“I’ve lost everything once, and I think that half of me is already a corpse." ―― SUGIZO, who experienced successes and setbacks, and the reason why he strives to volunteer
__________________________
SUGIZO (50), LUNA SEA and X JAPAN’s guitarist. This fall, he visited refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan. He has also consistently done volunteer work at various affected locations following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Looking back at his former self, he said, “I lived a horrible lifestyle. If I continued the way I did, I would’ve already left this world a long time ago.” So, what made him change his way of life?
(Interview/Text: Uchida Masaki, Photography: Nakano Takahisa/ Yahoo!News Special Feature Editorial Department）
To the refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan
This past fall, SUGIZO travelled through the Middle East. Since late September, he has spent around 2 weeks visiting the refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan and interacting with the refugees through live performances put on by his own solo project, COSMIC DANCE QUARTET (C.D.Q.) and his 3-person unit, BABAGANOUJ, which only plays at refugee camps.
“There are young children among the audience who will come up on stage or take photos of me from the side too. They don’t have any perceived morals towards the enjoyment of entertainment yet. But I think that it was this sort of uncontrollable energy that fired up rock music from the 60s and 70s when the youths of that era were in pursuit of revolution.”
LUNA SEA. Then, X JAPAN. The guitarist of Japan’s leading rock bands first started to take an interest in the refugee crisis around 20 years ago.
“It was sometime in 2010 when I first started meeting with staff from UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and with their help, I visited the Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps in Jordan for the first time in 2016. Initially, my intention was just to visit as a mere supporter, but suddenly, they asked, “Since you’ve come all the way here, would you play (for us)?”. So I procured a violin in the local area and gave an acoustic performance in the Azraq refugee camp which had yet to get electricity. That was the start of BABAGANOUJ.”
What I witnessed on this stage was excitement that far exceeded my imagination.
“The Muslim women were also singing with delight, clapping and dancing. I might sound cocky saying this, but I realise that both these women and I felt a moment of ‘discovery’ through this means which allows them to blow off their almost-exploding emotions in the severity of this situation they had been put in.”
“We didn’t have a manager or stylists or hair or makeup artists. If anyone noticed some sort of trouble occurring, we had no choice but to handle it on a case by case basis.”
Depending on the venue’s environment, C.D.Q. performed lives based on the motto of “explosive sound*” which lasted between 30 to 70 minutes. It was dance music with a strong beat. After that, the members of BABAGANOUJ will join in, turning it into an acoustic session where they perform the song “The Voyage Home”, which is filled with Middle Eastern music and SUGIZO’s feelings towards the refugees.
“The BPM (tempo) which appeals to them varies from person to person depending on the country they are from and their ethnicity. Palestinians prefer slow-ish electronic or house-like music, but the Kurds this year prefer up-tempo trance-like music. It’s a learning experience.”
Aside from live performances, SUGIZO also donates to the refugees. He donates his daughter’s old clothes and even past artist goods which he sold. Smiling, he says, “I’d often see people wearing LUNA SEA T-shirts in refugee camps and in the streets.” There is also a refugee family with whom he has kept in contact since his previous visit to Jordan.
The donations, of course, and the live performances are all voluntary, so SUGIZO stands to gain no monetary profit from any of this. Regarding doing such volunteer work, he says, “It is a ‘hobby’ that leverages on the abilities and earnings that I got from my day job.”
“I previously used the word ‘lifework’, but after thinking about it, this isn’t working. So, I’ve recently come to call it my ‘lifehobby’. I first started doing volunteer work within Japan in 2011, and before I knew it, my body reacted on its own.”
Right after the Great East Japan Earthquake happened in 2011, SUGIZO started volunteer activities in the Tohoku disaster areas. He did this not as an artist, but as one of the volunteers in work clothes to take on the devastation before his eyes.
“When the earthquake struck, my immediate thought was, ‘I can’t do anything now with my music’, followed by, ‘What I can do is go there and break a sweat in the mud’. So, I contacted Peace Boat, which I worked with previously on environmental awareness activities, and they linked me up with the volunteer team they had based in Ishinomaki. In Ishinomaki, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t bathe for 10 days. From there, I spent about 20 days working in the area of Onagawa, Ogachi, and Ogawa Elementary School.”
Since then, whenever a disaster occurs, “My body instinctively feels ‘I have to go’ and springs into action.” In 2016, he went to Mashiki, near the epicentre of the Kumamoto earthquake, in August of 2018, he went to Mabiki Town in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture which suffered flood damage due to the heavy downpours in Western Japan, and this November, he went to Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture which was hit by Typhoon #19 (Hagibis). He worked hard, cleaning up the rubble at all these places in the spare moments of his tight schedule.
“The know-how which I gained through experiencing the combined damage from the earthquake and flooding disasters of March 11th was useful in all my subsequent volunteer work. And it’s unfortunate, but since we’ve been hit by disasters time and again, that know-how has been improved in these past 8 years. Last year, at Mabiki Town, I was appointed to be the on-site supervisor and had to manage 40 beginner volunteers from all over Japan and have them operate smoothly with their ages and personalities in consideration. When I arrived at the location, strangely enough, I knew what we should do. The key to volunteer work is, ‘Never overdo it’. Beginners tend to attempt to carry things that are beyond their abilities or attempt to go into dangerous places. I’d advise them, ‘Only do what you can easily handle’, ‘If something is still heavy when two people carry it, then it’ll be light when four are carrying it. Be sure to call for help’. Everyone starts out as a beginner in the initial stages. We very much welcome beginners. 10 years ago, I, too, was just a ‘dabbler’, but now, I’ve become a veteran. To the extent that I’ve seriously considered making a living as an on-site supervisor if music no longer feeds me (lol).”
“Of course, I suppose I can also cheer the afflicted people on through live performances and visits from the standpoint of an artist, but that’s not possible with my level of popularity. I don’t think children nor older folks have ever heard of me. That’s why, while visits from Johnny’s artists and sports athletes can be very meaningful, if I were to do it, there will be no purpose other than fulfilling my own self-satisfaction. Considering all of that, it’s still more use of me to move my body, and I feel better too. After all, I take the liberty of entering these disaster areas with intentions of, ‘I want to help someone’, ‘I want to encourage people’. But I always end up getting encouragement from the people in those disaster areas in the end.”
“Music brings people energy after all, so I felt that it would be nice if I could bring them joy for even just one moment. Fate and timing is important in meetings. I’ve often been asked, “Why Syria?”, “Why those children?”, but they just happened to be tied together. I can only say that it was fate. Be it people in disaster areas or children in orphanages, I want to help everyone, but that’s not possible. That’s why, at the very least, I want to do my best and deepen my ties with the people I have been fated to meet.”
Before he knew it, he was concerned for others. However, he says that “I was completely different” until one fateful day.
“The former me lived a truly horrible lifestyle. I’d lose my cool with the snap of a finger and get into fights, or get wasted and pass out on the roadside. I hated people, so I refused to connect with people. If I continued the way I did, I think I would either be in prison now or might have already left this world a long time ago at around the age of 30 by overdosing or something.”
What sparked a change in him was the birth of his daughter when he was 26.
“I loved my daughter so much that I couldn’t help it. As she grew up, I began to love the children of her generation and by extension, children all over the world as well. That was when I grew aware of the plight of refugee children. For me, as someone who had always felt alone ever since I was a child, the first person who made me bare my heart out and touched it was my daughter. Because until then, no matter who they were, no one had ever made me feel ‘at peace’.”
SUGIZO was born to parents who were both members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and had been receiving special violin classes for the gifted since he was 3.
“My mother and grandmother were constantly yelling at each other and there were times when they even got physical. My father was a monster of a teacher towards me, so I was always scared of my father. I’d have 2-3 hours of lessons a day, and if I made the same mistake thrice, I’d get hit. I’d be playing the violin in tears. That was the kind of life I had, plus, my interests lay in archaeology and astronomy; they were unique, so I didn’t have much in common with my classmates at school. If I sprained a finger, I didn’t have to do violin lessons, so there were times when I would injure myself during physical education.”
As he entered puberty, his parents divorced and his father left home.
Rock was what taught him the joy of music. After getting jolted by YMO and RC Succession in his teens, he began devouring all types of music like hardcore punk, new wave, and jazz among others. And in 1992, he debuted in LUNA SEA with the band members who he met in his late teens.
Their look which was made up of eccentric fashion and making their long hair stand up and wearing makeup led to them being described as a ‘Visual-Kei band’ or a ‘Makeup-Kei band’ in their early days.
“To me, Visual-Kei is a discriminatory term. Even now, it makes me sick when we get mocked with that term. I felt that it was only natural that we started wearing costumes on stage and putting on makeup because we were influenced by artists like David Bowie and JAPAN. But even though Bowie applied makeup too, he doesn’t get described as Visual-Kei. The quality of our music doesn’t reach the vision that we had.”
“I was arrogant when I was younger, and I said things like, ‘We’re being denigrated’ in interviews, but now, I only feel shameful. Although, I have confidence in all our works from the late 90s to the recent releases and our live sound too. I’m tough on my own music and I’m never satisfied. I’d keep thinking, ‘My next one will definitely be the perfect piece’.”
The one who created an opportunity for LUNA SEA, who had been playing in small live houses, to break out into the world when they first formed up was X JAPAN’s (known at the time as X) HIDE, who passed away suddenly in 1998 at age 33. HIDE was a benefactor to both LUNA SEA and SUGIZO. In 2009, SUGIZO officially became a member of X JAPAN.
“HIDE-san was a very caring person, but on the other hand, he felt lonely very easily. He couldn’t stand to be alone and if seemed as if he was always wanted to be with someone. In the early days of X JAPAN, however the band wanted the world to see it, YOSHIKI-san was, objectively speaking, his right-hand man.”
“YOSHIKI-san is a modern-day Peter Pan in the rock industry. There are some things about him that are just unfathomable, but I don’t know any other person in their 50s as innocent as he is. He’s a lovely person. YOSHIKI-san was a person who ploughs through with aesthetics while hide-san was a person who loved the world of an overturned toy box. Hide-san’s natural pop talent blossomed in his solo activities. If hide-san was still alive? I believe he’d still be trying to do the most interesting things even now.”
SUGIZO recalls that his 20s “was my age of civil war”.
“In our prime, I was an assemblage of competitive and fighting spirit. I had a strong obsession with the need to stand at the top of the music industry. My own expression, all of it was just a tool for winning. Because of that, there was a period of time when I even came to view my own bandmates as enemies. If we reached number 1 on the chats, if we played at the Budokan and Tokyo Dome, we will get recognition from the people around us. Adults who are strangers to us will kowtow to us musicians in our mid-twenties. My feelings of ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get acknowledgement’ were strong because as a child, I was brought up in a way where I was always being put down. In a way, it was extremely punk (of me), wasn’t it?”
As a result, SUGIZO wore himself out. In 2000, LUNA SEA put a full stop to their activities in the form of a “final act”. In 2003, his staff at the time discovered a large amount of debt and SUGIZO, who was unknowingly pledged as a joint guarantor, was suddenly saddled with a mountain of debt.
“This also applies to family, but when you distance yourself from certain people, you’ll find that they’re irreplaceable even if you did have a feud with them at one point of time. It took me 7 years to realise that this was what LUNA SEA is to me. If we perform our songs from 20 years ago live now, they’ll become today’s music too. I want people to feel the latest music that this present version of us have put out and I want them to see us live as we are now too.
I’m okay with dying any time now
Now, LUNA SEA and X JAPAN are “places where I can forever be a young boy” to SUGIZO.
“LUNA SEA are close friends who I have been tumbling around with since my teens, and it’s a place where I can express my adoration for a cool rock band to the fullest. It’s my treasure. All 5 of us have experienced the sweet and the sour and have grown into adults now, but when we come together and play music, immediately, that same atmosphere from our twenties is revived. But because we have a synergy of 30 years of music accumulated, we belong to a different class than the band of ‘dabbling musicians’ which we were. We’re ‘youngsters’ who possess 30 years of experience.”
“While I’m the oldest in LUNA SEA, I’m the youngest in X JAPAN. It feels pleasant to be the younger brother among the reliable older brothers. The best part of the band is how everyone fuses together perfectly to form an ensemble even though everyone’s particularities and personalities are varied. With both of these bands, the sound they make cannot be reproduced by anyone other than these existing members. They’re both my precious, irreplaceable family and business partners.
He comes and goes between these two bands and his solo activities and also strives with volunteer work. If he has even the slightest of free time, he will post on SNS, and on his YouTube video channel, SugizoTube, he will upload food reviews “because I want to introduce what I think is nice”. SUGIZO, who lives his present hard and fast as if he is working day and night, says with a straight face, “I’m okay with dying any time now.”
“I’ve lost everything once, and I think that half of me is already a corpse. I feel that the life that I’m living now is a bonus extension of the remaining years of my life. I’m okay with dying any time now, and this I say with no negative connotations at all. The only reason why I continue living is that I have people like my band members and my family, people who will be troubled or sad if I die. I believe that while there are people who feel that working in a company is a hardship, there are also those who feel that living is a hardship. But there are also many sick children who want to live but they can’t. It is unfortunate that a lot of lives are lost, be it the battlefield or a natural disaster area. A lot of people say this, but we should live out our lives with the greatest gratitude for being alive in this moment. When someone you cherish leaves this world before you, you will definitely be stricken by grief, but I believe that they will definitely be waiting for you when it is time for you to cross over. I’m sure that it will not bring them any joy if you become utterly broken or if you end your own life.”
“I have wants. I want to have children again, and I’m doing research on adoption, so I think I’ll adopt Japanese or foreign refugee children one day. I want to make even better music too, and I want to be on stage until I’m on the verge of death. Perhaps I’ll accomplish something before the finale of my life. (At that point,) I might feel, ‘Is this it? What a regret!’, or maybe I might think, ‘But, I guess it’s alright’. I’m looking forward to that moment.”
__________________________
SUGIZO (50), LUNA SEA and X JAPAN’s guitarist. This fall, he visited refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan. He has also consistently done volunteer work at various affected locations following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Looking back at his former self, he said, “I lived a horrible lifestyle. If I continued the way I did, I would’ve already left this world a long time ago.” So, what made him change his way of life?
(Interview/Text: Uchida Masaki, Photography: Nakano Takahisa/ Yahoo!News Special Feature Editorial Department）
To the refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan
This past fall, SUGIZO travelled through the Middle East. Since late September, he has spent around 2 weeks visiting the refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan and interacting with the refugees through live performances put on by his own solo project, COSMIC DANCE QUARTET (C.D.Q.) and his 3-person unit, BABAGANOUJ, which only plays at refugee camps.
“There are young children among the audience who will come up on stage or take photos of me from the side too. They don’t have any perceived morals towards the enjoyment of entertainment yet. But I think that it was this sort of uncontrollable energy that fired up rock music from the 60s and 70s when the youths of that era were in pursuit of revolution.”
LUNA SEA. Then, X JAPAN. The guitarist of Japan’s leading rock bands first started to take an interest in the refugee crisis around 20 years ago.
“It was sometime in 2010 when I first started meeting with staff from UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and with their help, I visited the Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps in Jordan for the first time in 2016. Initially, my intention was just to visit as a mere supporter, but suddenly, they asked, “Since you’ve come all the way here, would you play (for us)?”. So I procured a violin in the local area and gave an acoustic performance in the Azraq refugee camp which had yet to get electricity. That was the start of BABAGANOUJ.”
What I witnessed on this stage was excitement that far exceeded my imagination.
“The Muslim women were also singing with delight, clapping and dancing. I might sound cocky saying this, but I realise that both these women and I felt a moment of ‘discovery’ through this means which allows them to blow off their almost-exploding emotions in the severity of this situation they had been put in.”
“We didn’t have a manager or stylists or hair or makeup artists. If anyone noticed some sort of trouble occurring, we had no choice but to handle it on a case by case basis.”
Depending on the venue’s environment, C.D.Q. performed lives based on the motto of “explosive sound*” which lasted between 30 to 70 minutes. It was dance music with a strong beat. After that, the members of BABAGANOUJ will join in, turning it into an acoustic session where they perform the song “The Voyage Home”, which is filled with Middle Eastern music and SUGIZO’s feelings towards the refugees.
“The BPM (tempo) which appeals to them varies from person to person depending on the country they are from and their ethnicity. Palestinians prefer slow-ish electronic or house-like music, but the Kurds this year prefer up-tempo trance-like music. It’s a learning experience.”
Aside from live performances, SUGIZO also donates to the refugees. He donates his daughter’s old clothes and even past artist goods which he sold. Smiling, he says, “I’d often see people wearing LUNA SEA T-shirts in refugee camps and in the streets.” There is also a refugee family with whom he has kept in contact since his previous visit to Jordan.
The donations, of course, and the live performances are all voluntary, so SUGIZO stands to gain no monetary profit from any of this. Regarding doing such volunteer work, he says, “It is a ‘hobby’ that leverages on the abilities and earnings that I got from my day job.”
“I previously used the word ‘lifework’, but after thinking about it, this isn’t working. So, I’ve recently come to call it my ‘lifehobby’. I first started doing volunteer work within Japan in 2011, and before I knew it, my body reacted on its own.”
Right after the Great East Japan Earthquake happened in 2011, SUGIZO started volunteer activities in the Tohoku disaster areas. He did this not as an artist, but as one of the volunteers in work clothes to take on the devastation before his eyes.
“When the earthquake struck, my immediate thought was, ‘I can’t do anything now with my music’, followed by, ‘What I can do is go there and break a sweat in the mud’. So, I contacted Peace Boat, which I worked with previously on environmental awareness activities, and they linked me up with the volunteer team they had based in Ishinomaki. In Ishinomaki, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t bathe for 10 days. From there, I spent about 20 days working in the area of Onagawa, Ogachi, and Ogawa Elementary School.”
Since then, whenever a disaster occurs, “My body instinctively feels ‘I have to go’ and springs into action.” In 2016, he went to Mashiki, near the epicentre of the Kumamoto earthquake, in August of 2018, he went to Mabiki Town in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture which suffered flood damage due to the heavy downpours in Western Japan, and this November, he went to Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture which was hit by Typhoon #19 (Hagibis). He worked hard, cleaning up the rubble at all these places in the spare moments of his tight schedule.
“The know-how which I gained through experiencing the combined damage from the earthquake and flooding disasters of March 11th was useful in all my subsequent volunteer work. And it’s unfortunate, but since we’ve been hit by disasters time and again, that know-how has been improved in these past 8 years. Last year, at Mabiki Town, I was appointed to be the on-site supervisor and had to manage 40 beginner volunteers from all over Japan and have them operate smoothly with their ages and personalities in consideration. When I arrived at the location, strangely enough, I knew what we should do. The key to volunteer work is, ‘Never overdo it’. Beginners tend to attempt to carry things that are beyond their abilities or attempt to go into dangerous places. I’d advise them, ‘Only do what you can easily handle’, ‘If something is still heavy when two people carry it, then it’ll be light when four are carrying it. Be sure to call for help’. Everyone starts out as a beginner in the initial stages. We very much welcome beginners. 10 years ago, I, too, was just a ‘dabbler’, but now, I’ve become a veteran. To the extent that I’ve seriously considered making a living as an on-site supervisor if music no longer feeds me (lol).”
“Of course, I suppose I can also cheer the afflicted people on through live performances and visits from the standpoint of an artist, but that’s not possible with my level of popularity. I don’t think children nor older folks have ever heard of me. That’s why, while visits from Johnny’s artists and sports athletes can be very meaningful, if I were to do it, there will be no purpose other than fulfilling my own self-satisfaction. Considering all of that, it’s still more use of me to move my body, and I feel better too. After all, I take the liberty of entering these disaster areas with intentions of, ‘I want to help someone’, ‘I want to encourage people’. But I always end up getting encouragement from the people in those disaster areas in the end.”
“Music brings people energy after all, so I felt that it would be nice if I could bring them joy for even just one moment. Fate and timing is important in meetings. I’ve often been asked, “Why Syria?”, “Why those children?”, but they just happened to be tied together. I can only say that it was fate. Be it people in disaster areas or children in orphanages, I want to help everyone, but that’s not possible. That’s why, at the very least, I want to do my best and deepen my ties with the people I have been fated to meet.”
Before he knew it, he was concerned for others. However, he says that “I was completely different” until one fateful day.
“The former me lived a truly horrible lifestyle. I’d lose my cool with the snap of a finger and get into fights, or get wasted and pass out on the roadside. I hated people, so I refused to connect with people. If I continued the way I did, I think I would either be in prison now or might have already left this world a long time ago at around the age of 30 by overdosing or something.”
What sparked a change in him was the birth of his daughter when he was 26.
“I loved my daughter so much that I couldn’t help it. As she grew up, I began to love the children of her generation and by extension, children all over the world as well. That was when I grew aware of the plight of refugee children. For me, as someone who had always felt alone ever since I was a child, the first person who made me bare my heart out and touched it was my daughter. Because until then, no matter who they were, no one had ever made me feel ‘at peace’.”
SUGIZO was born to parents who were both members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and had been receiving special violin classes for the gifted since he was 3.
“My mother and grandmother were constantly yelling at each other and there were times when they even got physical. My father was a monster of a teacher towards me, so I was always scared of my father. I’d have 2-3 hours of lessons a day, and if I made the same mistake thrice, I’d get hit. I’d be playing the violin in tears. That was the kind of life I had, plus, my interests lay in archaeology and astronomy; they were unique, so I didn’t have much in common with my classmates at school. If I sprained a finger, I didn’t have to do violin lessons, so there were times when I would injure myself during physical education.”
As he entered puberty, his parents divorced and his father left home.
Rock was what taught him the joy of music. After getting jolted by YMO and RC Succession in his teens, he began devouring all types of music like hardcore punk, new wave, and jazz among others. And in 1992, he debuted in LUNA SEA with the band members who he met in his late teens.
Their look which was made up of eccentric fashion and making their long hair stand up and wearing makeup led to them being described as a ‘Visual-Kei band’ or a ‘Makeup-Kei band’ in their early days.
“To me, Visual-Kei is a discriminatory term. Even now, it makes me sick when we get mocked with that term. I felt that it was only natural that we started wearing costumes on stage and putting on makeup because we were influenced by artists like David Bowie and JAPAN. But even though Bowie applied makeup too, he doesn’t get described as Visual-Kei. The quality of our music doesn’t reach the vision that we had.”
“I was arrogant when I was younger, and I said things like, ‘We’re being denigrated’ in interviews, but now, I only feel shameful. Although, I have confidence in all our works from the late 90s to the recent releases and our live sound too. I’m tough on my own music and I’m never satisfied. I’d keep thinking, ‘My next one will definitely be the perfect piece’.”
The one who created an opportunity for LUNA SEA, who had been playing in small live houses, to break out into the world when they first formed up was X JAPAN’s (known at the time as X) HIDE, who passed away suddenly in 1998 at age 33. HIDE was a benefactor to both LUNA SEA and SUGIZO. In 2009, SUGIZO officially became a member of X JAPAN.
“HIDE-san was a very caring person, but on the other hand, he felt lonely very easily. He couldn’t stand to be alone and if seemed as if he was always wanted to be with someone. In the early days of X JAPAN, however the band wanted the world to see it, YOSHIKI-san was, objectively speaking, his right-hand man.”
“YOSHIKI-san is a modern-day Peter Pan in the rock industry. There are some things about him that are just unfathomable, but I don’t know any other person in their 50s as innocent as he is. He’s a lovely person. YOSHIKI-san was a person who ploughs through with aesthetics while hide-san was a person who loved the world of an overturned toy box. Hide-san’s natural pop talent blossomed in his solo activities. If hide-san was still alive? I believe he’d still be trying to do the most interesting things even now.”
SUGIZO recalls that his 20s “was my age of civil war”.
“In our prime, I was an assemblage of competitive and fighting spirit. I had a strong obsession with the need to stand at the top of the music industry. My own expression, all of it was just a tool for winning. Because of that, there was a period of time when I even came to view my own bandmates as enemies. If we reached number 1 on the chats, if we played at the Budokan and Tokyo Dome, we will get recognition from the people around us. Adults who are strangers to us will kowtow to us musicians in our mid-twenties. My feelings of ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get acknowledgement’ were strong because as a child, I was brought up in a way where I was always being put down. In a way, it was extremely punk (of me), wasn’t it?”
As a result, SUGIZO wore himself out. In 2000, LUNA SEA put a full stop to their activities in the form of a “final act”. In 2003, his staff at the time discovered a large amount of debt and SUGIZO, who was unknowingly pledged as a joint guarantor, was suddenly saddled with a mountain of debt.
“This also applies to family, but when you distance yourself from certain people, you’ll find that they’re irreplaceable even if you did have a feud with them at one point of time. It took me 7 years to realise that this was what LUNA SEA is to me. If we perform our songs from 20 years ago live now, they’ll become today’s music too. I want people to feel the latest music that this present version of us have put out and I want them to see us live as we are now too.
I’m okay with dying any time now
Now, LUNA SEA and X JAPAN are “places where I can forever be a young boy” to SUGIZO.
“LUNA SEA are close friends who I have been tumbling around with since my teens, and it’s a place where I can express my adoration for a cool rock band to the fullest. It’s my treasure. All 5 of us have experienced the sweet and the sour and have grown into adults now, but when we come together and play music, immediately, that same atmosphere from our twenties is revived. But because we have a synergy of 30 years of music accumulated, we belong to a different class than the band of ‘dabbling musicians’ which we were. We’re ‘youngsters’ who possess 30 years of experience.”
“While I’m the oldest in LUNA SEA, I’m the youngest in X JAPAN. It feels pleasant to be the younger brother among the reliable older brothers. The best part of the band is how everyone fuses together perfectly to form an ensemble even though everyone’s particularities and personalities are varied. With both of these bands, the sound they make cannot be reproduced by anyone other than these existing members. They’re both my precious, irreplaceable family and business partners.
He comes and goes between these two bands and his solo activities and also strives with volunteer work. If he has even the slightest of free time, he will post on SNS, and on his YouTube video channel, SugizoTube, he will upload food reviews “because I want to introduce what I think is nice”. SUGIZO, who lives his present hard and fast as if he is working day and night, says with a straight face, “I’m okay with dying any time now.”
“I’ve lost everything once, and I think that half of me is already a corpse. I feel that the life that I’m living now is a bonus extension of the remaining years of my life. I’m okay with dying any time now, and this I say with no negative connotations at all. The only reason why I continue living is that I have people like my band members and my family, people who will be troubled or sad if I die. I believe that while there are people who feel that working in a company is a hardship, there are also those who feel that living is a hardship. But there are also many sick children who want to live but they can’t. It is unfortunate that a lot of lives are lost, be it the battlefield or a natural disaster area. A lot of people say this, but we should live out our lives with the greatest gratitude for being alive in this moment. When someone you cherish leaves this world before you, you will definitely be stricken by grief, but I believe that they will definitely be waiting for you when it is time for you to cross over. I’m sure that it will not bring them any joy if you become utterly broken or if you end your own life.”
“I have wants. I want to have children again, and I’m doing research on adoption, so I think I’ll adopt Japanese or foreign refugee children one day. I want to make even better music too, and I want to be on stage until I’m on the verge of death. Perhaps I’ll accomplish something before the finale of my life. (At that point,) I might feel, ‘Is this it? What a regret!’, or maybe I might think, ‘But, I guess it’s alright’. I’m looking forward to that moment.”
Yahoo!News - 6 Dec 2019
In 2019, he visited the Palestinian refugee camp, and this year, with funds that had been gathered through crowdfunding, he visited the refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan. The performance they held there was done by bringing in as much equipment as possible from Japan themselves, and doing the setup and dismantling on their own.
As the on-site supervisor for disaster volunteers
Two years ago, he invited children from an orphanage and students from a vocational school to his own live performance at his own expense.
“Visual Kei” makes me sick
“I don’t have any memories of being cherished by my parents. They have never said anything like, ‘I like you’ or ‘You are important to me’ or ‘I love you’. It’s the same with the violin; even if I practice for hours every day, he has never praised me even once. That’s just the way it is in classical music, and maybe it can’t be helped that it was the Showa era too, but my parents would never do it that way. They were the perfect examples of how teachers should not be. If I realised the joy of music earlier and didn’t give it up halfway, I think I would be able to play the violin even better than I do now.”
“Honestly speaking, I can’t listen to any of our music from our debut album until our 3rd album now. We used to think ‘Don’t listen to what adults say’ and were strongly defiant and now, I really regret that we didn’t include a sound producer. One will love listening to wonderful, timeless audio sources from the past. But I’m sorry to say that the sound quality of early LUNA SEA is not of that level.”
Losing friends, money, and even the roof over his head
“I lost the roof over my head, I lost my money, I lost my friends. People who were drawn to me because we became a hit all distanced themselves from me too and I tasted the worst of how harsh and petty the world can be. Despite this, I continued playing music without giving up and bit by bit, my situation turned for the better.”
In 2010, LUNA SEA announced a “REBOOT” and, with RYUICHI, INORAN, J, Shinya, and SUGIZO, resumed their activities with all the original band members. This year, they are celebrating their 30th debut anniversary and will also be releasing a new album.
Zdroj:https://yoshiyuuki.tumblr.com/post/189646592417/ive-lost-everything-once-and-i-think-that-half?fbclid=IwAR2uIMxipg42BW_z6QgheXKYo-O-LLEasowdEKc0mN5zniIOhDBQ7ot_5M0
Žádné komentáře:
Okomentovat