CD DATA December 2008 – tetsu x Nishikawa Takanori - Special Cross Talk 2 – about 2008-2009, the past – the future

In this segment, they will begin by looking back on their various activities from 2008, discuss the present state of the music world, covering the differences between solo and band work, even detailing Nishikawa’s recent move, graciously providing the contents of this interview. They both held many lives in 2008. But then, what does 2009 hold in store for them?

[We saw a lot of each other in private, too.]

-Nishikawa

[I’m still sort of a consultant, when it comes to moving.]

-tetsu

Released November 21, 2007, the 11th album, KISS, led L’Arc~en~Ciel into TOUR 2007-2008 THEATER OF KISS, which was swiftly followed by a first-ever concert in Paris as part of of TOUR 2008 L’7 ~Trans ASIA via PARIS ~. At the same time, abingdon boys school held a single tour and participated in an event tour, while Nishikawa Takanori had a tour of his own as T.M.Revolution.

It can then be said that 2008 was a year mostly composed of lives for both of our participants. Yet we must ask how they have been able to face this long and tiring year.

To them, who are well acquainted with not only band activities but also solo projects, how do the differences come across?

Furthermore, in this era where delivery soars ever higher in importance above and beyond CD sales, how do artists, those who deliver the musical product, feel about their position? In the midst of their extremely busy work load, what kind of stimulation did they obtain in their private lives? In this segment, they will examine the year 2008 from multiple angles! And then, what could their goals for 2009 be?!

– How was 2008, for you?
tetsu [2008 was a year of tours. I even went overseas for a tour. It was really great. It’s always fun, any time I get to go overseas. I’m the kind of person who can sleep anywhere, so long trips don’t even bother me. It was lots of fun, really. And the lives were great, too.]

– That setup you had a Tokyo Dome, did you bring it with you to all the lives?
tetsu [Of course it’s not possible to take that entire thing all over the place, but we took as much as we could. We worked pretty hard, didn’t we? We had to work really hard to get some of that stuff taken over, but we got it moved anyway.]
Nishikawa [When we go overseas, we just rent all the equipment we need once we get there. We just carry the essentials (i.e. guitars) over with us.]
tetsu [Well yeah, if you don’t take those with you, you’ve got problems. The truth is, we really wanted to take the entire set with us and have the overseas lives be the same as the ones in Japan, but of course that’s not possible, is it? But you know, we really took a lot of that stuff over with us, it was pretty crazy (laughs).]
Nishikawa [That’s awesome! But, don’t you run into problems when stuff that’s common sense in Japan just isn’t, over there? In Japan, they’d automatically set up punch carpet, that really course stuff, on the stage, but apparently it’s not common, and when I went to New York, I was all like “Why did they put this fluffy stuff all over the stage?” It was white, shaggy, and fluffy (laughs). Aw man, that stuff is so hard to move around on! That’s pretty much what happened (laughs).]
tetsu [Sounds like it was one gigantic carpet. (laughs)]
Nishikawa [‘Cause it was! (laughs) I was totally shocked (laughs).]

– It made you wish you had brought your own carpet, did it? (laughs)
tetsu [When we go on tour overseas, even the drinks we have backstage were brought over from Japan. We bring over everything we can.]

– Though since you need motivation to do the show, it’s important not to let anything stress you, right?
tetsu [Guess so. But you know, that’s not good enough a reason, we need to sit down with a calculator and calculate all the costs, too. I think it’s important.]

– It shows that you’re the leader! Now, Nishikawa-san, you also spent almost all of 2008 on tour, correct?
Nishikawa [The first half of the year was band stuff, and the second half was solo stuff, yeah.]
tetsu [To think you’re still in the middle of a tour, right now. That’s amazing. You do so much. You have to do tour stuff every weekend right? Your live last night was great.]
Nishikawa [You were there last night?! (laughs)]
tetsu [In Oomiya, right? Two days? Of course I know~ I was there in spirit.]
Nishikawa [“Your feelings go out to me!” Hey! How about that! (laughs) But yeah, 2008 was really a year of tours. I only had one live overseas, but I did go overseas a bunch of times for other work-related things, and by the way I was in a movie for the first time ever, a lot of stuff happened. Since I like moving around, though, it was a pretty fun year.]

– Do you actually go to each other’s lives?
Nishikawa [I go to L’Arc lives every time I get the chance.]
tetsu [I’ve been to his lives, too.]
Nishikawa [But about three songs in you came down with a fever and had to go home! (laughs)]
tetsu [I couldn’t help it! (laughs) I went straight to the hospital, actually (laughs). It just shows how hot your lives are. It’s pretty amazing.]
Nishikawa [What kind of an excuse is that? (laughs)]

– (laughs). As for your personal lives, what kind of year did it turn out to be?
Nishikawa [I’d say it was quite fulfilling.]
tetsu [We saw a lot of each other in private, too.]
Nishikawa [Yes we did~ Since he still does some consulting when it comes to moving, we saw a lot of each other in secret. (laughs)]

– tetsu-san, you enjoy moving, right?
tetsu [That’s right (laughs). So yeah. I’d send him mails saying “Hey this is a good place.”]
Nishikawa [He knows so many things! If I sent him a mail saying “I found this place, what do you think?” he’d always answer “Oh that place, yeah I know it!” My real estate agent even told me “That tetsu-san has been over here to have a look, too” while I was out looking (laughs).]
tetsu [You should take that place, though! The one with the glass around the bath (laughs).]
Nishikawa [No, no. (laughs) That place has a glassed-in bath right next to the entrance, so if company came over while I was in the bath, I’d be like, peeking through the glass, going “Oh hi. Come on in.” That’s totally what would happen. (laughs)]
tetsu [You’ve danced around naked, so I’m telling you, you gotta live in a place that has at least that much impact (laughs).]
Nishikawa [I don’t wanna. I wanna live someplace normal. (laughs).]

– Ahahaha. I can see you have a great relationship, but it has happened for you to send an email and have it bounce back, hasn’t it, Nishikawa-san?
Nishikawa [Yes! That was last year, right? I sent tetchan a mail, and just got an error message like “Please check the recipient’s address.” What the – He changed his address!!! (laughs)]
tetsu [That was, well, I told you all about it, and I had meant to give you my new details but I just forgot. And you know, even I only found out about that thing from the sports newspaper (laughs). Oh? Didn’t I tell him? (laughs) So then I rushed to get in touch with you. But man, getting in touch through a sports newspaper is a pretty revolutionary way of using the newspaper (laughs).]
Nishikawa [And yet I couldn’t get them to write up the good stuff (laughs) Even though it’s so revolutionary! Guess I discovered something new (laughs)]

– Indeed (laughs). In 2008, several rock bands from the 80s such as Guns N’ Roses and Mötley Crüe released new music and even came to Japan; it was an excellent year for rock. What are your thoughts about that?
Nishikawa [Oh yeah, even Madonna came to Japan, it was a year full of powerful performances by all kinds of 80s artists. I can’t say it had any kind of direct influence on me though, but I have to say it was stimulating. Obviously. But on the other hand, it also made me wonder why there aren’t any artists around to surpass those old acts, it makes me think we ought to be trying harder.]
tetsu [That’s harsh.]
Nishikawa [No no, I mean, well, we do need to try our best. Back in the day, we couldn’t even imagine what we’d be like in our 30s and 40s, much less figure that the bands we had around would still be active when we got to that age. But now, while I’m grateful that it’s still possible for them to still have lives and tours, I really do feel that we ought to be working hard to improve our skills.]

[I guess that just might be my one weakness (laughs).]

-tetsu

– I see. Recently, the music market has changed so that while download sales are soaring, CD sales are plummeting. Could I ask you both for your opinions on this trend?
Nishikawa [The actual number of people listening to music hasn’t gone down, though. And yet, when people get to thinking that it’s enough if they can just sing the songs at karaoke, to be honest I find it pretty sad. Oh, and also the people can find a song that’s on their minds by searching a video site. “Oh hey, there’s that song! Yeah, it’s a good song,” and that’s the end of it.]
tetsu [Yeah. That’s no good. It’s really too bad, because if the sound quality isn’t high enough, they’ll never get to experience the music properly.]

– That’s a good point. I’m sure that both of you have your own preoccupations with the art form, but personally that each packaged product has merit as a whole, and as downloading becomes mainstream, it’s becoming a sadder world lacking that aspect. Now, changing the subject, both of you are active in bands and in solo projects, so I’d like to ask your thoughts about each of those activity styles.
Nishikawa [Oh yeah, I think it’s much harder to work in a band. For example, if you were going to build something together, you start by saying “Okay! Let’s build something like this!” and then when you draw up the blueprints together, it’s like “Eh? Why are we putting toilet over here?!” and even if you think along the lines of lifestyle convenience it’s still a mystery, why put a toilet there??? “But why do you want to put a toilet by the living room instead of the entrance?!”]
tetsu [No no no, it’s better that way.]
Nishikawa [Ahahaha. Oh really? (laughs) But it’s way better to have the toilet by the entrance! But anyway, even when I get around to explaining “Yeah, I think the toilet ought to be by the entrance, not by the living room”, the others still go “Oh, really?” and everyone has their own opinion, you know. But yeah, I guess when you finally combine everyone’s ideas together, you can end up with something that makes you go “Oh yeah, I guess it is more interesting this way.” and make some new discoveries. That’s the fun part of being in a band. And hey, my band right now is full of grumpy old men.]
tetsu [Grumpy old men? (laughs) If yours is, then so is mine (laughs).]
Nishikawa [Ahahahaha! Well, then we’re even (laughs). But because the band is full of old men, even when there’s a clash of opinions, once you’ve gotten all snippy and “What the hell (ï½€^´)” you can just take a bit of time to cool off, and then go back saying “Okay so how about we do this instead?” and actually build something new out of your diverging opinions, that takes a bit of distance, and it seems like something a band can only have when it’s composed of adults, which is interesting.]

– Indeed. When you’re young, no matter how much you may respect each other, it feels much more important to assert yourself, after all.
Nishikawa [When you put it that way, it makes me extremely jealous of how L’Arc has been able to last so many years together, like that. I’m sure that there have been a lot of conflicts along the way, but the band managed to surpass all of that and is still going strong; I think that’s so incredibly wonderful.]

[I am gentler than Bufferin (laughs).]

-Nishikawa

– I see. tetsu-san, did you make any discoveries while working solo?
tetsu [Solo means I’m on my own, so everything moves faster. If I give the OK, then the decision is made, and that’s much easier on me so in that sense I could say that it’s fun. That’s probably why people who have been doing solo work all along end up wanting to start bands somewhere down the road (laughs).]
Nishikawa [Oh, you mean me? (laughs) Well yeah. But in my band, the other three members are a real musican’s musicians, so when it comes time to decide things like what we’ll wear on stage for a live, or what the album jacket will look like, they just go “Whatever, we don’t care about that stuff,” and they leave it all up to me, which is pretty sweet. If every member had a strong opinion about that sort of thing, I’d probably give up in frustration, “Whatever! I don’t give a damn! Fuck off (ï½€^´)!” and throw a table at them or something (laughs). I guess it’s precisely because they let me control all the non-musical stuff that things are going so well.]
tetsu [I see. I figured you were putting lots of effort into making them all wear those outfits.]
Nishikawa [Hey…. They do talk back sometimes (laughs). “Is this outfit really okay?” and stuff (laughs) I answer “It’s okay! Really! Just keep wearing it and you’ll get used to it eventually!” (laughs)]
tetsu [Ahahahaha! Figures (laughs)]
Nishikawa [It’s kind of like when you’re in a taxi and the driver farts, but it’s cold outside so you can’t open the window, but then after a little while your nose gets used to it, you know! It’s the same thing; humans are an adaptable species.]
tetsu [I don’t understand your explanation (laughs).]

– Indeed, it is rather strange (laughs).
Nishikawa [How come! (laughs) That kinda thing happens! Even though you can smell the fart clearly, you know you have to be in the same car with that driver for another 30, 40 minutes, so instead of causing another stink, you don’t open the window and just endure it; you know you can stand it because you know you’ll get used to it (laughs).]
tetsu [Endure it?! I’m so shocked~ If it was me, I’d say something like “Could you cut that out!” (laughs) It’s an enclosed space, right? I couldn’t stand it. (laughs) I guess that just might be my one weakness (laughs).]

– Medicine does get less effective as one builds a resistance to it, though (laughs). When it comes to enduring things, you are total opposites (laughs). Are your personalities otherwise similar, tetsu-san? Nishikawa-san?
tetsu [Personalities, eh?]
Nishikawa [I wonder myself.]
tetsu [Well, we do like the same things, and wear the same stuff (laughs). Sometimes I think “Oh? That’s so something Nishikawa-kun would wear!” (laughs).]

– Earlier, you mentioned that you like to go to the same select shop.
Nishikawa [That’s right. First of all, it’s a MANIAC shop, and I like to wear stuff that nobody else would ever wear (laughs). I go to the hardcore zones in the hardcore shops (makes a hand motion as if flipping something over); I guess we both like to find hardcore stuff.]
tetsu [Nishikawa-kun, you could probably name all the brands I wear, couldn’t you?]
Nishikawa [Yes of course (laughs). That’s how much our tastes are similar, you know (laughs).]

– That much, really (laughs). Now, can I ask your goals for 2009?
tetsu [2009, eh. I think I will work hard. How much longer is your tour going to last, dear?]
Nishikawa [Until March. You gonna come? Not just in spirit, I want you to come for real (laughs). L’Arc has some releases lined up, right?]
tetsu [Yep, we do. I think that in 2009, we’ll keep right on stimulating each other, and I hope we can keep this open relationship going.:
Nishikawa [I want the same thing. Next time you change your contact info, let me know what’s going on with you before the sports magazines do, okay~ (laughs).]

Interviewer not identified.
Translated by Natalie Arnold

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