– Radio, television, newspapers, etc. To what extent do you like appearing in the mass media?
[I don’t hate it. I do like it somewhat.]

– Is there any one media you like more, or one where you have more of an interest in transmitting your message?
[I don’t like it or hate it, but the most effective media is definitely TV. It’s the most influential, and also the easiest. With the same amount of labour, people can see and hear a lot more than they can with other media, so I think it’s the easiest.]

– But sometimes, you don’t have the chance to appear on TV.
[No chance to appear… Well, I’m a musician, so I’ll end up on TV and in magazines every time a promotion comes around. But when there’s nothing going on, even if I say “I want to go on a music show,” there’s no way they’ll let me. Without a release. Recently, we released the first single in two and a half years, so our offers have gone up.]

– Speaking of going on TV, I heard about an incident where you were on TV and the program host used the term “visual kei” in reference to you, at which point you left the show midway through broadcast.
[No, the truth about that incident has gotten pretty twisted, so I guess I’d better clear it up right away. First of all, not once have we, L’Arc~en~Ciel, said “We are visual kei.” Honestly, when I was putting L’Arc together, I didn’t use the word “visual kei” at all. But I do realise that it’s been a popular term, so we have called ourselves something similar to that (laughs). Among musical genres, rock is a genre, so are pop, punk, and so on, but visual kei is not a musical genre, isn’t it?]

– That’s certainly true.
[I think it’s a discriminating term used by people who judge only by appearances, so I said “Please don’t use the term visual kei,” to the office, and to the record company staff, so by the time we went on that show, they’d been told. However, I’ve been told that it hadn’t been passed on to the host of Bakushou Mondai (1). They hadn’t been informed, so the hosts, in order to make that segment interesting or funny, thought they’d use those words. Right before that, the four of us, L’Arc, had appeared in a newspaper ad with our heads shaved. In relation to that, they had bald wigs, topknot wigs, all sorts of wigs prepared, and they were going to use them in the talk. “You’re visual kei, so what do you think of these, please try some of these wigs on,” that was how the talk was going to go. But then, it turned out differently. First off, they weren’t even going to let us do that talk, saying there’s no way it would be interesting. And they had to get the stylists and the hair and makeup staff to set it up, then have us wear the wigs, and having us perform after all that wasn’t exactly a low-tension set up. If they had planned it out right, they should have organised things better with our staff, but they couldn’t do that. When our staff met up with NHK’s, they didn’t arrange much. And no one passed on the message “They aren’t visual kei,” to the show host. I think that was a mistake by the staff on our side, though. NHK and Bakushou Mondai weren’t at fault, that is. We aren’t the slightest bit angry at Bakushou Mondai, either. I mean, they’re supposed to make people laugh so of course they think of strange, interesting things to say. Deep down, I really think it was our staff that should have gone to greater lengths to get things going properly. Also, we were supposed to play two songs but only did one, so reportedly it looked like we just quit performing, abandoned our instruments and left, but that’s absolutely not what happened. Although they did announce that we’d be doing two songs, it wasn’t two songs in a row; we were supposed to do one song at a time in totally different parts of the show. So, we performed the one song, then when we went back to our dressing room, there was some talking along the lines of “While we do feel like doing this kind of show, the circumstances aren’t working out, and so we’d like to cancel for the day.” We addressed it with them, talking it out properly with Bakushou Mondai, then went home. Just like sports news or something, it should only have been of interest to people in the business. And still, without any problems, we still appeared on Kouhaku (2) that year. We really didn’t have a problem with the station. It wasn’t a big deal at all. But, in this business, there are always lots of people out to trip you up, that’s just how it is. And so, the story turned into something completely different, getting blown out of proportion.]

– Now that I’ve heard the story from you, tetsu-san, I think it sounds fair.
[Actually, when I first heard how far this story had gotten, I couldn’t believe it had spread so much when that’s not even what really happened. I really can’t stand unreasonable stuff like that. Yes, we do unreasonable, irrational things sometimes; we’re not always right. Even so, is that any reason to talk about us like this? Personally, as long as I’m putting everything I’ve got into something, there’s a gap that forms between me and the people who aren’t as passionate about it, then they tell me I’m selfish, picky, annoying, and so on. I can only take that sort of thing from people who do their jobs right.]

– Since you’ve been in the mass media, do you feel that misleading information about you has been spread, or that your privacy has been intruded on, or anything like that? If so, what do you think about it?
[I think it can’t be helped.]

– Does it ever make you angry?
[Sometimes I do get angry over it. A lot of the time, something will be written about me that isn’t true. But as far as entertainment goes, they’re just trying to increase their ratings, improve their sales figures, so it can’t be helped, right? It’s their job to deal with a huge, unknown number of people, so I don’t think they can stop doing it.]

– What’s your impression of music magazines?
[Most music magazines are quite nice. They’re rather friendly towards artists. They give artists a boost, you could say (laughs). Part of what they write gets spiced up, so to speak, in order to sell better, right? When they spice it up like that, it’s cool, but still business like enough, although I do feel that they go to both extremes a bit too much sometimes.]

– tetsu-san, since you have your own homepage, do you ever think it would be nice to publish your own version of things from that website?
[Not at the moment. At one point, there were a lot of things I wanted to do with it, but they all require money, and the results don’t make up for it. In the end, as far as promotions go, the conclusion I’ve reached is that it’s better to schedule TV spots and get advertisements in magazines. Homepages cost a lot of money, more than I had been expecting. There still aren’t enough kids in Japan owning computers. Working in Tokyo, you start to think “Of course everyone has one,” so you come to expect big returns from a mobile site. But actually, most kids won’t even hand over 300 yen. Before I can do what I’d like to do, I need to get a few more fans (laughs).]

– Interviewer : Hasegawa Makoto
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. Bakushou Mondai is the name of the TV program where the incident in question took place. Go back.

2. Kouhaku Utagassen, NHK’s famous New Year celebrity program. He is implying that if there had really been a severe problem with NHK, they wouldn’t have been on that show. Go back.