– You seem to use your financial sense to reflect on several matters.
[I do that a lot, don’t I…… You know, for years now, I haven’t looked at the price tag when I buy things, really. By that I mean that I buy things without knowing the price. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? (both laugh)]
– Nhahaha! No, honestly, I’m jealous.
[I don’t even know how much money there is in my own wallet. I can take all my stuff up to the register, then BAM! When I look at my wallet : “Uh oh, there’s nothing in here. Do you take credit cards?” “No, sorry, you can’t use a credit card here.” “Okay, I’ll run to the bank and get some money, hold this stuff for me please.”]
– That must be such a shock (laughs). I wonder whether that means you have a financial sense, or that you don’t.
[I don’t. Oh, but I think I’ve gotten much worse lately (laughs). See, there’s a gap between what people think is expensive and what I think is expensive. The way some people go “5000 yen!!? So expensive!”, I’ll treat hundreds of thousands of yen like so much spare change (both laugh). I’m like “It’s not worth all that much, is it?”]
– Somehow, it’s not that you don’t have any sense of its worth, but even you must worry about these things sometimes, right?
[I think I’m terrible, such a terrible person. Just about every time I go to pay with a credit card, I hear “Is that all one bill?” and I hate that. “Of course it’s all one bill!” … Aren’t I horrible? (both laugh) I don’t like the fact that I’m like that. Deep in my heart, I think “I’m such a horrible person.”]
– I see~. Now, money is very important, isn’t it?
[Yes, it’s very important.]
– Money is, for instance, an easily understood basis for setting the value of things. Of course, it doesn’t indicate everything, but it does give things a saleable value. What is your take on money in that sense?
[I don’t think that ascribing a worth to something makes it sell. Not every good thing made gets sold, and the quality of music isn’t entirely proportional to how well it sells. That’s how the world works, right? Plenty of people make music that doesn’t sell even though it’s really good, and the opposite happens, too. It depends on the time period…… Compared to five, six years ago, CDs don’t sell much at all these days. The same product released now would get completely different sales result than it would have five or six years ago.]
– You have your own label, for your activities as TETSU69, so regardless of what you may or may not want to do, you have to keep the production costs in mind, right? You need a proper understanding of those basics.
[I don’t have that basic understanding? Not really, anyway. It’s just that, of course, it costs money to make things. Naturally, the more I make things that sell, the faster I get the freedom to do whatever I want. Some people say “I’m gonna do what I want!” a lot, but then a lot of the time they don’t get any results. It goes to show that you can’t always do what you want. Unless you’re extremely rich, you can’t go around only doing what you please. Doing what you want has to lead to results, and by results, I mean that your CD has to sell loads of copies. Start there, then you can do what you want. That’s obviously the way the capitalist system works. But, in Japan, there are people who say that’s a bad thing. “They’re just doing it for the money,” or “These guys are cool because they only ever do exactly what they want to do, so I support them.” No no no, what’re ya saying? That’s how I react (laughs). Naturally, I’m making the kind of music I like, I think I’m doing what I want, in principle. I think “for money” is the wrong term to use, cause in this business, as a professional, I need to make money to be able to do what I want.]
– Mmhmmhmm. That’s absolutely correct.
[So, the answer to “What can a fan do for an artist?” is quite simple : buy lots of CDs, buy concert tickets, buy some of the photo books and lots of goods like that. And in case you’re wondering, you shouldn’t buy fake, pirated products because the artist won’t get a single yen from them. It’s a simple concept, right? But if I go out and say things like that, the trend in Japan leads to me being thought of as being “into music for the money.” I have to wonder about that.]
– That might be peculiar to Japan, a type of honourable poverty, from the Bushido mindset (1). But, selling things is definitely a good thing, a necessary thing. If you don’t sell anything, you can’t create anything else.
[I wouldn’t be able to cover the production costs. Which means I wouldn’t be able to make anything. Of course, I don’t think money is all you need to make a good product. Even low-budget projects can be incredibly interesting, sometimes it might turn out that restricting the possibilities makes for a more interesting result, but I don’t think that’s good for the artist.]
– When you first started the band, how did you make ends meet?
[Nah, even though I didn’t have any money, I lived in luxury (laughs). I even went to practise by car(2).]
– Ahahahahaha! But it cost money to manage the band, didn’t it?
[As far as management goes, we were really lucky, L’Arc managed to pull over a hundred people. Right from the start. And then the cash started coming in. But we also had day jobs to live on, you know? So it’s not like we were relying on band earnings to buy food. Since we were living off our jobs, we could save up fast, as we held more shows. Then we made a free video. To give something back to the fans. Later, we saved up the money to buy an equipment car. The money we made as a band didn’t go to the members, we pooled it instead and only spent it on the band. We didn’t go through any rough spots, or get in trouble because we didn’t have money.]
– So on top of managing the band, you had quite an extensive system in place.
[Yeah, I think we were so lucky in that area. We seemed to be low-class, but we didn’t live that way. You hear a lot of stories like how, at first, there were more band members than audience members, right? I haven’t experienced that even once.]
– That certainly seems rather unusual. Might it be that you couldn’t even imagine what it meant to live as part of the lower class?
[Well, I suppose you could say we did what we could to avoid it. “Even if only one person listens to our music, we’ll go do a show wherever we have to just for that person,” I hate that sort of sentiment. I realise that quite a few people in Japan hear that and go “Wow, cool! Wonderful!”, but I figure “Isn’t it better to get a hundred people?” “Let’s work on getting a hundred people to come, instead.”]
– I think that’s exceptional focus on your goals.
[So yeah…… These days they’re called fliers, but back then we called them handbills (laughs), even for the handbills, we made sure they’d make people think “Wow, I wanna see them; what kind of band are they?” by making cool handbills. Also, at the time, I was working in a pretty big record store in Osaka, and from the client list we had a list of people who liked Japanese rock to send direct mail to. So, I’d go to those areas and stick up some posters. For L’Arc’s first live, we had stickers to give out as presents. We worked together so we could draw in as many people as possible.]
– One could say that you were blessed, but you actually put a lot of effort into it. Your present situation has its origins there.
[Just… well… I wasn’t really trying to be professional or anything…… I never thought anything like “I absolutely must be able to live off my music,” at all. My personality is cooler than that (laughs). It’s just that I wanted to create a band, so I went about gathering members properly…… “Do it right,” for everything that came up, one thing at a time. “If I do things properly then I’m sure to get decent results,” that was my attitude. It’s kind of mysterious though, looking back on it now. Taking it one thing at a time, one step at a time, each step didn’t seem that high, so it was easy to keep moving up. Then, a while later I turned around, and realised that I’d come up an incredibly tall staircase, or something like that. Some people say “I have a big dream,” right? Me, I stuck to small ones. I only had dreams that could become real very soon. I’m the type to take a realistic dream, clear it, then go “Okay, the next dream is this,” and so on, gradually climbing the stairs to chase them. And so, I’m the type to do whatever I suspect is the best way to go about things. It’s because of my personality that I do things the way I do. Generally, there’s no one more suspicious than someone who does the right thing. People who are said to be “good people” have a flip side to them. Me, I’m hard to please, and I don’t think my public image is very good, even I can tell that much. But, I think that people who spend a lot of time with me, who really get to me, can tell that I’m not really like that. Image, it’s surprisingly bad, isn’t it?]
– Well certainly, it was often said that “L’Arc is difficult”, especially in the earlier days.
[At the very beginning, the company kept telling us “Don’t talk in Kansai-ben” (3). But we weren’t gonna talk in standard.]
– Ahaha! Then everyone would need to be quiet! It was when none of you were speaking that it was often said that “L’Arc is difficult”.
[It’s not that we were being pretentious. We simply weren’t speaking.]
– Ahahaha. Now, let’s go back to the subject of money. How did you feel when your first royalties started to come in?
[The first time they came in? “Eeeeh!? Is this ALL!?” (both burst into laugher). It was disappointing.]
– Ah, really? What was the amount, if you don’t mind my asking?
[Oh, no, I don’t remember anymore. I just remember thinking “I ain’t gonna be able to eat much with this.”]
– Going back to earlier on, do you ever look at your own shopping and think “This is definitely bad,” for any reason?
[Woah, I spend so much every month, it’s ridiculous. I might be better off buying land.]
– But tetsu-san, you don’t seem the type to spend money frivolously.
[Um, well, I buy expensive stuff. I’ve always been like that, buying the best possible kind of video deck, for example. Same thing for appliances. I always get the highest quality. I buy brand name furniture, too. I’ve got to be some kind of clown. Like, the way I’ll buy all this Italian furniture (laughs). “What’s this one? Ooh, a Cassina,” conversations like that are normal to me, and I don’t want to go down a notch (laughs). But recently Dynos or something started making similar products for one-tenth of the price, right? (laughs) “Is this enough?” I wonder, and sometimes I get incredibly sad. People who don’t know any better would say “Isn’t it the same thing?” right. I guess I waste my money that way. But, even though they’re brand names, I hate Gucci bags and things like that. I think they’re crap. I prefer things that aren’t recognizable except to those who know what they’re talking about.]
– Spending your money on things like this is ultimately about satisfying yourself, correct?
[That’s right. So, it’s like I’m picky about things that aren’t obvious, isn’t it? I spend my money on things that no one will notice the price of, and I make sure the spots the carpenter missed are finished, I think that’s the craftsman in me (laughs).]
– You have the financial sense of a craftsman (laughs).
[Yeah. Well, when you’re only careful about the visible stuff, and leave the unseen parts to rot, then you end up with a house full of problems. Then there’s my attitude toward easily recognized bags. I’m completely backwards.]
– Then your financial sense is in the fact that you have artisan talents, tetsu-san. And an artist’s wallet, too (laughs).
[Yeah, well, in the end, it’s bad to not think about things!]
– Interviewer : Honma Yuuko
Translated by Natalie Arnold
[I do that a lot, don’t I…… You know, for years now, I haven’t looked at the price tag when I buy things, really. By that I mean that I buy things without knowing the price. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? (both laugh)]
– Nhahaha! No, honestly, I’m jealous.
[I don’t even know how much money there is in my own wallet. I can take all my stuff up to the register, then BAM! When I look at my wallet : “Uh oh, there’s nothing in here. Do you take credit cards?” “No, sorry, you can’t use a credit card here.” “Okay, I’ll run to the bank and get some money, hold this stuff for me please.”]
– That must be such a shock (laughs). I wonder whether that means you have a financial sense, or that you don’t.
[I don’t. Oh, but I think I’ve gotten much worse lately (laughs). See, there’s a gap between what people think is expensive and what I think is expensive. The way some people go “5000 yen!!? So expensive!”, I’ll treat hundreds of thousands of yen like so much spare change (both laugh). I’m like “It’s not worth all that much, is it?”]
– Somehow, it’s not that you don’t have any sense of its worth, but even you must worry about these things sometimes, right?
[I think I’m terrible, such a terrible person. Just about every time I go to pay with a credit card, I hear “Is that all one bill?” and I hate that. “Of course it’s all one bill!” … Aren’t I horrible? (both laugh) I don’t like the fact that I’m like that. Deep in my heart, I think “I’m such a horrible person.”]
– I see~. Now, money is very important, isn’t it?
[Yes, it’s very important.]
– Money is, for instance, an easily understood basis for setting the value of things. Of course, it doesn’t indicate everything, but it does give things a saleable value. What is your take on money in that sense?
[I don’t think that ascribing a worth to something makes it sell. Not every good thing made gets sold, and the quality of music isn’t entirely proportional to how well it sells. That’s how the world works, right? Plenty of people make music that doesn’t sell even though it’s really good, and the opposite happens, too. It depends on the time period…… Compared to five, six years ago, CDs don’t sell much at all these days. The same product released now would get completely different sales result than it would have five or six years ago.]
– You have your own label, for your activities as TETSU69, so regardless of what you may or may not want to do, you have to keep the production costs in mind, right? You need a proper understanding of those basics.
[I don’t have that basic understanding? Not really, anyway. It’s just that, of course, it costs money to make things. Naturally, the more I make things that sell, the faster I get the freedom to do whatever I want. Some people say “I’m gonna do what I want!” a lot, but then a lot of the time they don’t get any results. It goes to show that you can’t always do what you want. Unless you’re extremely rich, you can’t go around only doing what you please. Doing what you want has to lead to results, and by results, I mean that your CD has to sell loads of copies. Start there, then you can do what you want. That’s obviously the way the capitalist system works. But, in Japan, there are people who say that’s a bad thing. “They’re just doing it for the money,” or “These guys are cool because they only ever do exactly what they want to do, so I support them.” No no no, what’re ya saying? That’s how I react (laughs). Naturally, I’m making the kind of music I like, I think I’m doing what I want, in principle. I think “for money” is the wrong term to use, cause in this business, as a professional, I need to make money to be able to do what I want.]
– Mmhmmhmm. That’s absolutely correct.
[So, the answer to “What can a fan do for an artist?” is quite simple : buy lots of CDs, buy concert tickets, buy some of the photo books and lots of goods like that. And in case you’re wondering, you shouldn’t buy fake, pirated products because the artist won’t get a single yen from them. It’s a simple concept, right? But if I go out and say things like that, the trend in Japan leads to me being thought of as being “into music for the money.” I have to wonder about that.]
– That might be peculiar to Japan, a type of honourable poverty, from the Bushido mindset (1). But, selling things is definitely a good thing, a necessary thing. If you don’t sell anything, you can’t create anything else.
[I wouldn’t be able to cover the production costs. Which means I wouldn’t be able to make anything. Of course, I don’t think money is all you need to make a good product. Even low-budget projects can be incredibly interesting, sometimes it might turn out that restricting the possibilities makes for a more interesting result, but I don’t think that’s good for the artist.]
– When you first started the band, how did you make ends meet?
[Nah, even though I didn’t have any money, I lived in luxury (laughs). I even went to practise by car(2).]
– Ahahahahaha! But it cost money to manage the band, didn’t it?
[As far as management goes, we were really lucky, L’Arc managed to pull over a hundred people. Right from the start. And then the cash started coming in. But we also had day jobs to live on, you know? So it’s not like we were relying on band earnings to buy food. Since we were living off our jobs, we could save up fast, as we held more shows. Then we made a free video. To give something back to the fans. Later, we saved up the money to buy an equipment car. The money we made as a band didn’t go to the members, we pooled it instead and only spent it on the band. We didn’t go through any rough spots, or get in trouble because we didn’t have money.]
– So on top of managing the band, you had quite an extensive system in place.
[Yeah, I think we were so lucky in that area. We seemed to be low-class, but we didn’t live that way. You hear a lot of stories like how, at first, there were more band members than audience members, right? I haven’t experienced that even once.]
– That certainly seems rather unusual. Might it be that you couldn’t even imagine what it meant to live as part of the lower class?
[Well, I suppose you could say we did what we could to avoid it. “Even if only one person listens to our music, we’ll go do a show wherever we have to just for that person,” I hate that sort of sentiment. I realise that quite a few people in Japan hear that and go “Wow, cool! Wonderful!”, but I figure “Isn’t it better to get a hundred people?” “Let’s work on getting a hundred people to come, instead.”]
– I think that’s exceptional focus on your goals.
[So yeah…… These days they’re called fliers, but back then we called them handbills (laughs), even for the handbills, we made sure they’d make people think “Wow, I wanna see them; what kind of band are they?” by making cool handbills. Also, at the time, I was working in a pretty big record store in Osaka, and from the client list we had a list of people who liked Japanese rock to send direct mail to. So, I’d go to those areas and stick up some posters. For L’Arc’s first live, we had stickers to give out as presents. We worked together so we could draw in as many people as possible.]
– One could say that you were blessed, but you actually put a lot of effort into it. Your present situation has its origins there.
[Just… well… I wasn’t really trying to be professional or anything…… I never thought anything like “I absolutely must be able to live off my music,” at all. My personality is cooler than that (laughs). It’s just that I wanted to create a band, so I went about gathering members properly…… “Do it right,” for everything that came up, one thing at a time. “If I do things properly then I’m sure to get decent results,” that was my attitude. It’s kind of mysterious though, looking back on it now. Taking it one thing at a time, one step at a time, each step didn’t seem that high, so it was easy to keep moving up. Then, a while later I turned around, and realised that I’d come up an incredibly tall staircase, or something like that. Some people say “I have a big dream,” right? Me, I stuck to small ones. I only had dreams that could become real very soon. I’m the type to take a realistic dream, clear it, then go “Okay, the next dream is this,” and so on, gradually climbing the stairs to chase them. And so, I’m the type to do whatever I suspect is the best way to go about things. It’s because of my personality that I do things the way I do. Generally, there’s no one more suspicious than someone who does the right thing. People who are said to be “good people” have a flip side to them. Me, I’m hard to please, and I don’t think my public image is very good, even I can tell that much. But, I think that people who spend a lot of time with me, who really get to me, can tell that I’m not really like that. Image, it’s surprisingly bad, isn’t it?]
– Well certainly, it was often said that “L’Arc is difficult”, especially in the earlier days.
[At the very beginning, the company kept telling us “Don’t talk in Kansai-ben” (3). But we weren’t gonna talk in standard.]
– Ahaha! Then everyone would need to be quiet! It was when none of you were speaking that it was often said that “L’Arc is difficult”.
[It’s not that we were being pretentious. We simply weren’t speaking.]
– Ahahaha. Now, let’s go back to the subject of money. How did you feel when your first royalties started to come in?
[The first time they came in? “Eeeeh!? Is this ALL!?” (both burst into laugher). It was disappointing.]
– Ah, really? What was the amount, if you don’t mind my asking?
[Oh, no, I don’t remember anymore. I just remember thinking “I ain’t gonna be able to eat much with this.”]
– Going back to earlier on, do you ever look at your own shopping and think “This is definitely bad,” for any reason?
[Woah, I spend so much every month, it’s ridiculous. I might be better off buying land.]
– But tetsu-san, you don’t seem the type to spend money frivolously.
[Um, well, I buy expensive stuff. I’ve always been like that, buying the best possible kind of video deck, for example. Same thing for appliances. I always get the highest quality. I buy brand name furniture, too. I’ve got to be some kind of clown. Like, the way I’ll buy all this Italian furniture (laughs). “What’s this one? Ooh, a Cassina,” conversations like that are normal to me, and I don’t want to go down a notch (laughs). But recently Dynos or something started making similar products for one-tenth of the price, right? (laughs) “Is this enough?” I wonder, and sometimes I get incredibly sad. People who don’t know any better would say “Isn’t it the same thing?” right. I guess I waste my money that way. But, even though they’re brand names, I hate Gucci bags and things like that. I think they’re crap. I prefer things that aren’t recognizable except to those who know what they’re talking about.]
– Spending your money on things like this is ultimately about satisfying yourself, correct?
[That’s right. So, it’s like I’m picky about things that aren’t obvious, isn’t it? I spend my money on things that no one will notice the price of, and I make sure the spots the carpenter missed are finished, I think that’s the craftsman in me (laughs).]
– You have the financial sense of a craftsman (laughs).
[Yeah. Well, when you’re only careful about the visible stuff, and leave the unseen parts to rot, then you end up with a house full of problems. Then there’s my attitude toward easily recognized bags. I’m completely backwards.]
– Then your financial sense is in the fact that you have artisan talents, tetsu-san. And an artist’s wallet, too (laughs).
[Yeah, well, in the end, it’s bad to not think about things!]
– Interviewer : Honma Yuuko
Translated by Natalie Arnold
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