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
[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
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