Lies and fabrications no longer resonate for me.

– hyde-san, you were very active this time around.
[Well, I don’t think anyone needed to tell me anything. I just worked (laughs).]

– Although the songs are all varied musically, they all seem to send the same message. The same theme permeates them all.
[It might have been because my thoughts all revolved around the same main idea. I consistently stuck to the same spiritual theme.]

– Ah, you mentioned this when ‘Killing Me’ came out. The way modern society appears peaceful, but in reality that isn’t the case if you take a closer look at people’s situations. These are the thoughts currently preoccupying you the most, hyde-san.
[That’s definitely one of the feelings I’m sending out with this production. After examining myself deeply, that’s all I could come up with. No other themes I could think of had the same sort of reality to them, so they seemed boring. Even if I’d written about them, they didn’t move me at all, so it felt like I was writing lies. To me, using words that don’t resonate with me are a kind of fabrication. I wanted to make something that would resonate the way the music did. Of course, if I’d had any other ideas that resonated that way, I would have written about them. But this time, nothing else had the right impact.]

– Nothing else resonated.
[After all, my criteria is whether or not it resonates with me. I could think about what people will think, or what kind of lyrics would make people happy, but there are so many people who all listen in their own way, so I can only imagine their reactions. I’m not confident enough about how that would turn out. If it fails to resonate with me even by a tiny bit, I don’t think I can expect it to draw people in.]

– Then the themes that resonate with you are influenced by recent incidents, and the world’s situation, correct?
[It isn’t really about the current era. It’s more accurate to say it’s about the world up until now. Some things never change. I’m resigned to believing that some things will never change, yet I wanted to include hope in the lyrics I wrote.]

– It’s about things that people keep repeating throughout history, then.
[Right. It’s incredibly scary that we haven’t learned anything from history.]

– But, you don’t want to give up hope.
[Well, part of giving up is aiming for a different goal, instead. I know I’m going to die someday, but rather than having lived without changing anything, I want to die knowing that I’ve done something to improve the situation. This way, I still have a dream, don’t I? It’s like the difference between not winning the lottery, and having a chance to win the lottery (laughs). In the end, even if we’re all together, we can each choose whether or not to buy into the dream.]

– That’s right. Life is much harder without hope. We can probably all understand each other on some level. And yet, it’s human nature to repeat the same things over again. The theme extends to all humans, right?
[That’s the kind of creature humanity is. I don’t think that can change, it might even be genetically programmed. I think humanity is the worst species on Earth.]

– Yet we are all part of that species. We can’t live any other way.
[That’s the sort of thing I wanted people to awaken to when ‘AWAKE’ was made.]

– When I listened to the album, I thought about the meaning of the title, and I was told it meant ‘awaken’. To stop turning your eyes away, stop pretending not to see, and take notice of what’s really going on in the world.
[It would be meaningless if it didn’t reach out to people. If you don’t awaken, it ends up being just another nightmare. If that’s fine with you, that’s okay, I guess. As for myself, I’ve realized that even in these circumstances, people can love each other, and that love is universal. I might be blinding myself to the whole picture, but I still think it’s true. I don’t want to see the evil in the world get in the way of that love. I honestly don’t think a person can be truly evil. Even in wartime, people fight because they have something to protect. But I want people to realise there are other methods. After all, even schoolchildren can understand that killing isn’t the only way to solve things.]

– It would be especially fitting if you were feeling a crisis looming recently, wouldn’t it? In such a case, the words found on this album would hit even harder. hyde-san, if that was the only message you wanted to send, did it make writing the lyrics easier?
[When I can empathize with the line, it’s easy to understand, so in that sense it’s also easy to write. But overall, I approached the production from many angles, so it wasn’t just about saying one thing. Also, there were other elements I wanted to incorporate, but in the end this is what ended up becoming the main point. That’s why everything ended up sounding alike, but that’s what moved me, so it can’t be helped (snicker).]

– Then this product became the expression of your own feelings on this matter. But, wasn’t it tiring to pour so much of yourself into it?
[No, I get a great feeling of achievement when I find the right words to express my emotions. It worked well, this time. And so, listening to it should draw you in. In our previous work, I focused on having the lyrics emphasize the melody, but this time I worked more on the lyrics themselves. The music is great, but I think the lyrics will especially catch the ear on this album.]

– Yes, I think so too.
[In the past, I might have thought it was too much trouble and kept away from this sort of lyric. I used to hate this sort of thing. But now I think that little bit of extra effort is worth it, since it helps the lyrics get noticed. My personal experience might be influencing that. Until now, I just tossed out any lyrics I could, without thinking, but now I’m willing to write lyrics that are a bit more trouble to come up with. It’s not that this sort of theme never occurred to me before, but rather that it didn’t mean as much to me as it does now.]

– This is how you are, now. What you once would have thought to be a bother doesn’t seem so anymore.
[Right. I realized I have my own “truth” inside, and that I don’t have to be embarrassed about expressing it. I don’t think I was strong enough to do that, before. So now, I shine that much more. I’m more firm in my beliefs now, so I can express myself in my lyrics and get closer to the core of what I really mean than I had done before.]

– It’s because your beliefs have grown stronger.
[Right. If I were writing words of love without meaning them, I’d probably be very embarrassed. But if they’re sincerely meant, it’s not embarrassing. That’s how it works.]

– You write what’s in your heart, and then sing it. This time, the songs will be much more persuasive.
[And I had practiced the day before(laughs). In the past the day of recording was the first time I tried out a song. So, I made a lot of stupid mistakes. But this time, I practiced before recording day, so I could try out all sorts of things. It gave me better results.]

– Doing that must have changed how you felt about the recording process?
[No, it didn’t. It’s always fun (laughs). No one gets mad much, and they kind of praise me a lot (laughs). And so, I feel good, we get a synergy going, and I can sing it right. So, it might be an obvious thing to say, but practicing really helps. It’s about time I realized that, considering it’s the tenth album (laughs).]

– Why did you decide to try practicing ahead of time for this album?
[Willpower, maybe? I wanted to sing my songs right. I have to sing anyway, right? I thought that if I’m going to sing, I may as well do it right. I think I was too soft on myself before. Songs are my passion. I decided to put passion into them, finally (laughs). But I might not just be a question of passion. My technique, and the quality of my voice, I use those to express that passion. I think that’s necessary for our music.]

– However, this time, I think you put a much stronger emphasis on your message. Wanting to express it became a fairly major element in your singing. Without paying due attention to that, I think this product looses a lot of its listening worth. No, this album is already a masterpiece. It’s L’Arc, so of course it’s going to be cool, but that’s not all. Listening to it gives you a lot to think about.
[Yeah. I think it’s a pretty good album. Lately, I’ve listened to other people’s music, but nothing else is as striking as this. It’s not that I decided to sing about something deeper, I think it would have been OK to sing about lighter subjects, too. But the way I am now, lighter things seem boring. I just think this album comes from the heart.]

– Yes. It really is quite moving. Also, the tour associated with this album is starting in August. Can we expect to see the world view of ‘AWAKE’ come to life this way?
[Probably. Thematically, it has a heavy atmosphere, doesn’t it? It’s not just coming from the lyrics (laughs). I think I’d like these lives to be cooler than our previous ones. I think it would be nice to focus less on entertainment and more on the message.]

– You’re also touring in Asia, concluding at Tokyo Dome. Will the content of that tour be different?
[Basically, I’d like to do something a little different. The Asia tour will probably have more entertainment. It’ll be more of a party (laughs).]

Translated by Natalie Arnold.