BEGIN INTERVIEW
As L’Arc~en~Ciel plunges headlong into the second half of their tour, Light my Fire!, two new singles arrive just in time for October. Following three simultaneous releases last July, these singles will come out within a week of one another. Including the paired coupling songs, this means a new four-song vector is about to reach us. I had the opportunity to ask them about this work as well as their current impressions.
*****
– You’ve just released two new singles that are completely different from each other…
tetsu [For ‘snow drop’, I had a bit of christmas spirit in mind. Not completely, but I at least wanted it to be the type of song that people would feel like listening to around christmas time.]
– It feels like a dashing pop song to me.
tetsu [Dashing, like when Patrasche(1) runs through the grass fields, right? I wrote it right after watching ‘Flanders no Inu’ (laughs).]
hyde [When he told me that, the first thing I did was watch that video.]
– Did it affect the lyrics for the song?
hyde [Well, there is a rather gentle feeling to it, like that vague aura that’s always eating at my body (laughs).
– As for the title, ‘snow drop’ is actually the name of a flower, right?
hyde [When I heard the song, I suddenly imagined a flower blooming in the snow. Then I wondered if any flowers like that actually existed, so I checked a reference book or something, and that was the closest match I could find. It’s like the lyrics grew out of that idea.]
– How did the recording go?
yukihiro [The drumming was painful. tetsu-kun requested that I “put in something with the tams” and I did, but it took a long time to decide how it should sound we recorded a lot of takes.]
ken [I managed to figure out what to do from the moment I first heard the song, so it’s like I was done before I had to think.]
– The guitar is certainly colourful.
ken [It sounds that way, but I didn’t put that much into it. I recorded my guitar with the drums and re-amped it, then changed it around for a few different kinds of sound.]
hyde [When I heard the off-vocal version, I thought the guitar solo sounded weird, but I guess… it’s because of that thing you had in your mouth?]
ken [Yep.]
– The coupling track, ‘a swell in the sun’, was composed by yukihiro-san, right?
yukihiro [It’s actually I song I made when I was working solo, but then I thought it could be even cooler if it was done by the band so I brought it in. It’s dark and heavy (laughs).]
– Yet, I think it’s very interesting for L’Arc to make a song like this one. How did you go about recording it?
yukihiro [hyde-kun reworked the lyrics and melody for me, and we recorded the basic track that I wrote starting with the words. Then we edited that, and it started to gain a basic shape before the guitar and bass were added, and then it got edited again until we got the final version.]
hyde [It was interesting; felt like we were making something, a material. Like a toy.]
ken [And the material for the song got rearranged by yukkie, which was the part that seemed like it would take the longest, so me and tetsu…]
tetsu [We snuck out to a festival together (laughs).]
ken [We had way too much fun and had way too much to drink. Man, we were so incredibly drunk. When we went back to the studio and started recording, I had a headache. But I couldn’t say that, so I just went “Shouldn’t we get the bass recorded first?” and so I got to take a nap while that got done and I snored and got better.]
– (laughs) Now, about the other single, ‘forbidden lover’, the beat of the snare like a marching drum leaves quite an impression.
tetsu [It was my first time working with that sort of rhythm pattern, so I worried about what kind of bassline to put in.]
– It is quite grand and also deep.
ken [At first, it was easier to do stuff at home. Around the point where I put a timpani into my guitar solo, it got much heavier.]
tetsu [I hadn’t even imagined it would end up like this.]
ken [I didn’t think so either. I think hyde’s lyrics make the heaviness ease up, though.]
hyde [I thought they made it even heavier…]
– Indeed. Above and beyond the feel of the music, the lyrics are far-reaching.
hyde [The theme is how countries have fought each other throughout history, and questioning god and so on… I thought I had to use harsh lyrics, nothing else would fit that music, you know? To me, it looked like nothing else could possibly work.]
– And the coupling track for it is a remix of ‘Kasou’.
yukihiro [I think it keeps the image of the original song better than the one I did for ‘Shinshoku lose control’. It’s heavy and awesome.]
As L’Arc~en~Ciel plunges headlong into the second half of their tour, Light my Fire!, two new singles arrive just in time for October. Following three simultaneous releases last July, these singles will come out within a week of one another. Including the paired coupling songs, this means a new four-song vector is about to reach us. I had the opportunity to ask them about this work as well as their current impressions.
*****
– You’ve just released two new singles that are completely different from each other…
tetsu [For ‘snow drop’, I had a bit of christmas spirit in mind. Not completely, but I at least wanted it to be the type of song that people would feel like listening to around christmas time.]
– It feels like a dashing pop song to me.
tetsu [Dashing, like when Patrasche(1) runs through the grass fields, right? I wrote it right after watching ‘Flanders no Inu’ (laughs).]
hyde [When he told me that, the first thing I did was watch that video.]
– Did it affect the lyrics for the song?
hyde [Well, there is a rather gentle feeling to it, like that vague aura that’s always eating at my body (laughs).
– As for the title, ‘snow drop’ is actually the name of a flower, right?
hyde [When I heard the song, I suddenly imagined a flower blooming in the snow. Then I wondered if any flowers like that actually existed, so I checked a reference book or something, and that was the closest match I could find. It’s like the lyrics grew out of that idea.]
– How did the recording go?
yukihiro [The drumming was painful. tetsu-kun requested that I “put in something with the tams” and I did, but it took a long time to decide how it should sound we recorded a lot of takes.]
ken [I managed to figure out what to do from the moment I first heard the song, so it’s like I was done before I had to think.]
– The guitar is certainly colourful.
ken [It sounds that way, but I didn’t put that much into it. I recorded my guitar with the drums and re-amped it, then changed it around for a few different kinds of sound.]
hyde [When I heard the off-vocal version, I thought the guitar solo sounded weird, but I guess… it’s because of that thing you had in your mouth?]
ken [Yep.]
– The coupling track, ‘a swell in the sun’, was composed by yukihiro-san, right?
yukihiro [It’s actually I song I made when I was working solo, but then I thought it could be even cooler if it was done by the band so I brought it in. It’s dark and heavy (laughs).]
– Yet, I think it’s very interesting for L’Arc to make a song like this one. How did you go about recording it?
yukihiro [hyde-kun reworked the lyrics and melody for me, and we recorded the basic track that I wrote starting with the words. Then we edited that, and it started to gain a basic shape before the guitar and bass were added, and then it got edited again until we got the final version.]
hyde [It was interesting; felt like we were making something, a material. Like a toy.]
ken [And the material for the song got rearranged by yukkie, which was the part that seemed like it would take the longest, so me and tetsu…]
tetsu [We snuck out to a festival together (laughs).]
ken [We had way too much fun and had way too much to drink. Man, we were so incredibly drunk. When we went back to the studio and started recording, I had a headache. But I couldn’t say that, so I just went “Shouldn’t we get the bass recorded first?” and so I got to take a nap while that got done and I snored and got better.]
– (laughs) Now, about the other single, ‘forbidden lover’, the beat of the snare like a marching drum leaves quite an impression.
tetsu [It was my first time working with that sort of rhythm pattern, so I worried about what kind of bassline to put in.]
– It is quite grand and also deep.
ken [At first, it was easier to do stuff at home. Around the point where I put a timpani into my guitar solo, it got much heavier.]
tetsu [I hadn’t even imagined it would end up like this.]
ken [I didn’t think so either. I think hyde’s lyrics make the heaviness ease up, though.]
hyde [I thought they made it even heavier…]
– Indeed. Above and beyond the feel of the music, the lyrics are far-reaching.
hyde [The theme is how countries have fought each other throughout history, and questioning god and so on… I thought I had to use harsh lyrics, nothing else would fit that music, you know? To me, it looked like nothing else could possibly work.]
– And the coupling track for it is a remix of ‘Kasou’.
yukihiro [I think it keeps the image of the original song better than the one I did for ‘Shinshoku lose control’. It’s heavy and awesome.]
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