s become a refined drink. I’m sure that’s how I got around to drinking it. At first, I wondered what was so good about it, and now it’s like shouchuu doesn’t get me drunk, so it’s nice. It doesn’t leave a single trace the next day. Ever since way back when, drinking barely leaves a trace on me. It’s not one of my weaknesses. I can drink up to a certain amount without getting drunk, and without it lingering.]

– I suppose you don’t get hangovers, then?
[Nope. At most, I’ll get maybe one in a year. More like one every two, three years. I regret those times. “Dammit! Why did I drink so much and make myself sick?” (laughs). Basically, I drink because it’s fun. Because I want it to be fun. I’ve never gotten drunk out of despair. I don’t change when I drink. Since I don’t change, it’s like nobody can tell I’m drunk. I just get a little more talkative, I think. I talk a little more than I usually do, or something.]

– But, the corners of your eyes start to droop, and you get a little cuter……
[I get panda eyes, right? (laughs)]

– I think the time I saw you most drunk was at the party after the TETSU69 first live “Sweet December” right? You were pretty drunk that time. You even had trouble climbing stairs.
[Oh, yeah, I did drink a lot that time. But, wasn’t the mood rather drunken anyway?]

– You seemed to be having a great time. Even at the party, you kept singing your songs.
[I was still singing even though the live was over, right? (laughs)]

– That’s right. So, you should have made the live a little longer! Or something (laughs). Now, how do you feel when other people are drunk around you, but you aren’t?
[I like happy drunks. But, I hate when people walk around with that look in their eyes that says “Wanna tangle?” In the end, it just makes me think they can’t hold their booze. It’s like, usually I control myself rationally, then I hear all these stories people only bring up when they’re drunk, and I can think about them. So, I think that people who get violent when they’re drunk are actually just holding back the rest of the time, and that’s their true self. I’m glad I’m not like that. For better or for worse, I don’t have much of a hidden side. A lot of painful incidents happen that way, though.]

– So, you claim that even when you’re drunk, you can still exercise calm judgement. Deep down, you must admire calm, sensible people.
[Yes, I think I do. I think so, but I really do think I’m that kind of person myself, too. It’s no different when I’m drunk. You know how hairy people get a lot of pity? I think it’s because they say humans originally evolved from apes, so being hairy = being primitive. Primal and instinctive. Well, I’m particularly hairless (laughs). So, I guess that means I’m not primitive, and I think I’m a more evolved person. I’m not talking about whether that’s good or bad. It’s just that rather than give pity, I’m the type to coolly analyse things, staying very cool to think about them. If that means I’m cold, then I guess I’m cold.]

– I see. We’ve gotten a bit off topic. Let’s see… Do you ever drink when you’re at home by yourself?
[At home, I make Ditamonis (4). By myself. Consistently. I don’t keep that much alcohol at home, though. Beer and Dita and Kahlua and that’s it?]

– That’s a lot of sweet drinks.
[Cause I’m still a kid (laughs). I don’t drink every day at home, though. Maybe three or four times a week. When I want to reward myself for a good day’s work and so on. “Otsukarechan!” (5) (laughs). Oh, and I don’t sleep much, so sometimes I drink a little and sleep. I have awful sleeping habits since I’m such a night person. Well, alcohol is the lubricant of life, right? I could live without it, but it seems like having it makes life move along more pleasantly.]

– Interviewer : Kikuchi Keisuke
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. He’s playing with the phrase “Toriaezu biiru,” which translates to “First of all, beer,” or “Beer first.” Typically, when Japanese go to a bar, they order a beer first instead of a fancier drink, and the ordering is done with this phrase.Go back.

2. Shouchuu is a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage that is sometimes called “Japanese vodka.” It has a rather high alcohol concentration. Similar drinks are made in China and Korea.Go back.

3. A drink (in this case shouchuu) mixed with hot water and ume juice. Ume is a species of Japanese plum.Go back.

4. A drink that combines lychee liqueur, tonic water and grapefruit juice.Go back.

5. The phrase “otsukaresama” is said to coworkers, teammates and the like after a hard work session. By changing the end to “chan”, he is making it cuter, which is compounded by the fact that he’s saying it to himself.Go back.

[I’ve never had any desire to get married, not ever. Instead, I always thought “Why would I want to get married?” Ever since my teens, probably, that’s how I saw it. I have no aspirations in that direction. At one point, I even went as far as to think “Marriage is the graveyard of life.”]

– That’s a fitting phrase, isn’t it? For someone who’s never wanted to get married, that is.
[Actually, it’s a quote from a musician I like, I read that line in an interview once and thought “That’s so cool!”. That was back in middle school or high school, though.]

– Then, has your opinion on the subject changed at all, recently?
[I wonder. I don’t hate children. I think my nephews and my friend’s nieces are so adorable. But, it would be completely different if they were my kids. I still feel like a kid, myself. I’m not much of a thinker.]

– Don’t you ever wonder “What if?” Like, maybe a married lifestyle would be nice, or something like that.
[That’s unthinkable. Among the married people I know, very few of them actually seem to be in happy, peaceful marriages. Especially in this business, most people end up separating, don’t they, within two, three years.]

– It could be because of how busy you are, or maybe it’s the way your values are slightly different from those of a regular person, right?
[Yeah, yeah, yeah. And besides, with my work, sometimes it’s the middle of the night, getting to be morning by the time I get home. I don’t think ordinary people could understand. The people who can understand, well, they’re pretty rare, right?]

– Then, are you comfortable with being a lifelong bachelor?
[I don’t think too hard about that, either. In the end, if I fell in love hard enough to turn my current values completely upside-down, I’d probably get married right away. So it’s not that I’m negative about it, it might just be that I’ve got my sights set too high. I look for perfection in everything, that’s probably why I’m not married yet. But you know, I only date people with marriage in mind.]

– Oh, really! That’s rather……
[Well, you can’t seriously date a girl who isn’t thinking “What if we end up getting married?” right? But of course, I don’t want to tarnish my family register (1), either.]

– Ahahah! So you don’t want any black marks (laughs).
[That’s right, I don’t (laughs).]

– So, supposing you were going to get married, are there any traits you’d want your wife to have?
[No. Of course, I’d be delighted if she was a good cook, but I don’t want to marry a housekeeper. So, I don’t have any conditions for a woman I’d marry…… Ah, trustworthiness? My work keeps me out late so much that if my partner decided to cheat on me, it would be easy to do. Like, “My husband never comes home, he’s always at the studio.” (laughs) I don’t want a partner who’ll keep me wondering “What is she doing right now?” or “Is she out having dinner with another guy?”, because worrying about that would break my concentration at work. If I can’t have peace of mind, my work will suffer. That’s it! Of course, it’s my work that’s at the centre of my life right now. So, she’s got to be a girl who’ll help build an environment where I can concentrate on work.]

– On a mental level, I understand, but part of me still reacts with something like “Eeh? He just doesn’t care~”
[You see, I don’t mind going to extremes. I’m Takumi from NANA (laughs)(2). Like he says : “To me, work is what’s most important.”]

– Let’s be prepared (laughs). Moving on, for most of the world “finding happiness = getting married,” or so they say……
[If you listen closely to what those people say, it turns out that what they’re really saying is “If you don’t get married and have kids, who’ll look after you when you get old?” But I think “As if I’m gonna do that just so someone will look after me when I’m old!” I think it’s a twisted way of thinking. I mean, from the kid’s point of view : “Is that the whole reason I was brought into the world?” Isn’t that horrible? Instead, I’ll save some money and put myself in an institution to get someone to take care of me, I think that’s a lot healthier.]

– It is rather sickening to think of a person as insurance.
[Right. As for girls, some girls say things like “When I go to my child’s school events, I want to be younger than all the other mothers there, so I want to have a kid as soon as possible,” and I think “Just for that?” I wouldn’t want a child to be raised by someone who thinks that way, not at all. Not if it was my kid. Besides, apparent age and true age aren’t always the same, you know. People aren’t always the age they seem to be. Take me for example, I’m 34 but people are always telling me I don’t look that old at all. Some people in their twenties look like old ladies or old men already, and some fifty year-olds look much younger than they are. I think the Japanese in particular are too picky when it comes to age. In the sports news, for example, whenever they write someone’s name they always have their age in brackets next to it, right? I wonder why they go out of their way to write the age.]

– That reminds me, in foreign scandal articles, they never print any ages. So like “How old is Jennifer Lopez?”
[See? I think it’s unique to Japan……. I’m saying cool stuff without even thinking (laughs).]

– Ahahaha. And so, tetsu-san, I can imagine that you’d only ever get married for love, right?
[No? I have no particular intention of ruling out a miai marriage(3). Whether it’s a miai or someone I fall for on my own, no matter how we meet, it doesn’t matter as long as we like each other, right? Yeah. But I think a miai would make me nervous.]

– Interviewer : Honma Yuuko
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. The family register, called koseki, is an official register of all the births, deaths, marriages and divorces in a Japanese family. It’s a type of census document. In this context, he is implying that if he got married rashly and then divorced, it would be recorded on his family register and thus make for a permanent negative mark.Go back.

2. See Yazawa Ai’s manga, NANA. Go back.

3. Miai marriages are a type of arranged marriage, where the potential couple are introduced to each other by a matchmaker. However, miai is not as strict as other types of arranged marriages. If the couple in a miai decide they don’t like each other, they aren’t obliged to get married. Go back.

– tetsu-san, you’ve declared that you don’t cook at all, right?
[I’ve said that I don’t cook. Before, I used to work so that I really wouldn’t have to cook at all. It was so I could build an unrealistic world for myself. As an artist (laughs). Now, though, I think cooking is an art too, in a way. But still, I don’t cook and I never have. There are lots of other reasons, too. Partially, it’s because of my neat freak side, because I like beauty, and because I think that anything I cooked myself would make me sick. If I were going to cook, I’d have to wash my hands really carefully, make sure all the utensils and stuff are as clean as possible, there’d be no end to it. I’m sure that sometimes, food other people make isn’t that clean, but I didn’t see them make it so it’s okay. I only worry if I see it. “Wash those plates properly,” and so on. Anyway, it’s like if the utensils need washing, I want to do it myself and make sure it’s done right, or something. I’m not a very trusting person so I don’t want to leave it to others, the washing that is. So, if I were to cook for myself, I’d get way too picky and it would take forever. That’s why I decided I wouldn’t (laughs). I figure there’s got to be lots of people who are good at cooking. Such as knowing the right amounts of seasoning on their own. Me, I’d measure it precisely. “Leave it this many minutes to be OK,” and stuff too. Doing all that would be so tiring, wouldn’t it? I think cooking is really something you need to be more relaxed about. I probably can’t do that, so I won’t cook at all. Just like how I don’t want to try my luck on weird things, I don’t want to get worked up over weird things either.]

– Ah, I understand. But, don’t you occasionally decide to try and cook something? As a man interested in cooking, that is.
[No, I don’t. Cooking utensils? I think I’d want to place all the knives and pots in order. I already keep all my other tools in order, so it’s pretty similar. “Woah! That’s a cool knife!” Whenever that happens, I take it home and find the right spot for it (laughs).]

– Really? You keep them in precise order!? Even so, you never use them yourself.
[I never use them, no.]

– You’ve never used them even once, in all the time you’ve lived on your own?
[No, I haven’t. Even if I used one, I’d keep saying I hadn’t. For things more complicated than instant ramen, I have to. Like when I’m boiling noodles. When I boil pasta noodles, I’ll use instant sauce to go with them. But you know, boiled noodles taste the best. Because the water temperature, the amount of seasoning, and the proportions are so specifically measured.]

– Right, right. Though, you have a delicate palate, don’t you, tetsu-san? In the end, people like you end up not wanting to cook for themselves. The common consensus is that a gourmet’s cooking will taste better, right?
[Yeah. If it was my job, I’d do it. Since it’s not my job, I don’t want to. Cook, that is. I think it’d be horrible to give up on being a musician to become a cook.]

– It certainly sounds dreadful. Right now, all your meals are take-out, right?
[That’s right.]

– You eat out every day, but once in a while, don’t you think it would be nice to taste some homemade food, just like your mother used to make?
[Well, you know, I never really had much homemade food at all. I don’t know what my mother’s cooking tasted like. Now, when someone asks me “Do you remember any flavours?” I can’t answer anything but “No.” There isn’t even a single food I start to crave once in a while. I figure it must be tough, having cravings. Anyway, I’m OK with eating out. Wherever and whatever I eat, I usually find it tasty. Of course, I know some delicious restaurants, too.]

– You might be right about cravings being hard to deal with. However, your way seems a bit lonesome.
[People might think so from hearing me say it, but personally I think “I’m so lucky~”. These days, I don’t eat convenience store bentou (1), but back when I first moved out on my own, I thought “Convenience store bentou is pretty tasty.”]

– That’s an interesting story. Then, what if a girl prepared some food for you? Would it make you happy?
[No, well, I’m okay with it now, but I used to hate that. It kinda made me sick. It’s not that my mom’s cooking was especially delicious or anything, but I never ate anything made by anyone but her. Know what I mean?]

– (laughs) So, I suppose you don’t recall any particular thing a girl cooked for you, either?
[Now though, if a girl cooks something for me, it makes me happy. I know some people whose wives are great cooks, so talking to them makes me think “Must be nice.” Talk to them and they’ll say that going home to eat tastes better than going out ever could. So I figure they must go home for their meals every day. Lately, thinking about it objectively, I figure it’s better for a girl to be a good cook. But, if I were to get married, I think I’d more or less be my wife’s helper. It’s not because I especially want to help out with that, though. It’s just that if I didn’t, I’d seem like a typical Japanese husband. Western husbands help out their wives, don’t they? That’s just how I’d want to be. I could get drunk on myself if I was that way (laughs).]

– Interviewer : Kikuchi Keisuke
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. Bentou is a typical Japanese lunch, packed in a box. It usually contains a variety of food that can easily be eaten without needing further preparation, so these boxes are popular as school or office lunches. Convenience stores often sell bentou for much less than a restaurant would, but naturally these cheap meals aren’t renowned for their taste.
Go back.