– Let’s start with the album’s jacket. You felt strongly about this one, right tetsu-san?
[Indeed, I thought about a lot and reflected on it the most, yes.]
– Could you tell me more, about the concept and so on?
[I had several designers come up with many different patterns. There were other ideas, and some were based on images from the other members, but out of all of those the one pattern that had nothing to do with any of that was this one, and it jumped out at me. “Ah, this isn’t what I had in mind, but it’s really great!” So the idea won, in the end.]
– What I feel from the image is that the headphones represent the transmission of music, which links the band together, and the cord goes on to infinity, which means they’ll always be connected.
[Yeah, I felt that too. Also, it’s refined, isn’t it? Aikawa Yuri-chan from “Detroit Metal City” would like this design (laughs).]
– (laughs) It’s pop-ish, isn’t it?
[Yes. Doesn’t it look like Ka**mi Ka*i?]
– Yeah (laughs), now that you mention it. I get the impression that it’s saying “Ah, L’Arc~en~Ciel has gone over to a fresh style now”.
[The title is KISS, but I thought the jacket didn’t associate to it very much, and yet… if you open to the inside the design changes, and the face seems to be kissing something, I thought that was so cute. It’s a great idea. Then I thought the other members would be against it, but it’s the design I want! So I decided it would be that one. ….That’s OK right? (laughs)]
– Yeah. Now on to the main topic. How was it, getting the album together?
[……It was rough, in a lot of ways.]
– Please don’t look at me so intensely (laughs).
[Hahahaha, I was just thinking of something. Last year, we had the 15th anniversary live at Tokyo Dome in November, then after that, for all of December, each of us had time to compose some songs. The idea was that we’d spend the whole month of December writing music, then after New Year’s we’d get together and go straight to work on pre-prog and so on. But, I did my solo recording right after the Tokyo Dome live, thinking “Whatever, I can get my songs done any time!”. My solo song (Can’t stop believing) was already set to be in a tie-up (with Super Soccer, as the ending theme), so once the recording was done and the goods were delivered, it would start playing (on TV) right away. So if I could finish it a week early, they’d start playing it a week earlier and it would stay on air that much longer. While I was working on that, I somehow heard rumours that the other members had written a bunch of songs! so I was like “Oh crap, I haven’t written a single one yet…”. Plus I hadn’t written the lyrics to Can’t stop believing yet, I was playing the bass and working on the arrangement and I still had to do the orchestra recording, and I had to get those lyrics written, and I was telling myself to write something for L’Arc~en~Ciel, like “What am I gonna do?!”… I burned out, last December.]
– (laughs)
[Plus, during the holidays there’s the label’s event at Budoukan, so I had to go to rehearsals for that, too. I didn’t have time to put up my Christmas lights, that’s how busy I was. Then after New Year’s, I had to film the PV (for Can’t stop believing) and do the promotional stuff… So, I didn’t start writing my songs for L’Arc~en~Ciel until late January.]
– Ah, that is rather late.
[Yes. And actually, we were scheduled to get together and show off our songs in early February. I made it, but just barely. At that meeting hyde had about three songs, ken-chan had four, yukkie had zero, and I had two songs done, so at the time I could tell myself “I made it!” at least (laughs).]
– For the time being (laughs).
[Well, I worked fast after that. Two, three weeks later, at our second song meeting, I had another four songs ready, and all together we had 24 songs done… In the end, looking back on it, we really created an incredibly good album. The tunes are good, the sound is good, the timing is good too. Dear record company, sell this thing!]
– What was that about the timing?
[This year, on tour, we did the whole country in three months and promoted the album everywhere. It was a big promo, and we used our own bodies for it (laughs). Then, right after the tour, MY HEART DRAWS A DREAM came out, and then DAYBREAK’S BELL came out, leading up to the album, you know… It’s like we’ve done nothing but promote this album all year.]
– Then, tetsu-san, did you go about the recording with that idea in mind, that you were going to do nothing but push this album out into the world for a long time to come?
[It started long before the recording. At the beginning of the year when we members got together to show each other our songs, I thought “Wow, this next album is going to be awesome”. Honestly, every song was great. Because we’re all professionals, no doubt. We can all compose songs, so we can listen to each other’s songs and get stimulated by them. It’s amazing that we have four members who can all do this.]
– Was there any specific source of your feeling that the album would be so great?
[ken-chan’s songs, in particular, I guess his work made me want to put a certain type of songs in the album? They were really great. I think I said this for the MY HEART~ interview, but for a long time, back during SMILE, and during AWAKE too, I wanted him to write us a song like MY HEART~, but there wasn’t one. But this time, as soon as I heard it I went “YES!”.]
– Did hearing ken-san’s songs spur you on, light a fire under you, or anything of the kind?
[No, I don’t think I wrote anything new just because I heard ken-chan’s songs, so that can’t be right. However, this song didn’t make it into the album this time, but one of the songs I composed and showed the others got complimented by the head of the company. “This is great” he said, and it’s unusual to be complimented by him. That was the first song I came out with, so I didn’t feel any pressure afterwards, I just wrote songs normally and showed them to the others. So that song is still sitting around, for now.]
– It ain’t over yet! (laughs)
[(nods gravely)]
– (laughs) So why don’t we get to hear it?
[Because I won’t let you (laughs).]
– I think the album benefits from having a lot of variety. It’s almost the total opposite of AWAKE, I think it’s extremely pop, and very colourful. What do you think, tetsu-san?
[Ah yeah… but, we actually passed over a lot of the more colourful and pop-ish songs. We picked 12 out of 24 songs, that’s leaving out half of them. That you still have that impression from only hearing half the songs, well, I guess that’s pretty amazing.]
– Oh I see…
[And, for the second half of the year, some members are still writing songs, so there’s even more to come!]
– How did you end up passing over the more pop-ish songs?
[It’s because more people than just us members are involved in choosing the songs. It reflects the opinions of everyone concerned. Plus we’re all strategizing in our own ways, thinking things like “I’d rather keep this song for the next album, it’ll sound cooler then,” we’re all calculating these things. Like the timing will be better later on. We each have our own ideas about that.]
– About the track order of the twelve selected songs, tetsu-san, could you tell me what you had in mind during the decision process, and also your impression of how it actually ended up?
[I didn’t really think about it… When we decide (the songs), we look at what’s at the core, we listen closely and make sure they all fit together. And if anyone thinks it’s not quite right, then we change it. We do that over and over.]
– Did it go smoothly, this time?
[…… I wonder. When we hit a rough patch, it can take up to two days. When we did ark and ray, it took two whole days. I guess this time it took about five hours? Four, five hours, of putting them in order and listening, changing the order and listening again, then we settled on something.]
– The first part bites you, then the middle is sensual, with good melodies, and the end is entertaining pop. That’s the impression I have of it, but what do you think?
[Yesterday, we got as far as deciding the spacing between songs, that’s something everyone needs to agree on, too. We fine-tune it until everyone is in agreement… “A little sooner” or “A little later”… We’re really careful even about those tiny details, but I’m sure not many people notice, so I thought I’d mention it (laughs). Well I guess every artist is careful about that kind of thing when they’re making an album. The song order and the space between songs can really have an impact on how it all comes together… It’s because of those details that KISS became the album it is. We picked 12 songs out of 24 and put them in order… but it’s really not something you can have any thoughts about from the beginning. While making it, you get and idea about this and have a thought about that. It’s not about one person’s idea, it’s got reflect everyone’s opinion, so… It’s truly miraculous, isn’t it? An album, that is. So rather than go “I wanted it to be like that, oh I wish we’d done that”, ultimately it is what it is. …so there’s no need to go into it going “I want it like this.”]
– Since when have you thought this way?
[Since always.]
– You must be quite the happy band.
[Oh?]
– I mean, it sounds like you can rely on each other, so I get that impression.
[I see. Well I don’t really get it myself, but it’s like, a lot of bands around the world are just living on the efforts of one genius member. But L’Arc~en~Ciel isn’t like that.]
– tetsu-san, was that something you wanted to ensure from the very beginning? I mean, did you gather these members for the sake of making a band that could accomplish that?
[Well, if you’re asking whether I was consciously aiming for that from the start, I don’t think I was, not explicitly… What we have is really the result of chance, or maybe something like destiny. This has higher hurdles to jump than romance. I mean, in love you only need to make it with one partner, but there are four of us here, so each of us has to make it with three other people. So… it’s harder than romance (laughs).]
– I suppose luck is part of it, but isn’t it also the result of your hard work?
[Nah, I don’t work hard. I just… I think I just wished for it.]
– As a leader?
[As a leader… Maybe so…… Everyone’s a genius, and they have common sense, and they’re strong, reliable people. So I guess it’s not so hard, it might not be that complicated.]
– I think it’s quite rare for a band to have this kind of talent and manage itself as a group, like you do. I suppose there must be some difficult choices and compromises to make, but why do you think L’Arc~en~Ciel has been able to consistently continue to create such work?
[Hmmmmm……… It must be because these members are truly wonderful people, and talented musically, and because we’re lucky, and the fans support us, and so does the staff…… that’s got to be it. ………And, I think we’ve seen some real growth. The quality of our demos is amazingly high, for example. We’re a great band, really (laughs).]
[Indeed, I thought about a lot and reflected on it the most, yes.]
– Could you tell me more, about the concept and so on?
[I had several designers come up with many different patterns. There were other ideas, and some were based on images from the other members, but out of all of those the one pattern that had nothing to do with any of that was this one, and it jumped out at me. “Ah, this isn’t what I had in mind, but it’s really great!” So the idea won, in the end.]
– What I feel from the image is that the headphones represent the transmission of music, which links the band together, and the cord goes on to infinity, which means they’ll always be connected.
[Yeah, I felt that too. Also, it’s refined, isn’t it? Aikawa Yuri-chan from “Detroit Metal City” would like this design (laughs).]
– (laughs) It’s pop-ish, isn’t it?
[Yes. Doesn’t it look like Ka**mi Ka*i?]
– Yeah (laughs), now that you mention it. I get the impression that it’s saying “Ah, L’Arc~en~Ciel has gone over to a fresh style now”.
[The title is KISS, but I thought the jacket didn’t associate to it very much, and yet… if you open to the inside the design changes, and the face seems to be kissing something, I thought that was so cute. It’s a great idea. Then I thought the other members would be against it, but it’s the design I want! So I decided it would be that one. ….That’s OK right? (laughs)]
– Yeah. Now on to the main topic. How was it, getting the album together?
[……It was rough, in a lot of ways.]
– Please don’t look at me so intensely (laughs).
[Hahahaha, I was just thinking of something. Last year, we had the 15th anniversary live at Tokyo Dome in November, then after that, for all of December, each of us had time to compose some songs. The idea was that we’d spend the whole month of December writing music, then after New Year’s we’d get together and go straight to work on pre-prog and so on. But, I did my solo recording right after the Tokyo Dome live, thinking “Whatever, I can get my songs done any time!”. My solo song (Can’t stop believing) was already set to be in a tie-up (with Super Soccer, as the ending theme), so once the recording was done and the goods were delivered, it would start playing (on TV) right away. So if I could finish it a week early, they’d start playing it a week earlier and it would stay on air that much longer. While I was working on that, I somehow heard rumours that the other members had written a bunch of songs! so I was like “Oh crap, I haven’t written a single one yet…”. Plus I hadn’t written the lyrics to Can’t stop believing yet, I was playing the bass and working on the arrangement and I still had to do the orchestra recording, and I had to get those lyrics written, and I was telling myself to write something for L’Arc~en~Ciel, like “What am I gonna do?!”… I burned out, last December.]
– (laughs)
[Plus, during the holidays there’s the label’s event at Budoukan, so I had to go to rehearsals for that, too. I didn’t have time to put up my Christmas lights, that’s how busy I was. Then after New Year’s, I had to film the PV (for Can’t stop believing) and do the promotional stuff… So, I didn’t start writing my songs for L’Arc~en~Ciel until late January.]
– Ah, that is rather late.
[Yes. And actually, we were scheduled to get together and show off our songs in early February. I made it, but just barely. At that meeting hyde had about three songs, ken-chan had four, yukkie had zero, and I had two songs done, so at the time I could tell myself “I made it!” at least (laughs).]
– For the time being (laughs).
[Well, I worked fast after that. Two, three weeks later, at our second song meeting, I had another four songs ready, and all together we had 24 songs done… In the end, looking back on it, we really created an incredibly good album. The tunes are good, the sound is good, the timing is good too. Dear record company, sell this thing!]
– What was that about the timing?
[This year, on tour, we did the whole country in three months and promoted the album everywhere. It was a big promo, and we used our own bodies for it (laughs). Then, right after the tour, MY HEART DRAWS A DREAM came out, and then DAYBREAK’S BELL came out, leading up to the album, you know… It’s like we’ve done nothing but promote this album all year.]
– Then, tetsu-san, did you go about the recording with that idea in mind, that you were going to do nothing but push this album out into the world for a long time to come?
[It started long before the recording. At the beginning of the year when we members got together to show each other our songs, I thought “Wow, this next album is going to be awesome”. Honestly, every song was great. Because we’re all professionals, no doubt. We can all compose songs, so we can listen to each other’s songs and get stimulated by them. It’s amazing that we have four members who can all do this.]
– Was there any specific source of your feeling that the album would be so great?
[ken-chan’s songs, in particular, I guess his work made me want to put a certain type of songs in the album? They were really great. I think I said this for the MY HEART~ interview, but for a long time, back during SMILE, and during AWAKE too, I wanted him to write us a song like MY HEART~, but there wasn’t one. But this time, as soon as I heard it I went “YES!”.]
– Did hearing ken-san’s songs spur you on, light a fire under you, or anything of the kind?
[No, I don’t think I wrote anything new just because I heard ken-chan’s songs, so that can’t be right. However, this song didn’t make it into the album this time, but one of the songs I composed and showed the others got complimented by the head of the company. “This is great” he said, and it’s unusual to be complimented by him. That was the first song I came out with, so I didn’t feel any pressure afterwards, I just wrote songs normally and showed them to the others. So that song is still sitting around, for now.]
– It ain’t over yet! (laughs)
[(nods gravely)]
– (laughs) So why don’t we get to hear it?
[Because I won’t let you (laughs).]
– I think the album benefits from having a lot of variety. It’s almost the total opposite of AWAKE, I think it’s extremely pop, and very colourful. What do you think, tetsu-san?
[Ah yeah… but, we actually passed over a lot of the more colourful and pop-ish songs. We picked 12 out of 24 songs, that’s leaving out half of them. That you still have that impression from only hearing half the songs, well, I guess that’s pretty amazing.]
– Oh I see…
[And, for the second half of the year, some members are still writing songs, so there’s even more to come!]
– How did you end up passing over the more pop-ish songs?
[It’s because more people than just us members are involved in choosing the songs. It reflects the opinions of everyone concerned. Plus we’re all strategizing in our own ways, thinking things like “I’d rather keep this song for the next album, it’ll sound cooler then,” we’re all calculating these things. Like the timing will be better later on. We each have our own ideas about that.]
– About the track order of the twelve selected songs, tetsu-san, could you tell me what you had in mind during the decision process, and also your impression of how it actually ended up?
[I didn’t really think about it… When we decide (the songs), we look at what’s at the core, we listen closely and make sure they all fit together. And if anyone thinks it’s not quite right, then we change it. We do that over and over.]
– Did it go smoothly, this time?
[…… I wonder. When we hit a rough patch, it can take up to two days. When we did ark and ray, it took two whole days. I guess this time it took about five hours? Four, five hours, of putting them in order and listening, changing the order and listening again, then we settled on something.]
– The first part bites you, then the middle is sensual, with good melodies, and the end is entertaining pop. That’s the impression I have of it, but what do you think?
[Yesterday, we got as far as deciding the spacing between songs, that’s something everyone needs to agree on, too. We fine-tune it until everyone is in agreement… “A little sooner” or “A little later”… We’re really careful even about those tiny details, but I’m sure not many people notice, so I thought I’d mention it (laughs). Well I guess every artist is careful about that kind of thing when they’re making an album. The song order and the space between songs can really have an impact on how it all comes together… It’s because of those details that KISS became the album it is. We picked 12 songs out of 24 and put them in order… but it’s really not something you can have any thoughts about from the beginning. While making it, you get and idea about this and have a thought about that. It’s not about one person’s idea, it’s got reflect everyone’s opinion, so… It’s truly miraculous, isn’t it? An album, that is. So rather than go “I wanted it to be like that, oh I wish we’d done that”, ultimately it is what it is. …so there’s no need to go into it going “I want it like this.”]
– Since when have you thought this way?
[Since always.]
– You must be quite the happy band.
[Oh?]
– I mean, it sounds like you can rely on each other, so I get that impression.
[I see. Well I don’t really get it myself, but it’s like, a lot of bands around the world are just living on the efforts of one genius member. But L’Arc~en~Ciel isn’t like that.]
– tetsu-san, was that something you wanted to ensure from the very beginning? I mean, did you gather these members for the sake of making a band that could accomplish that?
[Well, if you’re asking whether I was consciously aiming for that from the start, I don’t think I was, not explicitly… What we have is really the result of chance, or maybe something like destiny. This has higher hurdles to jump than romance. I mean, in love you only need to make it with one partner, but there are four of us here, so each of us has to make it with three other people. So… it’s harder than romance (laughs).]
– I suppose luck is part of it, but isn’t it also the result of your hard work?
[Nah, I don’t work hard. I just… I think I just wished for it.]
– As a leader?
[As a leader… Maybe so…… Everyone’s a genius, and they have common sense, and they’re strong, reliable people. So I guess it’s not so hard, it might not be that complicated.]
– I think it’s quite rare for a band to have this kind of talent and manage itself as a group, like you do. I suppose there must be some difficult choices and compromises to make, but why do you think L’Arc~en~Ciel has been able to consistently continue to create such work?
[Hmmmmm……… It must be because these members are truly wonderful people, and talented musically, and because we’re lucky, and the fans support us, and so does the staff…… that’s got to be it. ………And, I think we’ve seen some real growth. The quality of our demos is amazingly high, for example. We’re a great band, really (laughs).]
Zdroj:http://www.larcompendium.com/site/?p=184
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