L'Arc~Compendium

Hello, this is tetsu. My official mobile site is complete.
I hope I’ll be able to do at least a little bit of what I had planned to do before with “SUNSHINE69”.
Thanks for the support.

These blog messages are written by tetsuya and posted by him on his mobile site, tetsu-tetsu.com. As this content is only accessible on a mobile phone in Japan, this site is the only place where the messages are available in English!

New entries posted as soon as tetsuya makes them!

Original content : TETSUYA
Translation by Natalie Arnold

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2010.05.26 – Today

(Picture of a red guitar)

The star of the day!
I went and bought another one!

This is the translation of an interview from ROCK AND READ magazine which was published in September 2006. Even though it is not about tetsu, I decided to translate it because ken’s background ought to be a useful reference here.

BEGIN

Solo Roots : The Search

At last, Ken has reached his solo debut.
His first single, [Speed], may be called natural, and may in fact be so, for as he has said himself, this release is, more than any previous work, strongly coloured by the private sphere.
Here, we will go over his private history anew.

Ken

Profile : Born November 28, AB type blood, guitarist of L’Arc~en~Ciel, major debut in ’94. In ’03, as the vocalist and guitarist of S.O.A.P. (SONS OF ALL PUSSYS), indies debut (?). August 23 2006, solo debut with the single [Speed].
[Speed] also includes a cover of Gary Moore, and theme music from [The Sandpiper].
Available as CD (Digipak), or as CD+DVD.
www.ken-curlyhair.com

** If I had to put it into words, I’d say singer-songwriter. That’s the feeling I have, about solo work. **

– When you were little, what kind of home atmosphere did you grow up in?
[I was born into the home of a salaryman and a housewife.]

– Completely ordinary? Just like Nobita-kun’s house, then? (1)
[Yeah, totally. I didn’t have a Doraemon though (laughs). I have one sibling, older than me. One grade higher. When we played together, we usually ended up fighting. And when we played games, I’d almost always lose. When you’re a little kid, even just one year makes an incredibly big difference. Hasami shogi (2), othello, cards, I’d always lose everything. When that happened, I’d flip our little table over. Then I’d say “I’m not gonna play with you ever again,” and get really mad, or something (laughs). Then one of us would pick up all the pieces, come up to the other and go “PLAY!”. That’s kind of how it went.]

– Did you have friends around, in your neighbourhood?
[My neighbourhood friends, well, they were the kind of kids whose idea of fun is to look for beetles and stuff. But I hate beetles, I’ve always hated bugs of all kinds.]

– It’s unusual to hear of a young kid who hates bugs.
[Normal kids love them, right? They don’t eat them though (laughs). So yeah, a bunch of us would go out to look for beetles, in a group. We’d all grab a bunch, then stick a bunch of them into one cage. When it was time to go home, we’d play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to keep it. Thing is, I’m pretty good at rock-paper-scissors (laughs). So even though I hate beetles, I’d wind up with a lot of them. Well, I took them home, but didn’t take care of them. So the bugs all ended up dying. That grossed me out even more (laughs). What a vicious circle that was.]

– But by going around collecting bugs with the other kids, you managed to make friends, right?
[Yeah. It was fun to have long, pointless conversations during the bug-hunting. Another game we had was, OK there was this pole, right? And when it was knocked over, a cat would always show up. I really believed that pole had the ability to summon cats. Two of my friends and I would go knock the pole over, then walk a bit and look for the cat, and there it was! It totally worked (laughs).]

– In other words, it just means there were stray cats all over the place (laughs).
[Yeah, yeah (laughs). But, that pole would always be back up by the next day, so we’d knock it over again. Not exactly like dowsing (laughs). I played a lot of stupid, normal games. Oh, and one of my classmates lived in the same neighbourhood as me, so we hung out together. Even outside the neighbourhood, we’d ride our bikes someplace to hang out. On the way home from school, we’d play tag and stuff like that. Tag all the way home. That means we were playing tag over a three kilometre radius. Just when I thought “it” was gone, I’d be about to go into my house, then there “it” was! That’s how our games of tag ended up (laughs).]

– I guess you probably played this kind of game up until the middle of elementary school, correct?
[Yeah, I guess. But it was like that the whole time, in my elementary school.]

– That can’t be right. Don’t kids normally take up baseball or soccer by the end of elementary school?
[Oh, I did play in a kid’s baseball team, right, but practise was only on the weekend. I didn’t really like baseball, but it was kind of like the thing with the beetles. All my friends were signing up for it, so I joined them so we could keep hanging out together. I like baseball now, but back then I barely even knew the rules. I just knew I was supposed to hit the ball, and then go run around the bases. I didn’t know what a tag up meant or anything. I had no idea what a balk was. Or what would be the right timing to run at. But anyway, I didn’t manage to hit much, so I was never on the bases (laughs). And sometimes I’d hit the ball and forget to run (laughs). Hey, I hit it, go me, I hit it… I was so surprised. I didn’t get to the bases so I’d be out right then and there (laughs).]

– Hunting for bugs and playing baseball, sounds like you were quite the typical elementary school kid. By the way, by the time you reached the end of elementary school, were you already interested in the opposite sex? (laughs)
[I was (laughs). Since when though, I wonder… Since the middle of elementary school, maybe? That’s when I started writing notes. Woah, embarrassing (laughs).]

– Writing notes in grade four?
[You know, writing notes as in, letters to people. Like, writing to someone to say I like them, I remember doing that. That’s all, really.]

– You didn’t sneak out of class together or anything?
[There was nowhere to go. That’s why I only got as far as exchanging letters.]

– How about the person you were writing these letters to? How long did your relationship last?
[About a year or so, I guess.]

– You split up when class change came around, then?
[Yeah, pretty much (laughs). That’s all it was, so I wouldn’t even say we were together to begin with.]

– From a logical point of view, you really didn’t have the time to date. These days, you’d just have been e-mail buddies, right?
[Yeah. We were un-e-mail buddies.]

– How about we brush up on romantic technique? What did you do when someone shook things up and said “I like you.”?
[Oh, that (laughs). Being liked, being told that they like me, well, it made me happy. That was satisfying enough, you know?]

– Eeeh, how pure of you.
[I am pure, yes.]

– You still were, back then.
[Oh no, I stayed pure my whole life (laughs).]

– When you get to middle school, all of a sudden you have more friends and acquaintances, and your range of activities gets much bigger, right?
[Oh yeah. There’s this guy I’d known since elementary school, kinda like a big brother to me, and it’s through his influence that I got into rock and western music. I hung out with him all the time, so I ended up listening to a lot of western hard rock, too. That was around second year of middle school, I think. In first year, I wasn’t into that music yet.]

– Could you name a few of those western hard rock bands, just to get an idea?
[Speaking in real time, Mötley crüe. I guess Ratt came a little later.]

РSo that would mean M̦tley were in their earlier, gaudy period, right?
[Yep. That’s why when I first heard them, I wondered what was up with them. Mötley crüe, Scorpions, Micheal Schenker, and early Def Leppard too. Oh and I think Gary Moore was during that time too, but I can’t really remember.]

– Starting with British heavy metal, then, that would have gotten you into the American scene too, around that time?
[That was kind of the beginning of the world music thing, you know. I used to go home to a friend’s house, and he had a ton of records that he got me to listen to, I thought it was so cool. It was nothing but hard rock, though.]

– Would that have been your first opportunity to listen to music?
[Nah, a little bit before that I had a Matsuyama Chiharu album at home. It was the one with “Nagai Yoru” on it (3). I’d listen to that and think “Hey, songs are pretty cool.” But not much later, I started listening to all that hard rock.]

– If you even got your friend to let you listen to his records, it sounds like the younger Ken was considerably dazzled by hard rock. What appealed the most to you?
[Plainly put, it made my heart pound. I don’t what it was about it, or why it made my heart pound so much though. Thinking back on it now, I think maybe it’s because it exposed me to whole new horizons. To a kid who was used to catching beetles and playing baseball, hearing words like “HELL!” really came as a shock (laughs). Like, “Eeeh!?”. And the songs were so angry, full of shouting, you know? Coming out of the woods and hearing unbeliavble voices set to unbelievable sounds, that’s what hard rock was like. It was awesome (laughs).]

– Almost like culture shock? (laughs)
[It really was culture shock, actually. I used to think that “songs” were words you sang in a pretty voice for people to enjoy.]

– Because you listened to Matsuyama Chiharu-san before, right?
[Yep. Something about hard rock songs, it always makes me think they’re about to break something (laughs). But yeah, I thought it was so cool, I was totally hooked on it.]

– On absolutely all of it?
[On everything my friend showed me. At the time, all my musical knowledge came from him. I came to think of that friend as my older brother. Somebody else succeeded him though (laughs).]

** To a kid who was used to catching beetles and playing baseball, hearing words like “HELL!” really came as a shock (laughs). It was awesome **

– Which particular bands and musicians did you like?
[Gary Moore, Micheal Schenker. Also Black Sabbath. That was while Ronnie James Dio was with them, though. After that I went through a phase with Yngwie Maalmstein and Alcatrazz. And Vandenberg too, around the same time. Then, Scorpions.]

– They all must have had great songs, right?
[Songs… Nah, it’s really just because they were cool. At middle school age, it’s not like I was doing a whole lot of analysis, right, they were just cool. And every night, I’d go to bed with my headphones, listening to music while I slept.]

– That sounds a bit like sleep-learning.
[Nah, well, actually it was (laughs).]

– So when you woke up, was the first thing out of your mouth “HELL!”?
[Like, screaming it (laughs). The lyrics were all in English so I couldn’t actually understand everything, but “HELL!” was one word I could figure out.]

– But didn’t your mother and father worry? Thinking their kid had suddenly gone crazy.
[I was still pretty OK, at that point (laughs). Until a few years later, I bought a Marshall amp and brought it home, and they were against that. It was big though (laughs). That was my yellow card. But before that I had a no-name one, and they let me play as much as I wanted. For three years in middle school, it was always like that.]

– Did you have a lot of friends who were into hard rock?
[Nah, only two or three. There might have been more people, but there were only two or three that I could talk to. And share information with. In those days, I’d listen to the songs I liked over and over and over again. I listened to Judas Priest a lot too. That was right when they were getting to be successful in America, with that something-or-other-vengeance album.]

– Ah yes, the title is “SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE” actually.
[Yeah that. I’d go to sleep listening to that Jararaaaaa raaugh intro track, “The Hellion”.]

– Eh, but with that much stimulation, how can you get to sleep?
[For me, actually I’m still like this, heavy metal is the best kind of music for getting to sleep. I had my headphones on while I slept, so my parents always said it was bad for my ears. Well, obviously (laughs).]

– Speaking of your metal sleep-learning, do you think that maybe you cultivated musical DNA that way?
[Oh yeah. But of course, if my big-brother-friend had made me listen to punk, I’d be a punk, if it had been new wave, I’d have been into that. Back then, I thought pop and heavy metal were the only kinds of music that existed, honestly.]

– Ah… That’s quite special.
[Until I was eighteen.]

– A bit slow on the uptake (laughs).
[No, it really was like that (laughs). Because I had so little information.]

– No way, were you living in a completely isolated neighbourhood? (laughs)
[No, well, maybe I was, actually (laughs). It was only open to metal (laughs). I succeeded my big-brother-friend’s place and once in a while I hit the jackpot. For the later part of middle school, I was a metal head.]

– Just listening to it wasn’t enough for you, was it?
[That’s right. When I got into high school, I asked for a guitar as a present, so my parents bought me one.]

– They bought you one just like that?
[That’s right, it was pretty easy to convince them. Once I had it, every day after school it was all “Wooooah~” (laughs). I had distortion too, that was just so cool, so awesome. Metal, metal, metal (laughs). I played everything so scratchy and rough. And, I couldn’t pull it off, but I tried to cover Micheal Schenker’s stuff. Those were the early days. I guess I spent a lot of time with tetsu around then. I think tetsu listened to a bit more musical variety. But he seemed to like hard rock too. That’s when me and tetsu and one other guy from my neighbourhood were hanging out to listen to it.]

– Did that become a sort of metal community for you?
[Nah, it was just the three of us getting together (laughs). We went to the other guy’s house to listen to records, and he had guitars so we played them, too. When I got home, I kept playing on my own. I couldn’t quite play anyone else’s songs, so I just started building on some riffs that I liked.]

– Did you choose your first guitar yourself? Was it some radical shape?
[No, actually I really wanted a Strat. But I guess there weren’t any. So I ended up with something else. A regular one. Eventually I got something more radically-shaped (laughs). But I really played that first guitar nonstop. I’d snap out of it and notice it was dark out, or because my mom was calling me for dinner. Her voice always made me jump (laughs). When had she started calling me? It had to have been a while, but since I was playing my guitar I didn’t hear her. Then, after dinner and a bath, I’d go right back to playing guitar.]

** Back then, I thought pop and heavy metal were the only kinds of music that existed, honestly. Until I was eighteen (laughs). **

– That’s a considerable amount of practise.
[Yeah, it was, but I was just playing my own nonsense, not copying any songs, so I didn’t improve. I’d listen to a record and try to copy the solo or something. It was like a game. Back then, there wasn’t a single song I could play all the way through to the end. I’d rather make my own riffs, or ad-lib some gibberish to go along; that was more fun.]

– Did you imagine yourself as the lead guitarist of the bands on those records?
[Something like that (laughs). I got a strap and tried playing on my feet. But I couldn’t do it, so I sat back down.]

– Around the same time, was there any talk of forming a band in that metal community of yours?
[We could have, but of course, we didn’t have a drummer. We did know a guy who could get a drum set for us from a friend, but of course he couldn’t play them so that didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t any fun, and I didn’t particularly feel like being in a band anyway. I wanted to go back to the days where we just played in one guy’s room. In high school, I had another friend who liked metal, so we’d go around looking for fast guitar players who didn’t know us, then challenge the guy to see who was the faster player (laughs).]

– Sounds like he was a bit of a metal maniac.
[After that, we went off in different directions. Guitar speed was what mattered. We’d go looking for records, have each other listen, then be like “This one goes much faster, Gyahahahah~”. Oh, but that friend wasn’t a guitarist, he was just into things with a fast tempo. Metallica, Slayer, Antrhax, that sort of thing, right when thrash metal was getting to be a big deal. My friend heard Metallica’s “Kill ‘Em All” and then got into the thrash metal scene, but I kept right on listening to metal, just like in middle school. I did like Slayer though, at least.]

– Just from the name, it sounds like they were the most atrocious band of all (laughs).
[From Slayer’s debut, there was just Lombardo (drums) that I especially liked. I still feel the same way; Dave Lombardo was the best. Some years ago, at this “Beast Feast” event, I met him, and he really is awesome.]

– But he’s a drummer, isn’t he?
[Yep. There are guitarists I like, but there are also drummers and bassists I like. Among bassists, there’s “Geezer” Butler from Black Sabbath. I like Sabbath’s drummer, Bill Ward, too. As far as slash metal goes, I still like Slayer even now.]

– If you think really really hard, Slayer is one of those “HELL!” bands too, after all.
[Yeah yeah (laughs).]

– Your metal mania was a high school thing, so ultimately it’s not what led you to joining a band, is it?
[I wasn’t in any real bands, was I? My friends started a band, but they didn’t have a singer. Oh well, it’s a common problem right? So I did the singing for them. These weren’t songs for amateurs, I only did one live.]

– Did that experience get you to think that being in a band wasn’t so bad?
[Nah, I didn’t get it, not at all. Singing, you know? I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to sing, so it was tiring, anyway. And I lost my voice. I didn’t think it was much fun. It was fun being with my friends though, but yeah, performing got to be boring. Boring, or well, it was tiring anyway. But, I wasn’t thinking about joining a band as guitarist, either.]

– It was strictly a hobby?
[That’s right. That was the nature of my relationship with guitar and music.]

– After that, you went to university, right? How did you decide which field to study?
[Study…… All the way up through middle school I barely bothered. When I got into high school, I was ranked near the bottom of the list (laughs) (4). After that, I scraped by and got into university. In university, they have music clubs and stuff, don’t they? I dropped in on them and what do you know, I met a senior who was great at guitar. But I was just so into that (laughs). It’s just that things kinda changed. See, at my part-time job, I told people I was into metal. I was kinda stuck on making the point that I liked metal. So I was going on and on about how nothing good had come out recently when my sempai from work went “You know, there are other kinds of music besides metal.” (laughs).]

– I see, that’s when you noticed the existence of other genres beyond pop and metal (laughs).
[Yeah, seems they existed after all (laughs). They showed me The Cure, The Smiths, and so I listened to those for the first time. Hey, The Cure really caught my eye, I liked them a lot. I listened to The Police too, and then Sting’s solo stuff, and David Sylvian’s solo too. And even though it was a completely different genre, I tried listening to Bob Marley too. That’s how I learned about the wide world of music (laughs). Then I started listening to all kinds of music. The world suddenly opened up (laughs). But I kept wondering how come I had never noticed all that stuff before (laughs). Since I never bothered to check out other things on my own, my friend’s influence was the biggest factor, I guess. It was the same later on. I didn’t do simple things like buy music magazines to get an idea of what’s out there and whether it might be any good. Instead, I just acted on the advice my friends gave me, thinking it had to be good. I discovered The Cure through my friend at work, so I think that if he’d shown be something else, I’d have been into that instead. But he got a bingo with that one, starting me on The Cure.]

– Did that get you into New Wave, into guitar that doesn’t go all over the place?
[I heard the clear tones and arpeggios and thought hey, that’s pretty cool! And they didn’t scream, and the lyrics weren’t all “HELL!” (laughs). All that and also a decadent sort of atmosphere. I liked that. A little later I got to know someone who also liked The Smiths, but while we were talking he told me all about The The. I listened to them, and bingo~. That’s how my musical tastes got to expand.]

– Did you try playing that way, on your guitar?
[You’ve got to be kidding. They’d have several guitars on at once, I couldn’t pick them apart on my own. Even when I was playing metal, I’d just do my own thing with it, so I did the same with other kinds of music. After getting into university, I started dropping in on this band, thinking of joining them.]

– Is that how it all got started?
[But see, that band didn’t have a bassist, so they invited me to play bass for them. The members were interesting people, so I went for it and joined. They were hard rock, but it wasn’t long before I quit. And then, I started slacking off again (laughs). I barely even went to school.]

– You are quite the slacker (laughs).
[Yeah (laughs). I’d go or not go, depending on my mood.]

– By the way, it’s become well-known that you like dams. Does that have anything to do with your university studies?
[No. In university, I was into motorcycles, and I had a biker friend, too. We’d go riding in the mountains together. If you go far enough down a mountain road, most of the time you’ll find a dam, you know? On a mountain road though, you can’t stop. The curb is tiny, there’s no escape zone or anything. The only place to take a break was in the parking lot of some dam. We’d talk about how it might not be a good idea to take the road all the way to the dam, but we’d just go there anyway. We’d rest by the dam, and so I came to love them (laughs). Sometimes we’d go out at odd times, and get to see the valley with the dam in the middle of the night. I thought that was so awe-inspiring, it felt great. If we rode all night, we’d get to the dam right at dawn, and it was so pretty. Where there’s a dam, there’s a deep valley, and so the mountain scenery around it would be pretty too. So that’s how dams found a place in my heart.]

** I started listening to The Cure, and it was like the world opened up. They didn’t scream, and the lyrics weren’t all “HELL!” (laughs). **

– Did you visit every dam in the country?
[I couldn’t go to every single one, but I marked the ones I’d been to on a map. And I’d trace the roads I’d used in red. They have those touring maps for bikers, the kind that you can spread out as one big page, you know? I was tracing them on that, thinking I wanted to fill in the entire map. But it’s impossible, actually (laughs). I spent my university days doing that sort of thing, and messing around with bands.]

– And then you appeared on “Tamori Club” (5) to talk about dams (laughs).
[When I went on there, I was thinking “Oh yeah, I really love dams, yeah~”(laughs). I know so much about them.]

– Speaking of which, What can you tell us as a dam specialist? Are there any that you recommend?
[The Kuzuryuugawa dam. All dams are great, but the water that collects there turns emerald green! Looking at that while riding a bike feels incredibly good. Plus the Kuzuryuugawa river is pretty long. That’s what I’d recommend. And I know everyone knows about it, but the Kurobe dam is beautiful too. You can’t get to it by car, so it feels blocked off from the outside world. There’s still greenery around, and you can see far into the Japanese Alps, where there are also dams. They’ve gone crazy building tunnels over there, so riding around, all of a sudden you can end up in some mountain valley. It feels like you’re seeing hidden bits of scenery. The Japanese Alps are right there, and so it feels like another country. If you’re going to see dams, you should at least get out to those two. And the best season has to be autumn. Kurobe is nice in summer too. Kuzuryuugawa is best in autumn. You get to see the red leaves and emerald green water together. You ought to get a bike and go there.]

– Wow, you make it out to be a great interest to have.
[Do I? I didn’t pick mountain roads because I want to zoom around or anything, I just like going on unpopular, deserted roads.]

– Looking at your university-era interests, I’d say the common thread was that you wanted to be in touch with beautiful things. New Wave music is beautiful to hear, and dams are beautiful to see.
[You’re making too much of it (laughs). With music like with mountains, I think I just like stuff that’s out of the ordinary.]

– During university, did you figure out what you were going to be, what kind of work you were going to do?
[Nope, I didn’t. I really didn’t. So I guess I’d have ended up as a salaryman. Couldn’t tell you what kind of salaryman, though. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do. I remember in elementary school, I thought adults didn’t get enough vacations. They just get Obon and New Year’s (6). Late nights and early mornings, it all seems so haaaaaard. I was pretty anxious. In elementary school, I’d look at high school kids who where walking and reading at the same time. I’d go whoaah. I didn’t know what I was gonna do when I grew up, I worried about it in elementary, middle and high school, all the way through university (laughs).]

– Sounds like a type of Peter Pan syndrome to me.
[Guess so (laughs). Cause I thought it would be great if I could stay young and always be a kid. I wanted to keep living the life of a child, but realistically, I knew it was impossible.]

– So by listening to music and going to look at dams, you could just about escape from reality (laughs).
[Ah ha ha…. That might be partially true (laughs). I said I wanted vacations, but I had a ton of free time back then. I spent that unbelievable amount of free time with my guitar. It passed the time, and I was quite crazy about it. When I didn’t have my guitar with me, I didn’t know what to do, as I noticed later on. My trips to the mountains weren’t planned, I liked the way my friend would call me up and we’d just go. It was last-minute.]

– You didn’t like to be tied down by anything, right?
[Ah…. Yeah. Nah, I just couldn’t accept it (laughs).]

– But it was while you were in university that you came to join L’Arc~en~Ciel.
[Right. tetsu had already started L’Arc~en~Ciel, and I had been down to see them live in Osaka. Then sometime in my last year before graduation, I got a phone call from tetsu, saying “Wanna join my band?”. But I was close to graduating, so I asked him for a week to think it over.]

– What kind of thoughts ran through your mind during that week?
[I basically wasn’t thinking anything at all. I just knew that when I’d gone to see their live, even just seeing them from the audience side I thought they were such a cool band. And then, even though I’d asked him for a week to think about it, he called back earlier than that. “Decide, now.” (laughs). And so, I joined the band. Until then, I hadn’t wanted to be in a band, but being one and playing my guitar, deep inside I think I did want it. Since I hadn’t analysed my own feelings before then, I just followed my gut instinct. A little before that, I had made myself a little demo tape sort of thing, and since I thought it was pretty good I made tetsu listen to it. He said it was good too. That made things a little easier.]

** I spent that unbelievable amount of free time with my guitar. When I didn’t have my guitar with me, I didn’t know what to do. **

– But to join the band, you had to pack up and move to where the action was, namely Osaka. That meant you wouldn’t be going to school anymore. And you were so close to graduation, too. Your parents must have had something to say about that?
[I went to see a teacher and said “I’m quitting.” Then he answered calmly “You don’t really need to.” So that’s how it went. I took a break from school and went to Osaka. I didn’t tell my parents right away (laugh). They found out their kid was in a band in Osaka, though (laughs). Well, it couldn’t be helped. I listened to my parents most of the time, but there are some cases where it’s all or nothing, you know.]

– Did they give up and partly forgive you?
[Yeah, kinda (laughs). But you know, my joining the band went pretty smoothly. When new members come in, you usually see a personality clash or something, right? (laughs) Back then, my hair was in a recruit cut, and I didn’t know the deeper side of L’Arc~en~Ciel yet. I didn’t know how the others would react to my disposition, either. But, they did let me in (laughs). Just a few days later, we had a live to do, and there was already time booked to record a demo, so I had to work my heart out to learn the songs for the live and for the recording… I’ve been rushing along ever since.]

– From the very beginning, L’Arc~en~Ciel was able to attract about 200 people at a time, right?
[From the start I kept hearing that we’d sold out our venue. I had the chance to see the last live the previous guitarist did before quitting. There were lots fans screaming passionately for him not to quit. I thought “Hey, what are they going to do to me when I take his place?” (laughs). Well, whatever, I guess I just went up there and got started.]

– But did you find it very stimulating? Even though you had played with bands in the past, L’Arc~en~Ciel was one that people paid money to see, so the lives were always sold out. With some crazy fans, on top of that.
[That’s true. I was surprised by all those squealing voices. I’d been listening to metal, you know? The cheers are earth-shaking “WOAH”s and stuff like that. Ah, so this sort of thing exists too, I learned. A lot of things surprised me like that, but all of it was fun. The rehearsals, the lives, everything. And at the recording, I was amazed at how pretty my guitar could sound, when recorded.]

– Somehow, you seem to do everything at your own pace.
[That’s because my environment let me be that way, don’t you think? I didn’t worry about the fact that I was a newbie guitarist, the other members just let me be, naturally. Not once did they act like I sucked just because I was new, everything felt very normal.]

– But the band’s popularity was climbing sharply, right? I believe that L’Arc~en~Ciel wasn’t holding lives too often, only once a month or so. Always leaving them hungry for more like that, it seems almost like a game where you tried to score the highest number of audience members.
[Yes, that’s what it was.]

– You didn’t have a change of heart after doing it for a long enough time?
[Guess not (laughs). I say no, but I was having so much fun. We were a band playing live houses, so of course the members all have experience, right? The riffs and ideas I came up with ended up becoming good shows and songs. It was great.]

– I see. It must be a pleasant surprise to see your ideas accepted, rearranged, and turned into songs.
[Yeah, it made me very happy. And when we played it live, it would make the audience happy too. So it made me happy to make people happy. And it feels wonderful to play live. That’s how I spent my days.]

– Did you want to keep doing it forever?
[Just like that, yeah. And you know, I, the newbie guitarist, started pulling in my own set of fans, bit by bit. They were really sweet to me (laughs). I let my hair grow out a bit, so I wasn’t wearing a recruit cut anymore (laughs).]

– The more you did it, the more you felt like a musician yourself, right?
[Yeah, it just happened naturally.]

– The first album the band put out was DUNE in ’93, yes? What do you remember about that?
[We were still in Osaka, right? The drummer, Sakura, had just joined us a few days or weeks before. We had to go in for recording right away, so we had rehearsals every single day…. The surprising thing was, well, I was under the impression that pros had to record everything right the first time around. So I wanted to do it all in one shot, but they let me play it over again, two or three times. That was great, but I didn’t need to do it over too often. We did the recording at a studio in Tokyo, and the engineer was Jack Danger, who we all know very well, so it felt more like everything would be fine. So, if we suggested adding a keyboard somewhere, he’d go and get us a keyboardist. If I said I thought something would sound better in acoustic, he’d come up with an acoustic guitar. If I said I wanted a gut guitar, he’d get one of those. Eh, he could get anything. It was pretty awesome. All in all, it was a fun recording.]

** The riffs and ideas I came up with ended up becoming good shows and songs. It was fun, and made me happy. Every day was like that. **

– You never change at all, do you? No matter what happens and no matter what you do, you just focus on the happy, fun times and keep going on, focused on that.
[Yeah that’s right. Cause, it really was fun.]

– Around the time DUNE came out, your activities shifted toward large halls, right? Were those times a lot of fun, too?
[Yeah, it was fun, and made me happy. But when the venue gets a little bigger, it really feels like you’re on stage, you know? The stage set gets to be elaborate, and if you don’t have good communication before going onstage, you won’t know what kind of mood to go for. That happened sometimes. Like, there’s a column here, but I don’t know what it’ll look like if I do this, over here (laughs).]

– You must be talking about the first large hall you played at in Tokyo, Nippon Seinen-kan Hall, right?
[That’s right, that’s right (laughs). “Wow, so this is what it feels like to play a large hall,” I thought. And opportunities started flying at us after that.]

– When your major debut came along in ’94, did you feel like some big changes were about to happen? Or was it more like the things you had already been doing were big, themselves?
[Hm. I still think this way now, but yeah, since it wasn’t a clear goal of ours, it felt like the debut just sort of happened. I mean, if we had been working specifically so that we could go major some day, it would have felt different after we accomplished that. If our goal had been to play at Budoukan, we’d feel like something was different after we’d made it there, and I thought the same thing when we got to play in Tokyo Dome, and after we went overseas. But since I wasn’t setting any goals for myself, I made it that far without stressing my brains.]

– Hearing you talk, it really sounds like you walk at your own pace, always.
[Uh huh. Plus I think it was only possible because I was with the band.]

– In 2002, you started S.O.A.P, as a separate project outside of L’Arc~en~Ciel. Did you do that because you wanted to try something else, express different ideas?
[No, I can do everything I want to do with L’Arc~en~Ciel, definitely. But at the time, it was just that I had some extra time on my hands, and everyone else was doing solo work. So I figured I might as well, but I didn’t know what to do, and besides I needed voice training (laughs). So I got some lessons, like “Ooohhh~” (laughs). That’s how I got going in that direction. So yeah, for a while Ein and Sakura and I were goofing around together, and somehow we wound up trying to put some tunes together. It was just for fun, honestly. I totally wasn’t thinking about making a CD, I hadn’t decided to do anything ahead of time. It’s just that, I was thinking it’d be cool to do something with Sakura, but we’d need one more person. There was Ein, the model, but he said he could play bass so I called him over. Then the three of us started jamming. That’s how the group formed. We started it without wanting to make a CD or do any lives. Even so, we went through training camp (laughs). We just felt like having a training camp, that’s all. But a band with an amateur singer, an amateur bassist, and no management to call for help can’t go anywhere, which is fine because we didn’t think about it, we hadn’t decided to do anything whatsoever. So I took care of the training camp myself (laughs). When we, as S.O.A.P., were starting to rehearse what would eventually become our songs, a bunch of other people wound up coming over to hang out. The other members of L’Arc~en~Ciel came over too (laughs). So yeah, we were doing that, when Sakura went “Hey, we should have a live!” so we went up to Sapporo and had one. We hadn’t actually made up any lyrics yet, though. While we were working on that, we put together a mini-album, and we put the sound source together, too.]

– And then you ended up taking it seriously?
[Yeah, guess so.]

– I’m sure that when I saw you at Summer Sonic in 2002, I was surprised to hear your band name (laughs). “Can you really call a band that?!” I think I said.
[Ahaha…. And we came to the next year’s Summer Sonic too (laughs). We were just before SUM41, right? It had been a long time since I’d felt like so much was going against me (laughs). We hadn’t rehearsed, and there were tons of SUM41 fans, and our band name is awful (laughs). And then Chi**ko went up the stage with his headgear on. The security guys were all laughing (laughs). “That’s impossible.”]

– Even the tough-looking foreign security guards were laughing, surprisingly (laughs). But headgear included, S.O.A.P. always has a few interesting stories when it comes to lives. Like you’re the host of a Showa ballad. (7)
[Yeah. Like playing macho man while on stage and stuff. I started wanting to do that sort of thing, cause it makes the fans and the staff happy. All the S.O.A.P. lives are called “Festival”, you know? Because they’re festivals. It just makes me wanna go “WASHOW!” I think they used to have festivals in every single city. Lives are like that, they’re the same sort of thing, aren’t they? I think so. They have a festival element to them. We’re like the taiko players in the tower, playing while everyone dances around us. At first were like a band that would stop playing if the fans weren’t watching us (laughs). But that’s part of the fun. We messed up the performance a little but our practises were on stage, so whatever, on with the song (laughs).]

– So, the band came together just by being the way it was, not as a planned process. Ein said that he could play bass, but he was actually just a beginner, right?
[Yeah, yeah (laughs). But he got good at it pretty fast, it was interesting to see. Sakura said it first, we were just goofing off as a band. That was the mood.]

– But, while you were playing around as S.O.A.P., and the other members were doing their solos, it made one wonder what would happen to L’Arc~en~Ciel. Perhaps the hiatus would become permanent. Did you know the public was wondering about that?
[Nah, I had no idea (laughs). Well I did wonder when we were going to get back together. Maybe the other guys knew (laughs).]

– As usual, you just did your own thing (laughs). Do you think each member’s plans turned out quite differently from what they originally intended to do?
[Hmmm, I don’t know, but I don’t think the core of anything changed much. But you know, yukkie (yukihiro) has been devoted to his thing since before he joined L’Arc~en~Ciel, and I knew hyde wanted to make his ROENTGEN album for a long time before it actually happened. The solos came out of that, and while they had the time, it makes sense to throw in a bunch of other ideas too, right? The strangest thing for me was, after doing S.O.A.P., L’Arc~en~Ciel did some dome lives and stuff, right? It was like I could suddenly see everyone’s faces. Things changed that way, for me. This is changing the subject, but this time, I’m doing my first real solo, you know? I think I might be getting a taste of what hyde, tetsu and yukkie experienced in 2002. I’m late to the party (laughs).]

– Your solo work as Ken, did it start with a clear idea of what you wanted to do?
[I guess so. First of all, I wanted to do a cover, though.]

– That would seem to be Gary Moore’s song, Empty Rooms.
[Yes. Before, with S.O.A.P., I had said I wanted to a cover of Gary Moore, but it didn’t happen, somehow we didn’t get around to it. But yeah, Gary Moore’s songs are just guitar and piano and singing, so it might be fun to do a Gary Moore cover live of the songs I like. The way I picture it, Gary Moore’s songs are good for covering, so it would be pretty cool. But then I wanted to do some recording too, and if I’m going to record something, I figured I’d better have an original song too, so I found a good song from one of my old demos. Then this past February, I decided to record a solo single. At last year’s holiday event, DANGER IV, I went to rehearsals for S.O.A.P., which put me in the right frame of mind for lyrics and singing and seeing songs from a vocalist’s point of view. I told the members I wanted to perform like that. That’s how I ended up doing a solo. To go a little further, during L’Arc~en~Ciel’s AWAKE tour, we had a concept woven through the whole thing, and I realized how nice it is to have words, sound and a concept all working together. There was that, there was the holiday thing, and there was Gary Moore, it all flows into my solo.

** I focused on songs as songs, and focused on guitar as guitar. They’re both fun.**

– So you basically just wanted to sing?
[Yes. I wanted to sing Gary Moore, and as I was practising pronunciation and reading the lyrics, I realized what a romantic he is. By practising my pronunciation so I could convey those emotions English, it would spill over into my Japanese pronunciation, and I realized it could help me sing better. I wondered what I could do to simplify the lyrics of Speed a little. It was the first time I practised simplifying my singing. Before that I only focused on songs that I could scream out to make it sound as cool as possible. It must be in my DNA to appreciate the softer side, too. But simplifying the words to sing better turned out wonderfully. Doing Gary Moore, and practising my singing for Speed, it got me to explore different ways of singing, made me think about singing without screaming. That hit me while I was recording. It felt really good.]

– Did the vocalist part of you become more important?
[I guess so. But to cover Gary Moore, it meant that I, the guy who never bothered to copy anyone, would have to copy someone else’s guitar. The choking speed and so on, I copied all his nuances in this solo. I thought wow, it’s wonderful. For the backing on Speed, more than just wanted to play it well, I wanted to play it in a certain way. But doing that meant not using my own techniques. I could still play it, somehow, as if putting so much feeling into it let me soar through the playing. The power of my imagination drove my skill level up. Since I wanted to put so much feeling into it, I practised guitar a lot. So, I focused on songs as songs, and focused on guitar as guitar. They’re both fun.]

– You wanted to make your guitar sing as well, then?
[I guess so. It’s more like, instead of screaming out my songs, I wanted to communicate through the lyrics, and I guess I wanted to put those nuances into my guitar playing too. In my mind, I really wanted to do that, I wanted that kind of sound, but then I also wanted to listen to it myself. That’s how I think my solos are going to be from now on. If I had to put it into words, I’d say singer-songwriter. That’s the feeling I have, about solo work. And it feels that way too.]

– As if you were going back to the days when you listened to Matsuyama Chiharu-san?
[Yeah, maybe. So yeah, really that too.]

– It’s completely separate from S.O.A.P., of course.
[Yeah. But now, I’m wondering if all the stuff I randomly decided for S.O.A.P. was such a good idea, maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s on my mind. Not thinking about making a decision, more like just wondering about it.]

– You might not have thought this through yet, but do you any goals, even vague ones, concerning what you’ll do from now on, either with L’Arc~en~Ciel or on your own?
[Lately I’ve been thinking about communication. Just cause we’re playing, making music, doesn’t mean everyone is happy, right? A smiling face might be hiding feelings that are just the opposite, deep down. It’s pretty hard to discuss, but I want to be able to communicate better. That’s so we can keep having fun together. Not just during lives, but even concerning our CDs, I think it’s important to communicate.]

– The exact opposite of when you were happily alone with your music (laughs).
[Guess so (laughs). If anything’s changed since I joined L’Arc~en~Ciel, it’s that. With this solo, I’ve put together something that’s very introspective, but I think that the ones who listen to it will like it too.]

Interview by Hasegawa Yoshinobu
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. Nobita-kun is the main character of Doraemon. Since this series has been running for so long, it can be assumed that everyone in Japan knows who he is. Nobita-kun’s parents are also a salaryman and housewife. Go back.

2. A simplified version of Shogi, which in turn is also known as Japanese chess. Go back.

3. Matsuyama Chiharu is Japanese folk singer who has been active since the late 1970s. Nagai Yoru, meaning “Long Nights”, is one of her many well-known singles. Go back.

4. Since high school is not required education in Japan, entering a school requires passing an entrance exam, most of the time a very hard one. Stated otherwise, he barely managed to make it in. Go back.

5. Hosted by the same Tamori from Music Station, this is a midnight variety show that attracts many celebrities despite not being a program about anything in particular. Go back.

6. Obon, in July or August depending on the region, is a Buddhist festival where most people return to their traditional hometown and hold festivals in honour of the departed. New Year’s is more important than Christmas in Japan, and a lot of other Western holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas aren’t days off, if they are celebrated at all. Go back.

7. Showa is the era of Japanese history that goes from 1926 to 1989, so a Showa ballad is a ballad from that time. Go back.

This is a translation of the talk with L’Arc~en~Ciel from the June 1, 2007 episode of Music Fighter. As always with video clips, it is possible that I misheard something and thus mistranslated it. Enjoy!

BEGIN

Today’s Guest : L’Arc~en~Ciel!!!
Narration : Tonight’s guests, reappearing after two years, L’Arc~en~Ciel! A warm reunion for Aoki and KingKong? (1)

Aoki : Not that it matters, but you look great!!
*laughter*

Nishino : So it’s been two years! Not just since you came here, it’s been two years since you got together and did any work.
L’Arc : Mmmhmm.

Nishino : So what’s been happening?
hyde : Solos, and stuff.
Nishino : Oh, right!
hyde : Yeah…
Nishino : It fills the time, right? Gives you something to do. Who decided you should do that kind of thing?
hyde : Um… it kinda just happened.
Nishino : Yeah, for two years! So you weren’t getting together as L’Arc~en~Ciel at all, right?
hyde : …did we?
ken : Well… I went to hyde’s live, and to yuki’s live…
Nishino : As an audience member?
ken : Oh yeah.
Nishino : You weren’t on stage or anything?
ken : Yeah, no, just in the crowd. And I saw tetsu at work, but we’re just like… “Hey, good morning.”
*laughter*

Nishino : Wish my job was like that!
ken : Yeah that’s pretty much it.
Nishino : So what was it like, in the crowd? I mean, at yukkie’s live.
ken : It was sold out, you know.
Nishino : Was it?
ken: Pretty wild, actually.
Everyone : Eeeeeeeh? *yuki nodding*
*laughter*

Aoki : How did it feel?
ken : Kinda, you know… Butterflies in my stomach.
*laughter*
ken : If I sat down, I couldn’t see anything.
All : Aaah…
ken : So I went “hi~” from far away.
*laughter*

Announcer : Back after two years! In those two years of quiet time, there have been CHANGES in the lives of the members. So today, we will get to the bottom of this! Here’s HOW THEY CHANGED!!

Nishino : Yeah, even L’Arc~en~Ciel will be affected by time.
Fujiwara : People change, of course.
Nishino : So let’s check this out. First!

First segment : The one who became an Akiba-fan. (2)

*Camera goes to ken*
Crowd : EH?!?
ken : Yep.
hyde : He’s gotten into that stuff.
Nishino : Akiba, you mean?
hyde : It worries me.
*laughter*
Nishino : What kind of stuff?
ken : The Akihabara district, it’s basically built just for Akiba stuff, you know!
Hosts : Yes yes yes, of course.
ken : So it’s a whole district built up around one hobby. If you like Akiba-style and that sort of thing, you can waste a whole day over there. There aren’t too many hobbies that great.
Nishino : Kinda dangerous…
*laughter*

ken : So yeah, while I was there, I did something for the fan club magazine. I went to a place that makes figurines.
Nishino : Eh? What kind?
ken : Of me!
*much laughter*
ken : Actually, I wanted to make all four of us.
tetsu : Please don’t! *giggles*
ken : I didn’t have time though, so I just made me.
Fujiwara : Well that’s not so bad. I thought you’d go to a maid cafe or something.
*laughter*
ken : Well yeah, that’s the kind of thing they have there.
All : Eh?
ken : But I’m not that far gone, though.
*laughter*
Nishino : Not yet, you mean.
*more laughing*
Nishino : You’ll get there.
Fujiwara : He will.
Nishino : I don’t want to see that! Imagine, him with the glasses and the backpack and stuff…
*laughing*
ken : So then why don’t you come with me?
Nishino : No thanks.
ken : But it would suit you.
*laughing*

Nishino : So, your main hobby now is Akiba, then?
ken : No, actually. It’s massages.
Nishino : Oh really?
ken : Yeah, cause we’re going on tour soon. I’ve got to make sure my body is ready. So, I’ve been looking for massage equipment and stuff.
Nishino : You’ve got lots of hobbies, don’t you?
ken : Yes.
Nishino : How come?
ken : Cause I can’t stick to just one thing.

(Dramatic CM break narration)

Nishino : So how long have you been into Akiba?
ken : About a month, now.
Nishino : What about before?
ken : Rajikon (3), and stuff…
Nishino : Aaah.. so you don’t play with those anymore?
ken : My rajikon… I raced it about… three times, yeah.
Nishino : That’s all?!
*laughter*

hyde : Back when I joined the band, we had this thing…
*laughter cutting him off*
hyde : It was like… “hyde, you need to get a rajikon. Or else.”
*more laughing*
Nishino : So to join L’Arc~en~Ciel, the first thing you had to do was buy a rajikon?
hyde : That’s right. Even though I had no money…
ken : Who said that anyway?
hyde : *Points to tetsu*
tetsu : Hey, I wanted us all to buy some… So in the studio, when we weren’t rehearsing, we could play with them.
hyde : So I had to get one. See, it’s a boring hobby, and after three days we stopped playing with them.
*more laughing*

Nishino : What else?
ken : I used to be into bikes, like BMX. Yeah, I thought those were so cool. So I got one in Shibuya, I think it was. Rode it back home, but I didn’t make it. It’s so tiring… I think I got about a kilometre done before I got tired and quit. Didn’t want the bike anymore.
Hosts : EEEEEEEEEH?
*much laughing*
Nishino : So you got sick of the bike while you were taking it home? That’s crazy.
*laughing*
Aoki : So what happened to the bike?
ken : I have no idea.
Aoki : It’s not at your place?
ken : I let a friend take it home, I think…

hyde : He’s into cameras. Every day, well almost every day, he’d bring a camera around. Even on stage, he took pictures of the crowd and stuff like that. I figured his hobby was cameras. Nothing else.
*laughter*
ken : Yeah, I do that during tours. I’d get a camera just for the tour. But after it ends well… you gotta take the film out and get it developed, right?
*laughter*
ken : It takes too long! And it’s so embarrassing!
*much laughing*

Next : The one who forgets everything!

Nishino : Who could that be?
hyde : Me.
Crowd : Eeeeh?
Nishino : So you’re really forgetful?
hyde : It must be my age…
*much laughter*
Nishino : Yeah, you’re getting to be that age.
hyde : It sucks… Really…
Nishino : But is it really a problem?
hyde : Nah, mostly it feels like I’m being robbed.
Nishino : Oh, so you lose your belongings.
hyde : Well, yeah. They go missing.
*laughter*
Nishino : That or someone’s stealing them. What kind of things do you lose?
hyde : Like, my lighter for example.
Fujiwara : But that’s replaceable? Unless you use an expensive one.
hyde : Oh no, mine’s just 100 yen.
Nishino : What else?
hyde : My sunglasses.
Nishino : Oh, like you put them down and forget?
hyde : Nah, I really think they’re being stolen…
Nishino : Nobody’s stealing them.
*laughter*

Nishino : Actually we’ve had some of hyde-san’s favourite sunglasses brought to the studio. Here they are.
Hosts : Oh, they’re nice! But um… why are there several pairs of the same thing?

Narration : Four pairs of the same thing! What is going on?

hyde : Yeah well, like I said, they keep getting stolen…
Nishino : They are not!
*laughter*
Aoki : They’re reflective, right?
hyde : Yep.
tetsu : The tag’s still on that one…
Host : Oh right! *removes it*
hyde : So once, I was out shopping right? And I really liked these sunglasses.
Hosts : Of course of course.
hyde : But then, of course, they can break really easily. The store I got them from was all sold out, and so I had to mail-order them.
Nishino : Wow…
hyde : Then I found a place that could sell me a lot of them. I bought a bunch in case they broke, but by then I was already tired of them, so I don’t wear them.
Hosts : Eh? *laugh*
hyde : It’s like, once I got them, I got bored.
Nishino : Eeeh… so you’ve never worn these?
hyde : Not even once.
Nishino : No way!
Fujiwara : So then you don’t want these anymore, right?
*pause, then laugh*
Fujiwara : I mean, since you said you never wear them…
hyde : Actually, they’re perfect for skiing.
Hosts : Ah…
Fujiwara : But really, you don’t need four pairs.
hyde : *nods* Ok, go ahead.
Fujiwara : EH?
hyde : Take one.
Fujiwara : REALLY?!?!
*much laughing*
Aoki : No fair!
Fujiwara : This is great! I’m so happy! Really!
Nishino : Now you need to be careful. This guy will seriously just go sell it on Yahoo Auctions.
Fujiwara : I will not!
Nishino : He will.
Fujiwara : I won’t!
Nishino : He always does that, he even sells the autographed band DVDs we get. Really!!
Fujiwara : I wont…
Nishino : So don’t give him anything.
Fujiwara : Hey I can do what I want… But I’ll only sell this if I -really- have to.
*crowd laughs*

Nishino : OK, so moving on to this :

The one who became a real estate agent!

*camera goes to tetsu*
Everyone *laughs*
Nishino : You really were a real-estate maniac, right?
tetsu : Yeah, that’s right.
Nishino : You want to be a real-estate agent, right?
tetsu : Well I’m not going to be one.
Nishino : You have real-estate info?
tetsu : Yeah, as always…
Nishino : How can you be so well informed?
tetsu : Because I focus.
Nishino : You go out and look for it?
tetsu : There’s a few realtors I like, so I go to them a lot.
*laughter*
tetsu : Almost every day.
Aoki : So then you know things like where all the celebrities live, where they used to live, and so on?
tetsu : Yeah, I know a lot.
*much laughing*
Aoki : Scary. But cool.
tetsu : In town, I can always find the celebrities. Riding a taxi, I can go by and know who lives where.
Aoki : That’s good info to have
Nishino : Hard to find out…
Aoki : But you have your sources, right?
tetsu : Yeah.
*laughing*
Fujiwara : But you keep it all private, right?
tetsu : Yeah. You know how long leases last, right? Usually two years? I’ve only renewed a lease once in my whole life.
Crowd : Eh???

*Aoki and Nishino both talk at the same time*
Aoki : Oh sorry.
Nishino : No, go ahead!
Aoki : No, you go ahead.
Nishino : No, you.
Aoki : No, no.
Nishino : How Japanese! *smack*
*everyone laughs*

Aoki : But when you move, don’t you come to the new place thinking that’s where you’ll stay forever?
tetsu : No way. From the beginning, I never plan to stay very long.
Nishino : So it’s more of a temporary thing.
tetsu : Yeah. While I’m living there, I keep an eye open for something better, thinking about moving, you know.
Aoki : Eeeh… So does that mean you get bored quickly? Of your own home?
tetsu : Well, yes.

Nishino : Do the rest of you end up moving too?
hyde : Life is… all about renewal.
Nishino : So you don’t move much?
hyde : Sometimes I get bored of a place and don’t want to live there anymore.
Nishino : You get sick of it, then?
hyde : I guess so.
Fujiwara : Do you ever move, get to the new house, and change your mind right away?
hyde : No, no. I renew the lease at least once, normally.
*laughter*
Fujiwara : Life renewal, right?

Nishino : And ken-san?
ken : Yeah, I’ve moved around a lot, for no reason.
tetsu : I found a place for ken-chan, once!

(Dramatic CM narration, CM, brief recap)

Fujiwara : So you move a lot, do you?
tetsu : That’s right. I’ve renewed a two-year lease only once in my whole life.
Nishino : And ken-san?
ken : Yeah, I’ve moved around a lot, for no reason.
tetsu : I found a place for ken-chan, once!
ken : Yeah, yeah he did.
tetsu : I went looking for the place, for ken-chan.
ken : It was so nice, I wasn’t sure I could take it…
*everyone laughs*
ken : Really really!

yuki : One time, tetsu-kun asked me… “Don’t you think it’s time you upgraded to a nicer place?”
*everyone laughs*
Nishino : Even though you never said anything?
Nishino : What an aggressive real-estate man!
Fujiwara : It’s like “Knock knock knock! Come on, today you move!!”

Next : The one who has learned to shop like an adult

*camera goes to yuki*
*yuki looks behind himself*
*laughter*
Nishino : yukihiro-san… Who did you think we meant? It’s not like anyone else is coming.

Nishino : So, you shop like an adult now.
yuki : Shopping for clothes and stuff… When I find an outfit that I like, well first off it has to fit, but if it does then I keep it until it can’t be worn anymore, then I get another one.
Nishino : .. of the same thing? The same pants, for example?
yuki : Yes.
Fujiwara : You don’t want to spend too much time on clothes?
yuki : It’s just that there aren’t very many clothes that I like.
Aoki : Do you get the same thing in a different colour?
yuki : If I get the other colour, then I’ll buy that colour again too.
Nishino : so if I went to your place, I’d see a whole row of the same pants?
yuki : It’s very neat.
Nishino : Organized, I bet.
Fujiwara : I understand completely. Things have to match, after all.
Nishino : Well yeah, but you can have a number 1, 2, 3, 4, etc to match. With yukihiro-san, it’s number 1, 1, 1, 1.
*everyone laughs*
*yuki nods*
Fujiwara : So once he decides, it’s easy.

Nishino : Ok so now we’re up to the song. First new song in two years. What is it called?
hyde : SEVENTH HEAVEN.
*applause*
Nishino : What’s it like?
hyde : This one is… Danceable. It’s kinda disco-like.
Nishino : Good for excitement. At lives.
Fujiwara : It makes you want to shake, right? Like this… You wanna move.

(clip of the PV)
Narration : First new song in two years : SEVENTH HEAVEN! Meaning, the ultimate happiness. Was it more trouble than usual for the lyricist, hyde?

hyde : When I was writing the lyrics, I really wanted it to be in good Japanese.
Nishino : Ah really.
hyde : Even though I can use English words to get the same meaning… But still, the feeling isn’t the same. But the title had to stay.
Nishino : How long did it take to write?
hyde : About a week.
Nishino : An entire week?
hyde : Yeah, I worked on it a whole week.
Nishino : So who was in charge of the recording? Who conducted?
hyde : It’s usually whoever wrote the music, along with the producer, you know? But this time, me and yukkie did it.
Nishino : yuki conducting? *yuki mimes being an orchestra conductor*
*laughter*
Fujiwara : But for yuki it’s more like this *mimes drumming*
Nishino : Yeah, that’s more like him.

Nishino : Ok, so could you please introduce the song, hyde-san?
hyde : SEVENTH HEAVEN.

(song)

(break)

Nishino : Last year was the 15th anniversary live, right?
members : Yeah.
ken : We did almost 40 songs, on each day of the live.
Nishino : How long did it take?
ken : About.. three hours? *checks with tetsu* Four?
tetsu : More like three.
ken : Four hours?

Nishino : That’s amazing! So many songs!
hyde : We did some really old, nostalgic songs.
Nishino : How come?
hyde : So they could get a feel for our history.
ken : We did songs from before our debut, too.
Hosts : Eeeh?
ken : A song that’s never been released, right?
hyde and tetsu : Yeah.
ken : When we started that one, the whole dome went siiiiilent.
*Hosts laugh*
Fujiwara : Tokyo dome went quiet?
ken : You could just hear the song echoing back to us.
Nishino : So no one in the audience knew it?
tetsu : Out of the 50 000 people in the crowd, about ten of them went KYAAAA!
ken : They knew it.
Nishino : So you were singing just for those ten.
*laughing*
hyde : I was the only one dancing.
hyde : The next day, we left that song out.

Transcribed and translated by Natalie Arnold

(1) The two male hosts of the show, Nishino and Fujiwara, are also known as the comedy duo KingKong. Go back.

(2) Akiba, short for Akihabara, is the geek/Otaku district of Tokyo, full of anime/gundam/game/etc shops and all the cosplaying that implies. In this context, it means the geeky hobbies rather more than the actual district. Go back.

(3) Rajikon = Remote-controlled cars. 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.

These articles and interviews originally appeared in PATi PATi, WHAT’s IN?, GB, and uv magazines between 1996 and 2005. They have been collected and reprinted for the CHRONICLE of TEXT Box Set of The 15th anniversary in formation, which is the version used for these translations.

The translation of these articles is dedicated posthumously to Mike Daly, aka Goryu.

This is a translation of the talk with L’Arc~en~Ciel from the October 13 2006 episode of Music Station. This translation was previously posted on Pieces and on my LiveJournal. As always with video clips, it is possible that I misheard something and thus mistranslated it. Enjoy

BEGIN

(The first time we see L’Arc is after Niji ranks in at number 68 on the featured countdown. )

Tamori : I remember this song.
ken : Before making this song, we were in London. One time, I went to an instrument shop, and there was this really smily old man there, in the shop, saying “Buy this. Buy this.” Like I had a choice. Then we got back to Japan and played with what I bought there, and Niji’s what came out of it.
Crowd : Eeeeeh!?
Ken : And considering how that turned out, I thought maybe I should have bought more while I was over there.

(Main segment for L’Arc’s performance)

It begins with an announcement about how far back today’s song dates, plus the fact that this marks the 40th time they have been on this show.
Crowd : Whooooah~

Tamori makes a comment to the effect that Ken had other things going on this past year.
ken : That’s right. For a while back there I thought my foot was never going to heal and I was hobbling around on those crutches. One amazing thing that happened was having a smiling, happy Hamasaki-san helping me get around. “Come this way~” and stuff. That’s what lets me know I’m a star.
Everyone : *laughs*
ken : Wow, I’ve made it this far~ Yeah. I was happy.

Tamori : So. Do you have fun when you come here, to Music Station?
tetsu : It’s the tissues…
Tamori : Tissues?
tetsu : They have these tissues here at Music Station, you can’t buy them anywhere else. And when I run out, I know it’s time to make new songs. Gotta release something.

(They go on standby. While the song is being introduced, the guy behind the hosts holds up a box of tissues…)

Transcribed and Translated by Natalie Arnold

tetsu’s gear closet – The 120 stories tetsu has been loving…

tetsu long interview – by Minoru Tanaka

-The moment I saw it, I thought “I came to New York today just to find this guitar…” (laughs)-

One would not go so far as to say that “musician” and “instrument” are so closely linked that it is impossible to separate them. Yet, there are various ways in which this can be said to be the case. There are those who always seek out new instruments in order to suit their ideals, others who cling to beloved instruments until they fall apart, others still who absolutely refuse to let go of their instruments… tetsu’s bass collection, which exceeds 120 units, is surely among the most prominent in the world. This quantity certainly does not reflect the number of instruments needed as a musician, rather it is certainly a barometer reflecting the deep love between the musician and his instruments.

“Why collect basses?” “What is it about this bass that caught your eye?” “What would be your ideal bass?” “What is your dream as a bassist?”

Now, I shall present tetsu’s super-long interview, which focuses on AWAKE TOUR 2005 in its second half. He may have been a bit nervous, though he is not the type to volunteer the details of his life, instead preferring to take his time to select his words, politely, in order to then present his honest opinions straightforwardly. As the topic veered toward his maniac’s bass collection, he became considerably more excited, and his expression softened…

tetsu, the artist/musician, shall now be examined to his core, through his deep love and strong preferences toward instruments and music.

-It wasn’t interesting at all, so I thought “I’ve been tricked.”-

– There aren’t many people who can claim ownership of a bass collection as large as this one. I’m honestly surprised.
[Oh, really.]

– I’ve never heard of another collection focused on basses, let alone one that exceeds 120 units (laughs). Today, please let me go through various topics related to your bass collection. First, before we get into the details of your collection, would you care to enlighten me as to how you first became interested in bass and guitar?
[The very beginning, well, that was back in middle school. Actually our guitarist ken-chan is my childhood friend and he was one year above me. Along with our senpai who was two years above me, he and I hung out together a lot after school. Senpai’s house was right across the street from mine, and we went there a lot to listen to records and stuff. There were guitars all over that house, so I somehow got my hands on one.]

– That was guitar, not bass?
[Yeah, it was guitar. Around second year of middle school, I think.]

– What kind of music did you listen to back then?
[What the three of us listened to together was all hard rock and heavy metal. Before that, there was New Wave and the New Romantics Boom, so I had been listening to Duran Duran, Culture Club, and lots of other things like that.]

– Then you started to like metal at that time.
[Yeah. When I started hanging out with ken-chan and that senpai, that’s what they liked, so after school I’d go to senpai’s house and listen to it while messing with a guitar.]

– Do you remember what kind of guitar it was?
[Electric ones. I’m pretty sure it was a Tokai. A black Strat-type.]

– You didn’t know how to play, did you?
[Right. I didn’t really know, but ken-chan and senpai were already into it, and at first I had no intention of learning to play. It’s just that they had lots of guitars there, so I found out how to hold one properly and even played around a little.]

– Did you play any other instruments before that?
[I can’t honestly say I did. My little sister was taking piano lessons, so we had a piano at home. But I didn’t really play… I couldn’t do much more than [NEKO funjatta] *laughs*.] (1)

– (laughs) When did you start playing bass?
[When was it again… The three of us were hanging out, and ken-chan said something like “tetsu, how about you try the bass?” The others already had their own guitars, so “Why not get a bass?” they said.]

– Does that mean that the three of you were planning to form a band?
[It was more like, those two would play guitar together once in a while, but instead of having three guitars together we’d be able to jam in that room better if there was a bass, or something (laughs). That’s what ken-chan told me. But I was like “What’s a bass? How’s it different from a guitar?”.]

– (laughs) And what kind of bass did you buy?
[Some kind of Ari-pro (Aria ProII), looked like an Explorer or something.]

– Why did you choose that bass?
[It was kinda popular at the time. The bassist of Hanoi Rocks or something was featured in the Aria catalogue, they were popular back then, around my second year of middle school. I guess I bought it at the start of my third year…]

– But with bass, early on, it’s not very interesting to practise alone at home, is it?
[It’s really not (laughs). Plus I was starting from “What’s a bass?” too. ken-chan told me “It’s like a guitar, only with four strings instead of six,” so I figured “Well, since I started much later than you two, it might be easier for me to just have four strings…” (laughs). I asked “Is it fun to play alone in my room?” and got told “Yeah, it’s interesting.” So I bought a bass but once I bought it and tried it out, it wasn’t interesting at all. I thought “He tricked me,” at first (laughs).]

– (laughs) Did you buy an amp at the same time?
[I did. A little 30W Roland.]

– Did the three of you get together to do anything band-like?
[Nah, not like a band, we just played more properly in that room. Without even using an amp, we managed to make it sound good with just the raw sound. One time, we brought all our instruments and amps to another senpai’s house, this senpai played drums, and tried playing together. We rode our bikes to take all our stuff over. But it was just a normal house, so looking back on it now, I guess we must have been such a nuisance for the neighbourhood (laughs). Speaking of bands, that was the first time I ever played with a drummer, but that drummer was really bad so the rhythm didn’t match at all. He’d try to fill it but then the bar would get messed up (laughs).]

– (laughs) What other kinds of basses did you use during your amateur period?
[Before going major? Later on, I had a Charvel Jackson head type.]

– Was it a model used by a famous band?
[Let’s see… The bassist from the Osaka band Rattle Snake Shake used it. I bet no one knows who that is (laughs).]

– (laughs) Did that person influence you?
[No, that wasn’t it. Why did I buy that bass again? … Well I was really happy with it back then, in fact I still like it even now. I don’t have it anymore so I can’t compare it to anything else though.]

– Did you also buy a few guitars during that period?
[Yeah, I had a lot of guitars. This is another bass, but I had an Ibanez SR-1000 that was shaped a bit like an old TUNE bass. I think I had about three of those by the time I went pro. … Oh yeah, I had a Fernandes Mockingbird bass, too.]

– How was the sound?
[It wasn’t that impressive. There was another Fernandes, a Warwick-type, that I borrowed from a friend. I used it a lot for lives. For lives, it was always either that one or the Mockingbird I mentioned before.]

– Warwick-types are light, so they’re good for moving around the stage freely, right?
[Right. But the Mockingbird had better balance.]

– Were there any bassists you admired at the time?
[The one I covered the most was DEAD END’s (CRAZY COOL) JOE-san. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever covered anyone other than DEAD END… Oh right, there was REACTION, too. The only bands I really copied were DEAD END and REACTION. Plus a song or two from other bands, too.]

– Do you spend a lot of time practising fingering or technique?
[Nah, not really.]

– Then it’s mainly what you do at rehearsals, recordings and lives?
[Yeah that’s right. That’s about all.]

– There are some bassists who make a habit of practising their fingering…
[I don’t know any other bassists, so I wouldn’t know.]

– What kind of guitars did you have before you became a pro?
[Guitars? I had a Les Paul-ish original model from Aria Pro, what was it again…?]

– A PE? That’s easy to play, isn’t it?
[Maybe that. But you know, I don’t find that any particular guitar or bass is easy or hard to play. It’s like… let me play it for ten, fifteen minutes, and I can adjust to anything.]

– Eh? Then, you aren’t bothered by different scales or neck grips or anything like that?
[Right. I can adjust to that fast, so its not a question of the instrument being easy or hard to play. It’s the same thing with cars. People always talk about such and such a car being an easy ride or some other car being a hard ride, but generally if you give me ten minutes, I can adjust to it. And since I can do the same with a bass, it’s always easy to play. Even when I buy a new one, I just need a little time with it and then it gets to be easy to play.]

– That’s unusual… Any other guitars?
[I had an Aria Pro Explorer guitar, just like my bass, and also a Telecaster, but I can’t remember the maker… I don’t think it was a Fender, maybe it was a Tokai… Then there was my Fernandes V (Flying V) which was an artist model for Jimmy-san from 44 Magnum. What else did I have? … I had a few more.]

– You seem to have had more guitars than basses, so does that mean you were more interested in guitars?
[When it comes to my collection, I don’t find as many cool basses. Guitars are cooler, you know? Back then, I wasn’t even remotely considering becoming a pro. It didn’t really matter if it was a guitar or a bass.]

– Then you’ve always been the type to go “I want tons of instruments!” haven’t you?
[Hm~ Guess so…]

– Do you still have any of the instruments you bought back then?
[I don’t think so, except for that Ibanez bass, I still have that. I don’t have a single one of the guitars left…]

– What happened to all your old instruments?
[Hm~ I don’t really remember (laughs). I guess I must have sold them… I can’t remember who I sold them to or for how much…]

– It’s not something you paid attention to.
[Right.]

– It would be nice if you still had your very first bass though.
[Yeah, that would be kind of nice I guess… Well, maybe more standard looking models are cooler, but that’s not the way I am~ I had lightning and stuff painted on the body… (laughs).]

– Ah~ they made models that had lighting on them. Like those black ones with white lightning.
[Mine was blue though.]

– It was the Explorer model designed to look slimmer, right?
[Right, right. It wasn’t actually an Explorer, but that’s closest to what it looked like.]

– Can’t go wrong with something this expensive (laughs) –

– At the time of your debut, what kind of bass were you using?
[Around that time, my main one was my ZON.]

– You’ve been using the ZON for a long time now. When did you first obtain it?
[Around ’93 I think…]

– Why did you choose a ZON?
[Back then, I was thinking “There just aren’t any good basses around…”. ZON wasn’t being used by many people, plus it had a high class image, so I thought it might be good (laughs).]

– You certainly don’t see them much in Japan, and there very few musicians who use them.
[That’s right, and it cost me about 800 000 yen. I wonder if it still costs that much… I figured “Can’t go wrong with something this expensive”. That’s the price, the real price (laughs). At the time, Pearl (instrument makers) also ran an import agency, and someone from Pearl gave me a ZON Legacy Elite to try out and play. That is, if I liked it I could just buy it as it was.]

– On that model, the neck is made of graphite, right? Is the body’s wood the core?
[That’s right.]

– What is the fingerboard made of?
[The fingerboard is phenolic resin cured wood, I think…]

– How is the sound?
[The sound is incredibly clear, and it has a wide dynamic range, I think of it as “snappy”.]

– You’ve used it for an extremely long time, haven’t you.
[That’s right. From time it was made up to now, despite anything else that came along, I’m still using it.]

– So that makes it more than ten years. You own four ZONs, but the core body Legacy Elite is your main one?
[Right.]

– After the ZON, it would be the ESP signature models, right?
[Yes, as far as what I use on stage goes. Right after my debut, about a year or so after, I signed an endorsement contract with ESP… From that point on, what I use on stage has basically been ESP.]

– Was there a reason you chose ESP?
[Let’s see… they seemed high class (laughs). Actually, I had done bit of an endorsement for ESP before that, during my indies phase.]

– Is that so? You’ve made several signature models with ESP, but the first one was the TFR, correct? How was that completed?
[First, I borrowed a Forest bass they were selling. Then, since I kinda liked it, I remade it to my own preferences, changing the head to a reverse design, the pickups to Bartolinis, and I arranged the body’s wood too. I changed to pegs to Sperzels.]

– When making an original signature model, it’s perplexing to have so many degrees of freedom. Did you hesitate over where to start?
[Yeah, I did. I could draw the plans out myself then have it made accordingly, but that’s surprisingly scary (laughs). Ultimately, there’s no way to know how it’s going to sound until it’s been put together and tried out. So what I did was take the existing model, pick out what I like, and arrange it how I wanted. I started from that Forest bass.]

– Many of your signature models are full scale. Do you dislike short scale?
[Yup.]

– tetsu-san, your recent models have been tending toward a more traditional feel, haven’t they?
[‘Cause I’m getting old (laughs). But I’ve thought this way since I was at least 20. I think you can only use personal models like that while you’re young. Standard precision basses and jazz basses, well, you can still use those no matter how old you get. I’ve always thought that way. It’s the same with cars, that’s why I bought a pink Porsche when I was 25 (laughs). “I won’t want to ride around in this when I get older,” I thought. Basses work the same way, but I thought so more strongly when I was younger. I thought I would calm down as I got older and end up liking standard models more.]

– I see… By the way, what kind of car do you drive now?
[A Maserati. It’s just an ordinary 4-door.]

– I love jazz basses from the early 60s… –

– That’s still quite the showy car… Let’s get back on topic. You’ve taken quite an interest in vintage guitars and basses lately, right? You also seem to have many unique basses.
[That’s right (laughs).]

– Looking at your collection, it’s plain to see that there is quite a wide selection of vintage and rare models. When did your collection really begin to grow?
[Around ’98 I think… Yeah, ’98.]

– For any particular reason?
[Hm, let me think… (laughs). Generally, when I start a recording, I want to get new instruments. Normally, at home, I can’t connect my bass to an amp and play loudly, you know? And, even though I’m a musician by trade, I only get to record an album once a year at most. Well, each one takes several months to do, anyway. Tours, too, they only happen once a year. But when you think about it, I only get to play my bass really loudly a small fraction of the time, every year. Because at home, I usually can’t play it very loudly. That’s why when I’m at home, I don’t end up wanting any new instruments, but when I get to start recording and play it really loudly, that makes me wanna get more.]

– “I want more basses that sound different!” That sort of thing?
[Oh, and without playing it then, there’s no way to know what a certain bass really sounds like. Without playing it loud in a recording studio, I mean.]

– I understand how your desire for wanting many different basses could rise up, but why are you specifically interested in vintage ones?
[I dunno…]

– What was the first vintage bass you bought?
[A jazz bass, I think… I think that might have been how I got interested in vintage to begin with. There’s a guitar technician I owe a lot to, Takamori-san, who always gets vintage stuff ready in the studio for every recording.]

– He goes out and rents them for you?
[No, they’re vintage instruments he personally owns, and well maybe some of them are rented, too. I’ve gotten to try out a lot of different ones that way. That’s what made me start thinking “Hey, vintage basses are awesome…”. That’s how I got interested.]

– Do vintage models make a different sort of impression compared to everything else you’ve played?
[Apart from those, I’ve used my ZONs almost exclusively for recording. Now we’re getting to have more and more different types of tunes… Well, we’ve had lots of different kinds of tunes since our indies phase, so it’s more like “I wanna get all kinds of different basses to fit the songs,” now. The timing’s almost the same between that and my getting a hold of vintage basses.]

– Even among your vintage basses, you have an astonishing number of rare models. For example, that gold plated ’62 jazz bass, or models in rare colours. You have vintage items that can’t be found by any amount of searching…
[At first, I would do my recording with the vintage jazz basses that Takamori-san got ready for me, but in the end borrowing them is… how can I say this…]

– …lacking in spirit? They don’t agree with you, perhaps?
[It’s like I can’t get into them or something… Hm~ I can’t really explain (laughs). Well, I ended up deciding to buy my own vintage stuff. Then, when I went to New York, I found an instrument shop that let me try out everything they had. It took me two days.]

– Two days! How many did you try out?
[Wait, I wasn’t playing them constantly from morning until closing time (laughs). How many did I play, again?… I said “everything” but that was only 20-30 or so. In the end I bought the jazz bass that felt best, a ’62 Sunburst.]

– Then, do you really prefer jazz basses to precision basses?
[Yeah, guess so. Ever since I started borrowing Takamori-san’s, I’ve liked using jazz basses more than precision basses.]

– You have a ’62 Dakota Red finish, gold plated jazz bass. That’s fairly rare.
[Oh, yeah, gold plated jazz basses are unusual.]

– These rare models you have, do you mostly find them overseas?
[Yes.]

– If you were to compare different vintage instruments of the same model, would you find that each one had it’s own distinct tone and character?
[Hm. I don’t think so.]

– That’s interesting. Perhaps because they’re all one industrial product, made to a standard. Over the years, the construction methods change and so the sound changes, too.
[Well, there are some things even foreigners can make right (laughs). Especially the older products.]

– What kind of vintage Fender jazz basses did you go get?
[I really loved that Sunburst jazz bass, and so I came to love jazz basses from the early 60s, so I thought I’d get some more that were made before 1965. Then I decided jazz basses in rare colours would be good, so I bought that Dakota Red one and a ’63 Fiesta Red jazz bass and a whole bunch more.]

– Compared to guitars, there don’t seem to be as many basses in rare colours.
[Well, that’s because there are fewer bassists around to begin with. Anyway, once I had a lot of jazz basses, I decided I’d better get some precision basses too, so I went after precision basses next.]

– That includes the ’58 precision bass you introduced in ‘Player’ magazine’s ‘Vintage Fair’ section, right?
[Right. That and a ’65 Shoreline Gold precision bass. After that, I encountered the Fender Bass VI.]

– tetsu-san, you usually don’t play basses with more than four strings, yet you certainly seem to love your Fender Bass VI and your Gibson 6-string bass (laughs).
[That’s right. Especially the Bass VI, when I found it I thought “This has to be played by me, I just have to play it…” and “This instrument was made for a bassist just like me, wasn’t it?” so I knew I had to buy it (laughs).]

– The Fender Bass VI, it has six strings on a neck of the same width as an ordinary four-string bass, so the strings are pitched closer together. Does that make it harder to play?
[Well, it’s certainly more tiring to play, but I get used to it after playing for 10, 15 minutes (laughs).]

– But the scale is extremely small too, isn’t it?
[Yes it is. That’s why it’s better to think of it as playing a guitar instead of a bass, cause if you think of it as a bass then you’ll have problems with the scale being shorter than usual, so it’s better to just think of it as a guitar to make things easier, right? (laughs)]

– I see. As for tuning, the Bass VI is set one octave lower than a guitar, right? It’s not set at low B.
[Right.]

– Why did you intuitively sense that the Bass VI was “a bass meant for a bassist like yourself”?
[Even though I normally use 4-stringed basses, I do a lot of dubbing into the background of the basic parts of the back melody from a high position. Even now, when I do that, I think “I could use something higher pitched for this!” Also, I like the band called The Cure, and almost all of their songs are made that way, with Robert Smith’s vocal parts played on a Bass VI. I found out about that and thought it was a great way to play, it’s perfectly suited to me.]

– I see. Of course, it’s called a Bass VI, but it used to be used just like a baritone guitar, so it’s well suited to that kind of thing.
[When you hear it, you can’t help but think of it as a guitar, right? The parts played with it and the timbre, too.]

– Make V basses popular, tetsu –

– You went from jazz basses to precision ones, then on to the Bass VI, so what came next?
[After that… was VOX I think… To tell the truth, I got into VOX because of the colour.]

– Speaking of which, tetsu-san, you seem to like pinkish, Fiesta Red-type colours quite a bit.
[Yeah, I do. When I bought that ’63 Fiesta Red jazz bass, I thought “Wow, this is the perfect colour for me. Okay, I’m gonna collect basses this colour!” Then, the first one I got was that jazz, Fender VI. Then, “It’s not a Fender, but this VOX is practically the same colour!” So I bought that Phantom Bass without thinking beyond that. I bought a Fiesta Red Jaguar the same way, getting into guitars now. I just wanted to get as much as I could of that colour, you know.]

– I see… How did the Phantom Bass sound?
[That bass, well, I bought it without caring about the sound, but it’s actually really good (laughs). It’s deep. There’s a controller-selector thingy on the pickups, but you can only use it to choose whether you’re using the front or rear pickups. You can’t do half-tone. I always use the front ones, but it’s so deep and sounds great.]

– Have you ever used it in a recording?
[I have. The most famous song I used it for would be HEAVEN’S DRIVE, that’s done with that VOX. The bass is so important that if I hadn’t used that exact one, the song wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.]

– I see. By using various types of basses for different songs, you can expand the range of available arrangements for each composition and performance, right?
[Right.]

– You got into VOX because it was Fiesta Red, but are there others you like, too?
[Yes there are. Sometimes I find a Phantom that’s a different colour, and figure I might as well buy it (laughs). The specs are always a bit different, too.]

– Have you ever found a VOX within the country?
[I’m pretty sure it was always within the country. But, I can’t remember for the life of me where I bought that light blue Phantom.]

– Now, what comes after VOX?
[I don’t really remember the order I bought things in, so this won’t be accurate…]

– You have quite a few Gibson basses. Specifically, you have three Flying V basses, but you don’t look like the kind of bassist who’d play them (laughs).
[(laughs) The Gibson basses? I almost never use them for recording. What I use is usually the EB-3, I guess.]

– The EB-3 is a popular model among Gibson basses, but these others, such as the EB-2D or the six-string hollow model EB-6, these are rare!
[There really aren’t many of them around.]

– Isn’t it unfair for one person to own almost ten vintage Gibson basses? (laughs)
[Is it?]

– Do you know someone with more?
[Nah, I hardly know any other musicians at all (laughs).]

– (laughs) You seem to be especially particular about your V basses…
[The thing is that JOE-san from DEAD END used V basses. He’s someone I admired a lot back when I was in high school… One time, JOE-san said to me : “Make V basses popular, tetsu.” So that’s one more reason to collect them (laughs).]

– (laughs) Really?! Then it’s your honourable duty. How do they sound?
[Sound… I still haven’t used them for a proper recording (laughs).]

– Many people say they use V guitars not only for the design, but also because they like their sound. But with V basses that’s not really… But you have three of them?
[I think it’s a great looking bass for the stage. But, it gets a bit tiring to play for recordings.]

– Because you can’t play a V bass sitting down, right? (laughs)
[(laughs) But you know, these basses have gotten to be pretty valuable now. They only made them for about two years at the start of the 80s, you know? I still haven’t found a Silverburst finish one.]

– It can’t be found. You also have a Thunderbird II, what condition is it in?
[It’s good. That’s another bass you don’t see around much.]

– Doesn’t the neck ever break?
[No, it never gets broken.]

– The neck on this model is incredibly easy to break. It’s so thin, and on top of that, it’s made of mahogany. It snaps right apart.
[Is that so…]

– What do you like about the Thunderbird bass?
[Oh, there’s nothing I really like about it. I’ve never even used it once (laughs).]

– You don’t even know what it sounds like?
[Right.]

– But you bought so many Gibson basses because you like them, didn’t you?
[See, the Gibson basses have a lot of variety between them, you know, in terms of design. That’s what made me want to collect them. With Fender, it’s just precision bass or jazz bass, basically.]

– I see. Then you don’t always purchase things with the intention of playing them.
[Rather than use them, I’d say I buy them for my collection.]

– Apart from Gibson and Fender, you have quite a few rare basses. For example, in the promotion video for the single Jojoushi, you were playing a Hofner 5000-1. It’s amazingly beautiful.
[Isn’t it so pretty?! It’s so pretty I wondered “Is this a re-issue?”]

– Really! Which year was it made?
[I think it’s from the ’70s…]

– I sometimes see 500-1 models like Paul McCartney used, but this 5000-1 is something I’ve never seen before. How unusual…
[Lately, I’ve tried not to buy anything but unusual stuff… (laughs)]

– Did you find it overseas?
[Yeah, in L.A.]

– It’s in staggeringly good condition, there aren’t even any stains… Have you made use of it for any recordings?
[Not for recording, no. I used a Hofner for Hitomi no Juunin, but it wasn’t this model, it was an ordinary 500-1 violin bass. I had borrowed it just for the recording, so I returned it as soon as the recording was over.]

– You didn’t want to include it in your collection?
[Nah~ In terms of looks, it was just too ordinary…]

– I see (laughs). That Hofner is often seen, after all. As far as the woodworking and binding are concerned, they’re extremely fine but there are hardly any flaws.
[I like it.]

– Now, this Born to Rock bass, that is rare!
[Yeah, it’s unusual.]

– Guitars by this brand have been played by Hotei (Tomoyasu)-san, but they actually make basses too.
[That was the first I’d heard of their basses, too (laughs). I knew Hotei-san used one of their guitars, though. “Hey! They make basses too!” I bought it when I found out.]

– What kind of a sound does it have?
[I haven’t actually played this one properly, either. But I don’t really expect to, either, not with this shape… (laughs)]

– (laughs) You also have a red Klein bass, which is also incredibly rare.
[It sure is. Plus, this one’s apparently a prototype.]

– Eh, is that so?
[It was on the market for a while too, but the market version has a completely different paint job. The market model had matte style paint with a cracked-looking finish, or something. Oh and the placing of the jacks, too, the holes are all in different places, so I’m pretty sure this one’s a prototype.]

– You have a turbo bass, too. This is the original model that came out in the mid-80s, isn’t it? Doesn’t that only exist in textbooks?
[The turbo bass wasn’t just going on sale just then… Was it a brand new thing?]

– Perhaps that was only a prototype… I had honestly only seen it in textbooks before. However, I have still never seen it sold anywhere. Although, surely it’s been reissued since then.
[I heard that bass prototypes were only in textbooks, but when I was told “We have a prototype of a turbo bass in dead stock,” I had to buy it right away. Yeah, yeah, that’s why later, when the reissue came out, I was really upset! (laughs)]

– (laughs) I understand. How does it sound?
[That’s another one I’ve never really played… In the end, I guess I only ever really play them for recordings, and of course I’m never gonna say “Okay, take all my basses in today.” (laughs)]

– Of course not. With 120 of them, that wouldn’t exactly be an easy delivery, would it? (laughs)
[I’ve played around with the turbo on a tiny little amp, but it sounded pretty orthodox to me.]

– I came just to find this guitar… –

– Does having all kinds of different basses around make recordings more fun? “I’ll use this bass for this song,” for instance.
[Yeah, I guess it does. But lately, I haven’t wanted to take the risk, so I’ve only been doing it by the book, even in recordings. I only have them prepare the small number of basses I actually use.]

– Which bass was the main one used in recording the album AWAKE?
[Lately, for recordings, I’ve mostly been using the Sadowsky. That and my ZON, of course.]

– Is the Sadowsky a model made in the USA?
[Yeah, it’s from N.Y.C.]

– How does it sound?
[It’s great. It has incredibly good balance from the first string to the fourth. That happens so much, you know, for a bass to sound weird on a couple of the strings. The balance is so good, especially when I’m playing with an orchestra, the sound stands right out.]

– I see. Your collection is quite heavy on variety. Is there any particular instrument you might currently be looking for?
[Hm~ Not really… I’d say I’ve pretty much gotten everything I want.]

– Not ‘pretty much’, absolutely (laughs). You love your 4-stringed basses, but might you not also be interested in 5- or 6-, that is to say in multi-stringed basses?
[Hm, they don’t usually sound that good, and I have to say that there aren’t any 5-string basses that really sound good to me.]

– You don’t care for the low-B of the fifth string??
[Nah, it’s not the sound of the fifth string, it’s how the other four strings sound that I don’t like.]

– If there is a 4-string and a 5-string version of the same models, the tone will be basically different?
[Yeah, it’s actually pretty different. That’s why, whenever I absolutely want to use the pitch of a 5-string, I always make sure to tune it down. Of course, that’s useless for lives, but for recordings I can do that sort of thing, you know? I think it’s better to use them that way. Lives are much more straightforward of course.]

– Over that past few years, multi-stringed basses have been popular, but even so many bassists are particular about having their 4-strings.
[Of course, that’s because the sound is better with a 4-string. If they could make a 5-string bass that sounded just like a 4-string, only with the extra string making that one lower note, then that would be great, but in reality it changes the entire sound so I don’t like it. Even when I use a 5-string, I’ll have actually played most parts of the song with a 4-string.]

– You can’t bring yourself to sacrifice the sound of the other four strings just to get that fifth one?
[Right, so what I’d rather do is just punch in that part, then tune my 4-string lower and just play it that way, or something.]

– I see. By the way, tetsu-san, are you at all interested in instruments made in your birth year of ’69?
[I have absolutely no interest in any jazz basses made in ’69 (laughs).]

– Your Gretsch White Falcon is a ’69 model. Did you have that fact in mind when you purchased it?
[Yeah, I did (laughs). I bought it because it was from ’69. I already had a ’57 Gretsch Silver Jet but, before, when I was in New York, I walked past a shop where this White Falcon was on display in the show window. The moment I saw it, I thought “I came to New York today just to find this guitar…” (laughs). On top of that, the reason I was in New York at the time was to do the mastering of my TETSU69 album (Suite November, released in 2002), so it meant even more. “I have to buy this now!” (laughs).]

– Incredible timing with the ’69… (laughs). Do you have any other ’69 instruments?
[What else do I have? From ’69~ Right this second, I can’t think of any other ones…]

– Without that bass, there would be no such thing as the sound of tetsu from L’Arc –

– So far we’ve spoken of bass and electric guitars, but you don’t have as many acoustic guitars. Though, there is that Rancher…
[Acoustic guitars, well, yeah… I don’t really get much of a chance to play them.]

– You don’t use one to compose songs at home or anything?
[I don’t play them much at all, no. Besides, playing an acoustic at home would get loud, wouldn’t it? (laughs)]

– Oh, would it? (laughs)
[It’s quieter to play an electric without plugging in the amp.]

– That doesn’t make the sound too quiet to hear? (laughs)
[Nah, when I’m at home, it’s just loud enough. That Rancher I have makes such a… “Cha-keeeen!” sound that I really don’t…]

– It looks rather impressive though, doesn’t it?
[Yes, it looks great.]

– Are there any other instruments you want?
[No, not right now. Next time I get around to recording something, I might find something I want, I dunno.]

– You are the owner of such an expansive collection, but you don’t generally touch any of these, you only see them when you use them in a recording. Isn’t that rather sad?
[I guess so. But when I’m at home, I really don’t play much.]

– Do you write songs with a guitar?
[Yeah, I use a guitar.]

– What kind of guitar do you use?
[A Sadowsky, these days.]

– Does the guitar you use for composing affect the outcome of the tune?
[Ah, maybe it does, somewhat.]

– You might come up with an entirely different song if you composed with an acoustic guitar.
[Oh, yeah. But, I wouldn’t want to cause trouble… To make sure I don’t bother anyone, I’ll wait until I move again before I start being loud playing it (laughs).]

– Do you have any anecdotes about your collection?
[I have a lot of Steinbergers. Almost ten, actually.]

– Are they all Steinberger basses?
[Nah, guitars. Not those tiny square-body ones; as far as the body goes, it’s that big one called a GM shape.]

– Ah, with the wooden body, right?
[That’s right. The Steinbergers are being remade right now, aren’t they?]

– Since they came to be affiliated with Gibson, they haven’t been manufactured, but maybe that has changed by now…
[They’re making them again. I was thinking of buying some new products, and those peaked my interest… Before, my reasoning was just “I don’t have any Steinbergers yet,” so I got some (laughs). Somehow, I got heavily into them at one point.]

– Equipped with a TransTrem tremolo system, right?
[Yeah, they are. I don’t use tremolo that much though.]

– Have any other instruments come to your attention lately?
[Hm~ I don’t think so…]

– tetsu-san, when you spot a guitar or bass, what do you use as a basis to determine whether or not you want it and whether or not you will buy it?
[Hm~ Let’s see… If I find a bass I like for its sound, then I’ll buy lots of them, but besides that… Ones that would work as good weapons, with kind of a weird sound to them, and anything that’s really rare, I’ll buy all those right away.]

– Do you sometimes buy them like you did the White Falcon, just while browsing shops in the street?
[Sometimes, when I’m overseas.]

– Do you often find yourself wandering around instrument shops?
[Sometimes, if I have the time.]

– When you find an instrument that interests you, what do you make sure to check?
[First, I check to see if it still has all the original parts. Then I check the neck for break marks and stuff.]

– You’ve said that it doesn’t matter to you whether the neck is thin or wide, correct?
[I’m fine either way.]

– If you had to choose one bass from your collection as the most precious of them all, which would it be? As in, this is the one you would save from a fire or something (laughs).
[Eh~ only one? I’d be hesitating (laughs). Which one… Hm~ I guess it would have to be the ZON, wouldn’t it? … I feel that without that bass, there would be no such thing as the sound of tetsu from L’Arc.]

– Indeed… Seeing how you’ve been using it for over 10 years now. By the way, you have a bass that JOE-san from DEAD END once used, correct?
[Yes I do! I received it from him through an acquaintance.]

– Since this is the band you admired so much in your school days, I imagine you must have been thrilled.
[I was so happy! You know, I went to see them so many times back in high school, and this is the bass JOE-san used to play back then. It’s the bass he had since his indies, like a trademark of his. Like “CRAZY-COOL JOE = This” or something. It’s JOE-san’s most famous bass. Was it really okay for him to give it to me? (laughs)]

– It is a bass associated with profound memories. One could even see it represents a starting point for yourself, tetsu-san.
[Back in high school, I went to a whole bunch of DEAD END lives right after school, still in my uniform and everything. JOE-san was playing this bass every single time… Now, to think that it belongs to me… It feels a little strange…]

– It looks like a B.C. Rich, but it isn’t one, is it?
[Right, it’s a Riverhead. It’s made pretty well, too, Riverhead is nothing to sneeze at. Then, JOE-san replaced the bridge himself, using a type that continues past the back, but look, now the strings can’t reach (laughs). So look here, one of the four pegs is stuck all the way over there (laughs).]

– Ah, I see. It looks so handmade, it almost has a lonely sort of feel to it (laughs).

– Either here or overseas, as long as the timing is right… –

– A few days ago, you performed live in Korea and China as part of ASIALIVE 2005, so could you tell me how that project came about?
[I wonder myself (laughs). It was a request from the management, but doing a live overseas on the same scale as we do them at home is pretty tough. Adapting the local PA system, for instance, or having to use simpler, livehouse-style lighting because their lighting system isn’t as big and powerful as what we have in Japan, and yet we’re still trying to produce a show of the same quality as our Japanese ones…]

– It’s quite the tall order, isn’t it?
[Yep. And I never felt too strongly about it either way, never “I wanna do lives overseas!” or “I don’t want to.” (laughs). My stance has always been “If we can go there, let’s do it.” And then we started hearing that we could go there this time around…]

– You did ASIALIVE 2005 as a bit of a continuation of AWAKE TOUR 2005, right?
[Thinking of it as all one package, the overseas tour had to be close to the national tour or else we’d have a hard time making a profit (laughs). We didn’t have to hold separate rehearsals for the overseas tour, for example, but that could only work as long as it was within a month of the other one, or else we’d be looking at problems with our overhead expenses. Plus, the rehearsals for the national tour coincided with our time in the recording studio, so it was extra efficient. That’s why we decided to combine it with the tour after releasing AWAKE. Otherwise, doing individual concerts would have been too difficult.]

– I see. In the rest of Asia, especially in China, there are various emotional issues and lingering resentments toward Japan, to the point where it is a point of active social discussion, and so were you at all worried about that sort of thing during ASIALIVE 2005?
[Hm~ I know what you mean… but personally I wasn’t worried.]

– While you were in the midst of planning ASIALIVE, there was an international news report about anti-Japanese incidents occurring in China. You didn’t worry much about that, either?
[I personally wasn’t worried. Some of the staff seemed to be quite worried, though.]

– Then when you went there for the ASIALIVE concert, were there any moments when you felt anti-Japanese resentment toward you, as a Japanese person?
[No, not particularly.]

– The menu for ASIALIVE in China and Korea differed from the one for AWAKE TOUR, correct?
[That’s right. The contents were different. AWAKE TOUR was focused on songs from the album AWAKE, but ASIALIVE was mostly geared toward a brand-new audience, so we gave them a thoroughly varied selection of songs so they could understand what this band called L’Arc is really all about.]

– Then, it was full of your hit songs?
[That’s right.]

– After doing shows at home, in Korea, and in China, did you notice any differences between the three audiences, in terms of national character, so to speak?
[You know, even within Japan the audience reacts pretty differently depending on where we are. Osaka crowds have an Osaka-style feel to them, Kyuushuu crowds have a Kyuushuu feel, and so on. It’s like that just within one country, so of course it’s the same overseas, and the differences were even more blatantly obvious, they behave so differently.]

– The fans express excitement and emotional responses in different ways than the Japanese would?
[No, I think it’s more that since to those fans, we’re a foreign band, they just react to us like they would to any foreign band. Even in Japan, there’s a lot more excitement when a foreign group comes to do a show here, you know. So, I think that basically, they aren’t actually all that different.]

– The overseas fans had been awaiting your arrival for quite a long time, so where there any happenings, so to speak, because of that?
[Happenings, you say… Security in the airports wasn’t all that strict. In Japan, when a foreign band comes over, they have fences and security all over the place so fans can’t get very close. But over there, they don’t have a system like that in place. It was like Japan back in the 1960’s or 70’s. So the fans came right up to us, pulling and grabbing and fighting their way up.]

– Did that situation cause much trouble for you?
[Hm~ Nobody got hurt, this time. In Thailand in 1999, the fans pushed and shoved so much that everyone toppled over like dominoes, and I fell down too. I thought I was gonna die, that time (laughs).]

– That’s scary… In any case, that must be a lot of people.
[It sure is. But it used the be the same way in Japan, whenever foreign bands came.]

– Now that you’ve performed in Korea and China, and experienced such a passionate response, do you think this can be used as a key to open the door for new activities throughout Asia?
[I’m not planning to actively go out into Asia and be more active overseas. That’s not to say that I only want to do things here in Japan, I just don’t have much of anything decided either way. Either here or overseas, as long as the timing is right, anything could end up being possible. Nothing’s decided now, and I don’t think the timing is right either.]

– You can’t say that you have any future plans to go overseas again because you haven’t looked into yet?
[My plans for the future aren’t any different from what I’ve been doing. I want to write good music, release it, do some lives… You know how it goes. This time it just so happened that conditions were right for us to go do some shows in Asia, and I’m sure conditions will be right again eventually, and even if they aren’t it’s not entirely impossible…]

– I see. Did you go shopping for instruments in Shanghai?
[No, I didn’t. You know, I hardly had time to go out at all, in China. We were really just there for the live. So yeah, I don’t know anything about Shanghai (laughs).]

– It’s hard to balance that sort of thing –

– Now, I think we should return to the topic we were originally discussing. That is, your instruments. Shall we begin with your signature models? What kind of time span was there between the creation of your first one, the ESP TFR, and the ELT that you produced next?
[Um, about two or three years.]

– For the TFR, tetsu-san, you explained how the pre-existing ESP Forest was rearranged by yourself and others doing similar things, and now this ELT looks like it may have been inspired by your ZON…
[Right. I really love my ZON, so I wanted to make something using a similar concept.]

– Do the ideas for the signature models mostly originate with you, or is it rather more from the makers?
[Generally, they come from me.]

– You could make a signature model any time, but what determines the timing and scheduling of them?
[I determine the timing too (laughs).]

– When you are working on a signature model, what kind of obstacles do you encounter on the way to realising your ideal design?
[My signature models are ultimately meant to be sold, and so if I aim only for perfection of the instrument itself, the cost will rise too much, so then it would end up being too expensive when they start selling it.]

– That perfection, is it meant in terms of the parts or of the construction method? It sounds as though it could be as simple as selecting the pickups.
[Of course, that’s the case when it comes to the pickups, and for the bridge and the pegs too. Changing the parts just a little can mean making the price go up to 20, 30 000 yen. I could make the perfect model if I was willing to do that, but it’s pointless because at that price, it won’t ever get purchased and used. And of course, the makers want to make something they can sell. It’s hard to balance that sort of thing.]

– I see. Is there a common thread to your signature models, tetsu-san?
[Not really, I don’t think.]

– It doesn’t have to be a design feature, even if it were just the neck…
[That’s always different, too.]

– Are they all long scale?
[That’s right. The scale might be the only thing they all have in common.]

– Is that because you’re working from jazz basses?
[It’s more like, before, I used to think that if it wasn’t long scale, it was no good.]

– The Fender 6-string bass you use has an extremely short scale, but I suppose you think of that as something completely different?
[When it comes to 6-strings, I mostly go from a high position, and I hardly use anything but the first three strings. The lower-pitched ones, well, I’ll use them for lives once in a while but I never use them for recording.]

– When designing a signature models, do you actually draw out the shape you want?
[To tell the truth, my signature models are pretty much all based on existing products.]

– Then the first thing you pick out is the design.
[Right, it all starts with the design.]

– Do you take that design, then find the right sound based on the parts and materials you want to use, or do you select those with an ideal sound in mind? The latter seems more difficult…
[That’s for sure. That’s why I get a prototype made first, then change the position of the pickups, or even switch them completely. Sometimes I’ll change the materials for the body, or change all sorts of other things. I’ve even changed the neck of the BUZZ BASS I use so much lately.]

– Did you change the BUZZ BASS’ fingerboard, too? Or perhaps the width of the neck?
[Yeah, I changed them. I even changed the pickup placement.]

– The Sadowsky I have now is enough. –

– Presently, your main bass for recording is your Sadowsky, so when did you get your hands on it?
[In the fall of 2003. It was Takamori-san the guitar technician who first told me “Sadowsky basses are good. They’re good for recording, too.” So, I was interested and borrowed a Sadowsky for that recording to try it out. I was really happy with it, so I bought right then and there (laughs).]

– How many Sadowskys did you try out?
[I think there were only two… You know, there are hardly any of them in the country, since Sadowskys are made in New York. At the time, I tried asking their import agency in Japan, but it turned out that there were almost none in the warehouse. So instead I got the head office of an instrument store to let me try them out.]

– What is it about Sadowskys that you like, specifically?
[With Sadowskys, the sound balance is incredibly good. The sound is deep, and it has a wide range. They hardly have any dead points at all. I think I’ve always liked, you know, wood basses (laughs), I’ve always wanted them. I’ve had my ZON for over 10 years and I really love it, but the neck on it is made of special materials, and I don’t think it sounds any better the more I use it… With a bass like that, the sound never changes. Of course, that’s a good thing, but in the end I want wood basses (laughs).]

– I think I understand how you feel. Now that you have this Sadowsky, do you think it will become your main recording bass?
[No, I think it’ll be 50/50 with my ZON. Depending on the song, of course.]

– You have an Atlansia bass in your collection but I don’t think it quite fits your image, tetsu-san…
[Really? Actually, I haven’t even used it a single time (laughs). Rather than for playing, I bought it because it interested me as a piece of craft work. Because it’s a nice design (laughs). The colour and the design. I don’t even know what it sounds like.]

– It’s quite unique, with it’s own individual design and concept, and extremely interesting. Speaking of Atlansia, they once released a bass with only one string, a long time ago. Did you know that?
[Yeah, I’ve seen pictures of it (laughs).]

– It really had only one string, so it looked deceptively easy to play, but in reality it’s quite tough on the left hand, isn’t it? …It needs to wander all over the place (laughs).
[With Atlansia, well, I like the looks of their products, but the necks are always a bit wide so I have a hard time holding them…]

– It’s as if the makers were thinking “If the neck is wider, the sound will be deeper.” (2)
[Yeah, I think that does have something to do with it, but it’s not all that deep… Of course, I’ve never even hooked it up to an amp (laughs).]

– You even have a GR bass synthesizer. There aren’t too many people who use those… (laughs).
[I don’t use it either (laughs).]

– What was the timing behind your acquisition of it?
[Well~ I actually don’t remember how I ended up buying it. I must have thought it would be a good idea to have it in my collection. I never actually had any intention of using it.]

– Lindert basses are rarely found in Japan… This doesn’t fit your image either, tetsu-san… (laughs). This isn’t so much a 6-string bass as a baritone guitar, right?
[It’s called a baritone guitar, yeah. But I use it just like the 6-string Fender. By the way, is there even a difference between a 6-string bass and a baritone guitar?]

– They do seem to be the same thing. Even the scales are similar.
[…Yeah.]

– Have you ever used the Lindert for recording?
[I’ve used it quite a bit, actually. I’m pretty sure the solo in Perfect Blue was played with this one…]

– How’s the sound?
[It’s not quite a bass, it can really only be played like a guitar. With an effector attached, the sound could be anything. It’s like tender meat, you know, add the right condiments and it’s like a delicious meal (laughs).]

– (laughs) I see. I see you also have two of Okano (Hajime)-san’s signature model Yamahas.
[Ah, actually they’re both prototypes. Probably the only ones of their kind.]

– Do you actually use them?
[I actually do. I used them for the recording of READY STEADY GO.]

– How did they sound?
[Great. A good, junk food-like sorta sound (laughs). They look like junk instruments, don’t they?]

– They look cool. Like they’re on their way to being pretty. Were they recommended to you by Okano-san?
[More like Okano-san gave them to me. It says “Prototype” in the back of the head, so they’re quite precious.]

– You recently purchased a Trace Elliot T-bass, correct? That is also quite rare.
[Sure is (laughs).]

– The shape of the head looks three-dimensional, it’s quite a unique design. How did you come across it?
[I looked for it on line and finally found it. I’ve always wanted one and was looking for a long time…]

– I’ve also investigated the T-bass, and even on line, it’s hardly findable.
[I know (laughs).]

– The product must have debuted in 98-99, but I think production stopped immediately.
[Seems that way.]

– How does it sound?
[The sound, well, this is probably because it’s fretless, I’m not sure, but it’s a really bright sound, it comes out really well.]

– Then I suppose it must match up well with the Trace Elliot bass amp you had before?
[I wonder if it does~ I’m sure you’re right.]

– What kind of amp do you use now?
[An Ashdown pre (amp), and the power (amp) is an Ampeg.]

– You used a Trace Elliot amp for a long time, though…
[That’s true. Well, I guess that’s the reason why I looked so hard for that T-bass.]

– I’ve never heard of anyone else looking for a T-bass (laughs). Did you find it here in Japan?
[Yes.]

– The pegs are set at an angle, doesn’t that make them hard to wind up?
[No, it’s actually pretty easy.]

– Don’t you use it for recording?
[I think I might try it out soon. But I think the Sadowsky will end up winning.]

– You seem to quite like your Sadowsky.
[I love my Sadowsky! As long as I have this and my ZON, I don’t need anything else (laughs). I think I could manage with just those two. Its pickups are still good too. I’ve even thought of using those pickups for my own signature models.]

– You also have Sadowsky guitars, correct?
[Yep. I do.]

– tetsu-san, the Sadowsky you use is a jazz bass type, but you also have various other kinds, don’t you?
[As far as models are concerned, I have all sorts of them. ‘Cause I can order them.]

– Are you thinking of ordering any other models?
[Ordering them isn’t quite as interesting. Let’s see… I don’t have any particular requests. The Sadowsky I have now is enough.]

– Compared to an ordinary bass, the Sadowsky seems so much more elaborate, made with so much more care. Is that apparent in its sound, too?
[Yeah, it is. According to what I’ve heard, Sadowsky-san actually went to a bunch of recording sessions and got opinions and ideas directly from the bassists, implementing them in his work. I think that sets him apart from other makers.]

– I see. The design is quite standard, but it seems to stand out against other instruments in terms of quality.
[In the end, when it comes to making instruments, you can’t afford not to listen to the opinions of actual musicians. That’s the only way to see if your instrument would actually get used, you know. I have a tiny little 20-30 watt amp at home, and there’s a huge difference in what I’m looking for between something I’ll play on that little thing at home and what I want for a recording or a live with the hugely powerful sound equipment there.]

– Fodera basses are used by many studio and jam session oriented musicians. Have you no interest in getting a Fodera bass?
[I think they sound good, but I don’t really like the way they look.]

– Is that so? I thought it had such a professional look to it…
[That butterfly-ish mark looks kinda iffy to me… (laughs). Nah, for work where the bass won’t be seen, for studio work and stuff, then I think it’d be good, but it just isn’t very rockish.]

– Ah, certainly. How about in terms of sound?
[Nah, I’m okay with my Sadowsky for now.]

– Of course (laughs). You’ve used your unique basses many times for recording, so has the character of one of those basses ever exerted an influence?
[Yes. For the recording of winter fall, I used an EB-II and it fit that song’s image just perfectly. It wasn’t even my bass, it was one that Okano-san or Takamori-san got for me. EB, that has a round sorta sound, doesn’t it? But that sound was perfect for the song.]

– Does a bass with such a strong personality have the power to change the melodies you’ve already come up with?
[Hm~ It’s not that it really changes things, I don’t think. Rather, it affects whether I’ll be playing with my fingers or with a pick.]

– Is it very different to produce a sound with a bass when you’re playing live instead of in a recording studio?
[Well, the people creating the sound are different in lives and in the studio. I focus on the playing, and I leave the sound production up to them (laughs). Also, for lives, I mostly use wireless ESP basses. Rather than talk about sound production, for a live what I really hear is just the ear monitor. I can hardly hear the sound coming out of the giant ampeg speakers behind me. What the audience hears is the sound from the PA system, and that’s what the engineers have produced for them.]

– At times like that, I go for a drive. –

– Okano-san has been the producer for L’Arc for a very long time now, and as a bassist he can be said to be representative of Japan. tetsu-san, from your point of view, is there any particular lesson you’ve learned from him?
[There is. About recordings, he says “Try playing like this instead,” and stuff, giving lots of basic advice. He’s also taught lots of fingering practise techniques. Lots of stuff like that.]

– Conversely, tetsu-san, as a bassist yourself, is there anything you always check other bassists for?
[I think doing that gets to be annoying. Of course, Okano-san is a bassist himself, so bass is what he pays most attention to.]

– During recordings, do you create your sound with Okano-san’s help?
[Yeah. For sound production, I work with Okano-san and the engineer Takamori-san. All I really do is play, and once in a while I make a request or something (laughs).]

– Do you get any advice on bass riffs?
[Of course, sometimes he’ll give me ideas. Okano-san is a producer, an arranger, and a director. But, that doesn’t only apply to bass, he works with the guitar, the drums, and the keyboards, too.]

– Not only is he a star bassist for Japan, he can also work as a producer. That must be heartening for you, tetsu-san.
[Yeah, it is.]

– Do the other members have any input regarding what you play or what sound you produce, tetsu-san?
[They do. And I do the same for them.]

– Then, you check up on each other work and give shape to the music that way?
[Hm~ Yeah, that’s basically it… That’s when L’Arc’s particular atmosphere comes out and moves us forward (laughs).]

– It isn’t a system where the person who wrote the song gets to arrange it according to his own ideas, and the resulting product follows from that?
[No, actually, the songwriter does get a lot of control over the arrangements and idea of the song. And over the tone of the arrangements, too. Well, it all depends on the song, really. It all has to come together when we actually record it. Sometimes we’re all going “This sounds great!”, sometimes we can’t make up our minds, sometimes we’ll be still working out the drum parts but have the bass recording done, it’s really case by case.]

– tetsu-san, you can write various types of songs, but your repertoire seems to include several distinctive, cheerful tunes. tetsu-san, what is your songwriting technique?
[I go “Let’s do this!” (laughs).]

– (laughs). I can’t help but picture you driving along and humming to yourself, then suddenly coming up with a good melody out of nowhere, or perhaps coming up with one while watching the scenery go by from inside a train?
[Nah, if I happen to be driving when I come up with a song, I can still work on it. It depends on my schedule. When it’s like “Write so many songs by such and such a date,” then I’ll come with songs while taking a nice bath, or while I’m driving my car, or while I’m relaxing in my room. I can write a song anytime.]

– It isn’t homework, but can you really write songs with a deadline like that?
[Yeah, I can. All of us can, pretty much.]

– Do you go looking for motivation or inspiration? For example, watching movies, reading books, or listening to music…
[Hm~ Inspiration… Seeing movies, listening to music, going out to see people and all that, it’s stuff I do every day, normally, so it’s not limited to times when I’m trying to write songs.]

– When you write music, do you approach it with a theme or idea already in mind?
[Sometimes I think of the big picture.]

– For example, once the release of a L’Arc album has been decided upon, do you write songs with that particular album in mind?
[Yeah, that’s right.]

– Are you the type to write a whole song in one go?
[Well, you know, sometimes it doesn’t take me very long, and sometimes it does, so it really varies.]

– When you’re writing songs, and a good melody just won’t come to mind no matter what you do, how do you deal with the situation?
[Most of the time, at times like that, I go for a drive.]

– As recreation?
[Hm~ Well after staying cooped up in my room without getting any ideas, going for a drive makes a nice change of pace, and then ideas start popping up again. Most of time I write songs at night, so the roads are pretty empty.]

– I think I would choose bass, after all. –

– This is changing the subject, but in recent years, Japan has had a problem of declining birth rates. Before, we had several band booms come and go, but today it’s much harder for young people to get together and form new bands, which is quite regrettable.
[But it was already like that in my time (laughs). Seriously, in my high school, there wasn’t a single person who would’ve joined a band. That’s why I had to go looking at other schools before I could finally have my own band. Even though, these days, the entire population is dropping, I think the percentage of people who listen to music is higher now than it was back in my school days.]

– Personally, I’ve noticed that fewer young people want to be in bands these days, and it makes me sad. You don’t feel the same way?
[Nah, because it’s just another effect of the passage of time. But I think it’s all because nobody thinks being in a band is cool, now. Of course, whatever young people think is cool is what we’re going to see a lot of. If they don’t think being in a band is cool, well that just can’t be helped…]

– You’d have preferred it if you and your band had been considered cool, wouldn’t you?
[Hm~ To me, being in a band was never about being cool…. But I wasn’t trying to be uncool, either.]

– I didn’t mean to imply that you were “uncool” (laughs). Even though there were always certain trends around, you didn’t feel that they affected you, then?
[I don’t think about what other people think of me. I do what I like, and I make the kind of music I like. As for how many other people are going to think the same way… that’s not something I think about…]

– Well, that’s how it turns out.
[Of course, I’m happier the more people turn out to feel the same way as I do, and I’m grateful for those people. But it’s not like I worry about there only being a few people who think like me, either. I’d find a way to keep going even if there were only a handful. I don’t think there’s any need to change the way we do things just for the sake of making more people like us. Well, I guess you could say I’m not interested in doing things that way, I don’t understand why anyone would do it.]

– Now, could you tell me about your happiest moments as a musician?
[When I’ve just finished a new song.]

– You don’t mean when you’ve just finished recording it at the studio, do you?
[Right, I mean when I finish recording my own demo tape. That’s my happiest moment.]

– Now, could you talk about things you try to do as an artist?
[Things I try to do… Hm~ Is there even anything? (laughs) I just try to make good music, that’s all…]

– L’Arc formed over ten years ago and are still active, even becoming a prominent leader in the Japanese music industry, so as a veteran artist, what do you think your goals and objectives will be from now on?
[The Japanese music scene keeps on changing… New artists are constantly being born, so I’m still going to have to work hard…]

– I’m sure you had set big goals for yourself when you had your debut, and now that you’ve surpassed them, have you set any new goals for yourself, as you grope around the beginnings of a new period?
[Hm~ Let me see… But, back when we debuted, we didn’t set any kind of specific goals like wanting to play live at Budoukan or sell a certain number of copies of our albums. So I don’t think we’re going to have goals like that now, either…]

– I see. tetsu-san, what is your dream as an artist?
[Dream? Nothing in particular. Becoming a pro musician was never a dream of mine, either. I just did the obvious thing to do in the obvious way.]

– And how do you feel about having so many people accept the reality of how far you’ve gotten by doing the obvious thing in the obvious way?
[I’m happy about it, of course.]

– So you don’t concern yourself with album sales figures?
[I wouldn’t say I’m concerned, but I do check them regularly. Without actually having a clue about how our own products sell, we can’t very well come up with a workable plan for the next one (laughs).]

– Now for my last question, what is it about being a bassist that you’re happiest with?
[As a bassist? …But I’m a guitarist and a vocalist, too…]

– Of course you are, but for the most part, you work as a bassist (laughs).
[I started drumming lately, too (laughs). But you know, if I could somehow start all over again and choose my instrument, I think I would choose bass, after all.]

Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. The title of a simple piece often taught to beginners. It means “Stepped on the cat.” Go back.

2. In Japanese, a deep sound is actually said to be a wide sound, so this line is a play on words. Go back.

On March 19th, 2004, tetsu’s autobiographical collection of interviews, 哲学 was published.

One year later, on March 19th 2005, the tetsugaku translation project began with the creation of a simple site on Tripod.

Today, March 19th 2006, exactly two years since the publication of the book, the translation is complete.

Since the first day, I have recieved many supportive comments from various readers. I’ve made many good friends as I became more involved in the fandom via this project. In particular, certain people have been invaluable help in pursuing this goal :

Ilán, who created this site and pays to host it, helped me out when I got sick of dealing with Tripod. Without him, this site would still be ad-ridden and much less functionnal. Thanks for everything.

Myriam, originally my only backup, beta-reader of most chapters, and banner maker. Thanks for putting up with my random and insistent demands for help.

The staff of Pieces, especially Taliana, who promoted my work to death and eventually lead to Pieces and this site affilating, no doubt giving me boosts in traffic. Thanks so much.

Too many people have been supportive readers for me to thank you all, but every kind word was appreciated. I’m almost sad to be finished with this.

Again, thanks for reading, and please don’t forget about this site. Discuss the book, post your comments, and keep loving tetsu.

– Sincerely, Natalie Arnold

– The word TETSU69 originally came from a URL, right?
[Right. First, it was my URL, “TETSU69.com”. At one point, I was really into buying all sorts of domain names.]

– How many did you get?
[About twenty or so. “TETSU.com” was already taken by someone else though, so I couldn’t get it. So yeah, “.com” is the best, isn’t it? Not “.co.jp” or anything else. I absolutely wanted a “.com” so I added the 69 for the year I was born, and got “TETSU69.com.” At first, that’s all it was. Is it okay if I go off-topic? It’s related to this, there’s just one thing I want to say.]

– I think it’s best for these talks to cover a wide range of subjects, so feel free to go off-topic, please.
[I got domain names on my own, all by myself. And, with domain names, if you’re wondering whether someone has it or not, you can easily go and check. A fan girl ended up finding out about it, that I had bought that domain name, and then went and talked about it, so I had it be claimed in the name of a staff member, that way it would seem like “Oh, it’s just the company,” when they looked it up. But even though I knew that anybody could look into it if they wanted, I had registered it with my own credit card, that has my real name and everything attached to it, so only the site itself was in the name of that staff member. And of course, it was me who paid for it. Kinda naive of me (laughs). A while after I’d gotten “TETSU69.com” we started thinking about solo projects, but just tetsu, well, there’s a lot of tetsus in the world, so I said to Mi-chan (from the record company’s board of representatives) “Wouldn’t “TETSU69″ be better?” and went with that. That’s the whole story.]

– You’re very particular about the number 69, aren’t you?
[It’s not on my mind as much, now. Like I’m getting a bit sick of it. But I showed someone I know who’s a good judge of names my “TETSU69” name. “I’m thinking of doing some solo work, so do you think this name is any good?” We had a look at the stroke count and stuff (1). It seems the number “69” is very easy to misinterpret. I could be misunderstood if I use that number, maybe. 6 and 9 get twisted around, you know? I was told that “Maybe a different number that doesn’t have this particular feature would be better?” but at the same time I was also told “It’ll take time, but ultimately you’ll be a success so it won’t be that bad, but there will be problems because it’s so easily misinterpreted.” “But if you want to use it that badly, you might as well,” they said and okayed it, so that’s what I used. I was sure it was the right thing to do. Even though it’ll be misinterpreted and troublesome (laughs).]

– It meant you needed to prove yourself, then.
[23 is a good number too. “TETSU23” (laughs). But that number means nothing to me (laughs). When I’m with L’Arc~en~Ciel, my name is written as “tetsu” in lowercase, you know? “TETSU69” is in capitals, which affects the stroke count. Adding 69 changes the stoke count too, right? Given that difference, and for the sake of balance, I changed the “TETSU” part to capitals. That way the total stroke count works out well. Lowercase letters with 69 gives a bad stroke count. It would affect my luck, so I don’t want anyone to write it the wrong way. A lot of fan girls don’t know how to use capital and lowercase properly in their fan letters, so I want them to be more careful.]

– I thought it was plainly obvious that, from a design point of view, the capital and lowercase letters were chosen for a reason.
[That’s not right, it’s for the stroke count. Because it’s different for capital and lowercase. Like e and E are different, for one.]

– So there’s a stroke count for the alphabet too, then.
[Yes, even for the alphabet. There are different ways of seeing it depending on the teacher, though. Oh, and when RARUKU AN SHIERU (2) is written with the alphabet, well, there’s been a lot of talk going around to the effect that “L’Arc-en-Ciel” with – (hyphen) replacing the ~ (tilde) is a mistake, but the truth is that it doesn’t change the name at all. Because using hyphens instead of tildes doesn’t affect the stroke count. Besides, no matter what you do, depending on the design or the font, sometimes using hyphens looks better, and sometimes using tildes looks better, so whichever fits best should be used. They both work fine. The “L’Arc-en-Ciel” logo changes with every release anyway, they change it freely. There is one thing that shouldn’t be changed though : when it’s written in katakana, there shouldn’t be any dots in. It should be RARUKU AN SHIERU, not RARUKU-AN-SHIERU (3).]

– Why is that the case?
[Some people don’t include dots in the stroke count and other people do, but with the people who do include the dots, those make for a bad total so I want them to be dropped. Some count them, some don’t, and when you don’t count the dots, the total comes up to 18 strokes. 18 strokes is very good. But then the dots would add two more, making 20 strokes. If you remove the dots, it gives 18 strokes no matter how you count, so I want them gone. That got confused with the tildes and hyphens issue when the news started going around. When it comes to changing those, there’s a good reason to do it, so it makes sense.]

– I see, there’s clear reasoning behind it all. Now, let’s talk about TETSU69, what’s the most interesting part of doing solo work?
[While working solo I met some new people, and that was great. I didn’t know anything outside of L’Arc~en~Ciel, so it was kind of like entering a different world, which was a big change to experience, for me.]

– What kind of balance do you want to achieve between your solo work and your work with the band?
[Nah, I really don’t know yet.]

– I wonder if the results of your solo work might not be reflected in your band activities now. Do you see any merit in pursuing both at once?
[L’Arc~en~Ciel’s activities were put on hold for two years, so even if I hadn’t been doing any solo work over those two years, I think I’d have grown as a person. So I don’t really know. I did some solo work, but I don’t know if it affected me or not. There’s such a thing as growth medicine, right? You could take some during puberty, and if you do that, you’ll get taller, but even if you hadn’t taken any, you’re in a growth period, so there’s no way of telling if that’s what made you grow, it’s not at all obvious what the cause was, you know? I think this is the same sort of thing. I might have grown even if I hadn’t done any solo work. However, everything I did was connected to the solo project, so the simplest way to put it is to say that I did some solo work, which powered me up, and now I’ve come back to the band, but what if I’m just putting it like that because it’s easier? I see things more coldly.]

– But during your solo project, you sang and did several other things you hadn’t done before. I think it’s obvious that it served as a kind of training for you.
[It’s just that with the solo work, I didn’t play the bass all that much. Some of my songs used synth bass instead. Because I didn’t play it myself in the shows. I played it for the recordings, but I didn’t spend much time on it. And so thinking as a bassist, it doesn’t seem like working solo helped me grow, it’s more like it stunted my growth instead. Being in L’Arc~en~Ciel is what makes me grow as a bassist. Of course, as a vocalist, I think my solo work helped me grow a lot.]

– Is growth as a vocalist in any way related to growth as a bassist? It could be seen as an increase in the number of channels you use to express yourself, so surely there must be some mutual influence.
[Well, I’m certainly not saying there’s no connection whatsoever. It’s just that I never ever think of myself and go “Wow, I’ve grown so much to get to this point.” (laughs)]

– I’m sure many things must be different when you’re making music alone as opposed to in a group of four, so do you find these differences enjoyable at all?
[As a solo artist, “Suite November” is the only album I’ve put together. For every single song, I had a different group of musicians participating. So, the process was different for each and every song, and the members were different too, but the work itself wasn’t all that different from how it is with the band. It felt as if for each song, the members involved became a band themselves. Oh, speaking of differences, the only thing was that I wrote all the music and lyrics myself.]

– But for instance, the jacket design, the album title, the track order, all of these things were decided by you alone, right tetsu-san?
[That part was fun. If it was OK with me, then it was OK. It was easy and fast. For the performances and arrangements too, I could say “Play it like this,” “Play it like that,” and that’s how it was going to be. Maybe on the inside, those musicians were thinking “I don’t like it this way, I don’t want to play it like this,” but I was the one who got to be selfish. It was my own album, so I said things forcefully and made them happen. I didn’t have to think too hard about how other people would feel. With the four of us in L’Arc, it just can’t work that way. We need to make sure everyone’s happy, make sure everybody’s feeling good about what we do. Doing that takes time, so we need to work carefully. But that’s fun in its own way too, it brings an entirely different sense to things, so I think both approaches have their good points.]

– For your solo work you get to decide everything according to your own criteria, your own sensibilities, being true to your own senses, so I think the end result will be that it reflects more about you as an individual human being. With that in mind tetsu-san, what kind of an artist is TETSU69?
[Hmm, what kind of artist? That’s a tough question.]

– Do you think you’re cool, that you do good work?
[I think my tunes are great, very much so.]

– Is there anything you don’t understand about the stage you are at currently?
[Maybe if I were more forceful about it, I could get a boost in sales, which would be nice (laughs).]

– For TETSU69, do you have anything in mind that you’d like to do later, ideas on the back burner or anything like that?
[Nah, musically speaking I still don’t have a solid concept like “TETSU69 is -this- kind of artist” or anything, it takes shape little by little as the project moves along, step by step. I’ve been working by trial and error since the beginning, experimenting with different things, and there are still lots of things I’d like to try for a bit, so if I get the time I think that’s how things will shape up. Right now I don’t have the time, so I can’t put down any specific ideas like “I’ll do this” or “I’ll try that” any time soon.]

– Then, looking at the big picture and taking the time to think it through is better, isn’t it.
[It would be nice if I could go about it like that. Right now though, I’ve got tons of things to do for L’Arc~en~Ciel, but hearing things like “Of course, tet-chan is at his best when he’s playing bass in L’Arc,” makes it seem like I don’t need to do solo work, like maybe it’s a wasted effort, and that makes me feel a little bit lonely.]

– It’s as if the more you persist, the less meaning it has. Do you have any plans for TETSU69 live shows?
[If the timing is right, and if I feel like doing something, then I might have some lives. But it’s always L’Arc, L’Arc, L’Arc, so TETSU69 doesn’t really matter does it? (laughs)]

– No, that can’t be right. Last year’s year-end event was effectively your second show on stage, so now I believe there must be some expectations along the lines of “Well, what’s going to be next?”
[As a vocalist, I’ve only just barely gotten started, and there are a lot of things I still do wrong when I’m singing, so since I still haven’t done very many lives, I think the best is still to come. I’m a member of L’Arc~en~Ciel, where my primary position is being the bassist, so as far as that goes, looking at it calmly and objectively, I think I write good songs. People might or might not like my voice, and I’m sure there are some people who can’t take the sound of my voice on a physiological level, but personally I do like my own vocals.]

– I think the feel of the songs you write and the quality of your voice match very well, tetsu-san.
[I think so too. But I’m in no position to evaluate it fairly. I’m in L’Arc~en~Ciel after all, and compared to L’Arc, I’m in trouble (laughs). hyde and I have different vocalist careers, our voices have different qualities, and our registers are different too, and of course, I think there are some ways in which we can’t even be compared. It’s kind of disappointing, really. I’ve been told things like “If hyde-san sung the songs you made solo, it would sound a lot cooler,” and that’s extremely frustrating. A lot of people say cruel things like that. Things like that make me wonder if there’s any point to my work as TETSU69.]

– I suppose that the longer it lasted, the more it would sink in to your mind, but tetsu-san, is there a source of motivation inside you that urges you on and makes you want to work on your solo project?
[Right now I’m busier with L’Arc, I don’t really have the time, so I don’t feel much desire to work on it. I think it would be best of each of us could have fun with our solo projects while still being in the band. I know that with some of the fans, as soon as we put out some solo work they think that L’Arc is over, so they won’t support the solo projects and some even badmouth them, but that’s not the case at all. Whatever we’re doing, we can still work on both things, so I want people to drop their prejudices and listen to it all.]

– Interviewer : Hasegawa Makoto
Translated by Natalie Arnold

1. Stroke count refers the number of paintbrush (or pen, these days) strokes required to form a Japanese character. Seeing as it’s also how kanji are organised in a dictionary, its an important attribute to consider.Go back.

2. The katakana version of L’Arc~en~Ciel, romanized instead of translated for the sake of clarity in this paragraph. In all other situations throughout the book I have changed the katakana version to the properly spelled version.Go back.

3. Normally there are no spaces in Japanese, so dots are often used to space out foreign words instead. tetsu is explaining that spaces need to be used for the katakana version of the band name. Go back.