– After graduating from high school, I understand you immediately started your search for band members while working part time jobs. Was that period difficult, in terms of lifestyle?
[No. Not really. I had all sorts of jobs. I went to band practice at night, and other than that, I was always working, so around then…… I had money. So, I don’t remember much hardship (laughs). It didn’t feel like I was a poor guy (laughs).]
– What kind of places did you work at?
[Record… no, CD stores, these days. And a variety store that sold lots of accessories and things like that. That was a really interesting shop. All the employees were either musicians, or they were girlfriends of guys in bands. Nobody else worked there (laughs), so that store was a little different.]
– It seems it drew in music lovers. How did you come to have the opportunity to work in that eccentric shop?
[That was because the CD shop I had worked in before was in the same fashion mall as that variety store. Saying fashion mall sounds so old (laughs). The stores were close to each other, so I met the other employees, knew who they were. That sort of thing. But eventually, fans of my band started coming to that CD shop and that variety store. So after a while it got a bit hard to work there. I worked away from the customers for the last two or three months. Going to factories, or killing time changing the light bulbs (Both snicker). It was all just to cover my lifestyle expenses.]
– Killing time by changing the light bulbs (laughs). You said you worked to finance your lifestyle, so wasn’t it hard on you before, when you had to work in places that didn’t have any relation to music whatsoever?
[Well, when I could get away with not working, I didn’t work. I always wanted to sleep, or goof off. But I had to make enough money to live on, so I worked.]
– When you worked in the CD shop and the variety store, you did customer service in both, right? When you actually did that sort of work, was it harder than you had thought it would be?
[It wasn’t any worse. I’m short tempered (laughs). I had lots of fights with the customers who came to where I worked. I never forgive a shoplifter. If I spotted someone shoplifting, anyway, I’d chase them down and drag them back yelling “The hell you doing?!” (laughs). But seeing how things are now, I wouldn’t be allowed to do that, right? That’s a slap in the face.]
– Why did you feel so strongly about shoplifting, to the point of putting yourself at risk? Of course, stealing is wrong, but as a part-time employee, you could have thought “What a pain…” and pretended not to notice. Yet, you wouldn’t let yourself do that.
[Yeah, but, if merchandise went missing, it’s us who’d get replaced. For instance, at the CD shop, I think these days they manage everything by computer, but when I worked there during high school, they didn’t have computers, so we had to wrap the CDs individually in transparent bags and put a card in. That card had all sorts of fine print on it. If we lost it, we had to start writing up the card from scratch again, and it was just awful. We had to write it correctly. It was even worse when we didn’t realise something was missing, because we couldn’t always order more of that product. All that happened was that when we took inventory, the numbers didn’t match up. Anyway, when I had those jobs, shoplifting pissed me off. So whenever I spotted someone stealing, I dashed like mad, so lots of people got caught at that store.]
– Like a hot-blooded thief killer. That’s kind of cool (laughs).
[First, if I spotted someone shoplifting inside the store, I’d loudly say they were gonna get caught the moment they left. Because some people try to dash out of the store and run away. Then I’d follow them and catch them. It was fun using teamwork to catch the shoplifters, too (laughs). The other staff, my friends, would keep an eye open and let me know “Ah! He’s back!” or “They’re about to leave!” We caught them by working together (laughs). Now that I think about it, work was pretty fun~ (laughs). Working at the CD shop and the variety store, I didn’t only get to know the other employees. I ended up making friends with people working at the other stores in that fashion mall, too. Ah! That’s right. It’s not as amazing now, but, that CD shop had “The highest amount of Dead End sales in the nation,” they said. Still, I worked there. And then, we even had MORRIE-san come by. Lots of musicians came, since that store was used as a stop on promotional campaigns.]
– When you met a member from your beloved Dead End (1), how did you feel? Your heart must have been pounding.
[Actually, the first one of them I met was (CRAZY COOL-)JOE-san. It was while I was working the counter in that CD shop. All of a sudden, he was in front of me (chuckles). Someone I’d thought “He won’t ever come~” about, suddenly showing up in front of me. At the time, I said “I’m a fan” to him. And later, MORRIE-san came. And YOU-chan came into the shop when I was working the video concert section. I think that must’ve been the time I went out for drinks with YOU-chan (laughs). Since I was working in that kind of store, I also went to a lot of live shows and stuff. Once the show was over, I’d go backstage and get to know people. Of course, I went to see Dead End. sakura was backstage, too (laughs). Of course, we didn’t know each other back then, so we didn’t recognize each other. Then later, when we were talking, I asked “sakura, was that you backstage?” and he said “Yeah, yeah!” So even before we knew each other, we’d actually been in the same places.]
– While you were leading this kind of life at work, you were also searching for band members. What kind of people did you originally have in mind, when you started that search?
[Good looks, and also a certain degree of technical talent. That kind of person.]
-Right from the start, you had atrociously high standards (laughs). How did you go about recruiting people who had those qualities?
[I passed through all kinds of live houses. Then, I sounded out the people I’d gotten friendly with. And they introduced me to people they knew. Then, when someone caught my eye, we’d go to a studio and have a session together.]
– You must have done that many times before you found the members of L’Arc~en~Ciel. Please tell me about how you found them.
[When I first met the guitarist, hiro, we were introduced by Sammy-kun, from Billy & The Sluts(2). I don’t remember how I got to know Billy, though. One day, Sammy-kun spontaneously came to the CD shop while I was working and said “Still lookin’ for a guitar? Cause I know a good one.” He gave me a memo with the kid’s phone number on it. So I tried calling. That’s how we met. And then, how did I meet the drummer, pero…….? Ah! I went to a Zi:KILL(3) live. To watch the show. I was arm wrestling backstage with other band guys, when I mentioned “I’m starting a band, myself.” or something like that (laughs). I was always doing that sort of thing. When I was at that Zi:KILL live, one of the guys next to me asked about my band, and we started talking. We talked quite a bit, and he told me “The band I’m in now is breaking up, so I’m looking for a new one.” It went like “What do you play?” “Guitar.” “I’m bass.” And we exchanged phone numbers. Then eventually, on the phone, we planned to meet up at a studio, right? I can’t remember if I asked him or if he asked me. Anyway, we went to a studio. That kid brought another guitarist with him. They had the twin guitars, and they were looking for people to do the bass, vocals, and drums. That kid was. pero-chan came to that studio, too. A lot of different bassists and drummers showed up. We just played around a bit, that’s all. Then we decided to come back to the studio another day. The next time I went, that kid had brought two people : pero-chan and hyde (laughs softly).]
– You had gone to the studio for a session, and unexpectedly met hyde-kun.
[Yeah. There were five of us at the studio. By then I had already recruited hiro into my band. Our vocalist was going to be a guy called MATAROU, but now he’s the drummer for The Willard (laughs). He played drums for test-No. too. (4)]
– From vocalist to drummer, that’s quite a change (laughs).
[He started out as a drummer, though. So, I got that group into the studio a few times, but things never really took off. Musically, and just in general. And then, hiro and I started saying “Let’s go with a different band.” I thought “You know, those guys who came to the studio, the vocal (hyde) and drum (pero-chan) are pretty good,” so I talked to them. But pero-chan and hyde were already in a different band. So I went to see their show, thinking “Wouldn’t they be better off working with us?” It was impolite of me (both laugh). Again, I said “Come join my band.” Until that band was over with, hyde couldn’t say “Okay.” It was hyde’s band. Even if he had joined us, there would have been too many things to organize and plan for. But then, after many months, we finally got together. Me, hiro, pero-chan and hyde came together with the name “L’Arc~en~Ciel.”]
– Naming your band L’Arc~en~Ciel, that isn’t exactly something that jumps to one’s mind when it comes to thinking of band names. How did you think of it?
[The four of us got together, and we had to think of a name before we could start doing shows, so we used the name I came up with. I thought hard about whether a simple name would be best or not. At first, I tried to find a simple name, but I didn’t find anything that worked. It’s long, but seeing it written out has an impact that makes it memorable. That’s part of why I thought L’Arc~en~Ciel was a good name. With brands of clothing, too, intricate names work because they’re recognizable. I felt that L’Arc~en~Ciel was a long word to remember, but I thought that was all right. Written down, “L’Arc~” jumps out at you, right? Because of the balance between the capitals and lowercase letters, and because of the “‘” and “~” (laughs).]
– I can see why you think so. Certainly, those symbols catch the eye. If you were to do things over, what do you think would make a good band name?
[Hmmmm….. I still hear people say “Shell” (5) (Both laugh). Shell as in shellfish, or Shell as in the gas company. It isn’t an English word, it’s “Ciel” in French. The closest approximation of the French word would be “Sieru,” and I don’t think anyone would misread that as “Shell.” But when you type in katakana, the “e” in the font itself looks small. Even when you make sure it’s full-sized, it still looks like a small one. That’s why even now, some people pronounce it “Shell.” Isn’t that incredible? We’ve sold millions of CDs, been on NHK’s Kouhaku(Utagassen)(6) three times, and still people can’t say our name right. Does that happen to anyone else?]
– Probably not.
[Why can’t they learn the proper way to say it? It’s kinda sad (bitter laugh). Just sad. We even made commercials about it, you know? We hate that enough to spend money on commercials, telling people that “It’s L’Arc~en~Ciel,” but they still say “L’Arc~en~Shell.” Lately, I’ve found that to be annoying, but what can I do about it? (laughs). I try not to let it bother me too much.]
– Now, when your activities began under the name of L’Arc~en~Ciel, you must have wondered what would become of this band, and if you would ever take it to Tokyo. What definite goals were you working towards?
[Nothing. I didn’t put much thought into it, at the time. Really, that wasn’t until two or three months later (laughs). I guess just drawing lots of people to us at live houses, that sort of thing.]
– How did it feel when the four of you first started making music together?
[Well, everyone’s technique was at a level that exceeded my standards, so I wasn’t worried.]
– Did you feel a premonition that this band was going to become something incredible?
[No, I don’t remember any. But this was more than ten years ago (laughs).]
– Back then, who took care of booking venues and the like?
[Me and hiro. hyde made the fliers and stuff. I made a few of those, too.]
– Was it easy for you to mobilize everyone for live shows?
[It was. Right from the start, we drew in crowds for our shows. Our first live as L’Arc was on May 30th, 1991. We came on after another band, but about 130 people came in just to see us. From the next live
onward, we always managed to bring in at least a hundred people. Then, around October, we started doing shows on our own. Three hundred people came, then. In Osaka, getting that many people means you’ve got a reputation. Our reputation spread all the way to Tokyo, and major labels started approaching us around then.]
– And it had only been half a year since your formation! How did you react when you started getting approached by major labels?
[I was so thrilled~! I said “We don’t want to go major.” (laughs) Rather, we went out for fancy yakiniku(7), and once we were done eating, I told them so (Both laugh hard). “First of all, we have no intention of going major at the moment. We’re going to make an indie album first. We want to see how far we can get on our own, and we can’t find that out if we sign with a major label.” That really is how we felt.]
– You had major labels extend invitations to you, yet you went up to them and said “We’re going to make a CD first, then become pros.” You kept calm.
[No, no. We hadn’t put enough songs together yet. We weren’t ready to make an album yet, at that point. I thought it was still too soon even for an indie album. Really, we’d only formed half a year earlier. But how long did they think we’d been active? We were giving out free videos at our gigs. At Nanba Rockets and Shinjuku Loft. We made Rockets into our homeground. Rockets had it’s own label. For indies. They said to us “You won’t leave, will you?” As we got to be better known, we never heard anything like “Well, we can’t quite…” from the people at our homeground (laughs). We told them “Once we have a few more good songs, we’re leaving,” and took off from that place. But, they wouldn’t give up. Next time, they said “Fine, why don’t we put out a video for you?” and made us that offer. However, we didn’t like the idea of selling things, so we said “We don’t want you to sell anything, but if you make it a free video then it’s okay,” and tried to get away from them that way. They made a free video of one of our gigs. They were kinda restrictive, so it was hard to get along with them, in the end.]
– So those were the circumstances behind the making of that free video.
[Right. We didn’t want it made at all. We absolutely didn’t feel like we had to release something quickly. You know how you can feel “It’s too soon” about normal things? Our music just wasn’t ripe yet. We wanted to release something only after it was ripe enough.]
– You had been approached by major labels. Had you come up with a vision of how your major debut was going to go?
[No. It’s not that I was avoiding the thought, I just wasn’t thinking much about it. Besides, our music still had quite a way to go, so I wasn’t looking that far ahead. Not even imagining it. And I was just in my early twenties.]
– Moving on, how did ken-chan come to join the band?
[That was later, as our music was just about ripe. We started talking about putting out an indie album, and we were going to do the recording for it. It was with a label called Night Gallery. That’s who Dead End made their indie records with. So, I definitely wanted to work with Night Gallery (Both laugh). And then, right before we were going to do the recording, about a week before, our guitarist, hiro, quit. So I went to ken-chan, saying “My guitarist quit. Wanna join my band? We have a recording to do soon, so come on!” (laughs)]
– So, he joined you when you were in quite an awful situation. But how did you invite ken-chan?
[How indeed…… It was the day of our last live show with hiro. After the show, that was the day I called ken-chan! And after the show that day, at dinner with the other members, we talked about what to do about our guitarist. hyde knew about ken-chan, too. We’d talked about how I had someone like him for a childhood friend. I played a demo tape or something that ken-chan had made, and hyde said “ken-chan’s pretty good!” So, we kept talking about it until the middle of the night. Of course, this was all before cell phones (laughs). ken-chan was an ordinary university student at the time, and if I’d called him in the middle of the night, he would’ve sleepishly said “I don’t wanna,” so I waited until morning. In the restaurant. Then, around 8 or 9 in the morning, I thought “He must be awake by now” and called him. “My guitarist quit, so do you wanna join? We have a recording to do,” I told him. ken-chan was going to university in Nagoya, so he was living in Nagoya. Of course, we talked about how joining L’Arc = moving back to Osaka. “I don’t think you can make up your mind right away, so think about it for a day or two before answering,” I said. I called him back two days later. “Did you think about it?” I asked. “I know. Let’s do this together,” is what he answered me with. ken-chan came back to Osaka. Before he got back, I tried desperately to find him a place to stay (both laugh hard). Then I said “It’s settled, ken-chan.”]
– You had until he arrived to find a place for him. It must have taken incredible effort to pull that off.
[I was looking for a place that was better than what I had! (laughs) For ken-chan.]
– Just because you had such high expectations for ken-chan.
[Actually, ken-chan had just about decided on a job, at that point in time. So, there were big changes going on in his life, probably.]
– Such as deciding to join L’Arc. And so, ken-chan returned to Osaka. Did you go record that album as soon as he joined?
[We started the recording. And we almost finished it. We worked on recording it until only the mixing was left to do. Lots of stuff happened before the recording, and we had all sorts of problems during the recording itself. Eventually, I started feeling rather anxious about putting out an album with Night Gallery, to the point that I was saying “I don’t want to release this album.” However, we had made plans to release a single before the album was supposed to come out. Then, the discussion turned into “The magazines are already printed. We paid this much for the advertisement. It’s cost us this much for the recording we’ve done so far. What are we going to do about that?” But I kept saying “I don’t want to release it.” The company replied “Then, we will no longer deal with you. Send in an attorney.” “If you are willing to pay for everything described in our agreement, you do not have to release anything, but otherwise we will retain the rights to sell it,” they said. And so, we couldn’t help releasing the single. Rather than have it be sold, I think I would have prefered to pay for everything in the contract, but there was no way we could pay for that. That must have been around October. Then they told us “If you do not have the remainder paid for by the end of this month, we will hold the rights to the album and begin selling copies.” I had no idea what to do. Financially, this was in the range of two to three million yen. “There’s no way we can pay that much. We might be done for……” This was on the 28th, 29th of October. I remember those days quite clearly. Especially one evening. I was at home, sinking into despair, when the phone rang. The phone rang, and I answered it. “This is Ooishi from Danger Crue (the company L’Arc is affiliated with).”]
– Wow~! What incredible timing. Had you been contacted by Danger Crue beforehand?
[Not at all. But, of course, I knew who Danger Crue were. I didn’t know that this Ooishi guy was the boss, though, so I wondered “Who is this guy, anyway?” (laughs). Earlier, Matoba-san from ‘Rockin f’ (A specialised music magazine) had talked with me. Matoba-san and I had become quite good personnal friends. At the opening of the AION (8) exhibition hall, that Matoba-san asked me “Lemme hear your music~.” There hadn’t been a single L’Arc demo tape sold yet, so I had him promise “Make absolutely sure you don’t let anyone else hear it,” and I mailed one of our demo tapes to him. But Matoba-san did let other people hear it (Both snicker). Ooishi-san heard that tape, and called me, saying “I heard some of your music, and your sound interests me. Would you like to meet with me?” Me, I was just thinking “Lucky~!!” I said “Absolutely. I’ll go to Tokyo in the morning.” My car flew all the way there.]
– Being able to say “This is it!” and have the insight to make that decision on the spot must also be a part of your talent.
[That time, the day after the phone call from Ooishi-san, the whole band piled into my car and ran off to Tokyo. There, we explained everything about the situation we were in. We told them “We’re in trouble.” It turned out Ooishi-san was originally from Kansai, and so he knew Night Gallery’s president. Ooishi-san worked everything out. Everything was smoothed over, and then we signed with Danger Crue.]
– …… (Speechless). Such incredible timing, coincidence, and luck. It really seems as though fate itself was changing everything for the better.
[It was incredible. Dramatic. It was by amazing coincidence that I met the other members, and that we started this band together. Then, when we were in horrible trouble, we happened to meet Ooishi-san. Matoba-san, too. Even though I made him promise not to play that tape for anyone else, I’m glad he did (laughs). So many important coincidences. It’s so dramatic!]
– That kind of sweet coincidence makes for impressive drama. It can be felt that this band named L’Arc possesses a certain “destiny.”
[Doesn’t it~? I really think we do.]
– When you arrived in Tokyo and showed your face at the Danger Crue offices, what was your first impression?
[First, Ooishi-san and Kadoma-san came out to the front office. They were wearing black suits, and drove the same Benz SL as now. I thought “Woah! Yakuza!!(9) They tricked us. This sucks!” to myself, at first (both laugh). Then, Ooishi-san asked us “Why don’t we start things off with a meal?” I drove the L’Arcmobile, a little bucket of bolts with all of us crammed in, right behind that huge Benz. We were going “Now what? Wanna run away? Where are they gonna take us?” and stuff (Both laugh hard) the whole way there. And then, we end up at this totally normal family restaurant (laughs). It was called Forks. I remember. Anyway. Once we got there, Kadoma-san got in first. He was singing “Tatatataa~,” taking small steps as he went to get us some seats. While he did that, we were waiting by the entrance to Forks, and I bumped into another customer. I yelled “Ah!” (his eyes go round, as if he’s just heard a gunshot) and my eyes went wide. Seeing that, it’s like “So they ARE Yakuza!” (Both crack up laughing). Kadoma-san was a celebrity. I’d gone to Anthem (10) lives and stuff, so I knew he was nicknamed “Death.” “This guy is Death! He’s Death!” I said. Then, during the meal, we explained our situation. We also talked about why we didn’t want to release the album. Then Ooishi-san offered “Why don’t you try recording the same songs over again?” That’s how it went, which led us to recording it for good.]
– Might you be talking about DUNE?
[That’s right (laughs). But just as we were getting ready to record the good version of DUNE, our drummer quit.]
– After that, the new drummer you found was sakura-kun.
[Right. In October, I was in Tokyo talking with Ooishi-san. We were planning to do the recording just after New Years. So, for the rest of that year we were rehearsing in Osaka. We were going to come to Tokyo after New Years just for the recording itself. At that point, everybody knew who sakura was. He was with Harem Q (11), as a support drummer for them, so I thought “Since he’s not an official member, maybe he’d be willing to join us if I invite him.” (laughs). I forget how I managed to find out how to contact him, but I gave sakura a call. We talked, and he said “I’ll be in Osaka for two or three days helping out with this band, so let’s meet up while I’m there.”]
– See, there’s another marvelous timing coincidence. You called him and he just happened to have a show in Osaka right around the corner. It really is dramatic, how events played out.
[So, four of us went to see that live. Me, ken-chan, hyde, and Kadoma-san. After the show, we went out for dinner and decided “First, let’s try going to the studio together.” And so, the next day, we went to the studio right away. If I remember right. We played together a bit, and everyone was saying it sounded good. Then we talked, and he said “I’m with you.” From New Year’s onwards, we were living in a Tokyo Weekly Mansion (12) and recording DUNE.]
– Considering how much trouble you had already gone through, you must have been thrilled to finally finish DUNE, right?
[Yeah, we were. We went through a lot to get that far.]
– From the point where you started going back and forth between Osaka and Tokyo, like when you were trying to find your new member, didn’t you think it would be easier to shift your base of operations to Tokyo?
[Not at all. Cause, there was no point in doing that. As far as we were concerned. We weren’t particularly trying to become pros. DUNE was released as an indie album, so whatever happened we could think “Wow, great,” and then maybe think about the possibility of making a career of it. Releasing DUNE wasn’t a specific goal, and I don’t think we were talking about going major during the DUNE period.]
– It wasn’t one of your ambitions to work towards becoming pros.
[During that phase, I personally wanted to make our situation a bit better. That kind of feeling, you know? That’s how I felt. When we first formed, we could only have shows in tiny little live houses. So, then, I was thinking that it would be nice if we could get enough spectators to fill up an entire hall. For recording studios, too, at first we didn’t have much money, so the timing was tight. And so, I wanted to be able to schedule more time at the studio to make better recordings. And I thought it would be nice to get a better studio, too. That’s not really restrained to the music life, is it? If you live in a small place, you want to get a bigger place next time. I think it’s the same sort of thing.]
– Rather than run off with the first major label that caught your eye, you wanted to be sure of things, looking over each step carefully before progressing to the next one.
[Like I said, I wasn’t at all thinking that I wanted to become a pro. It was only when I personally felt ready to take a step up that I did so. That is how humans think, isn’t it? I did realise that the way things were going, if I kept taking these steps, I would end up being a pro musician. I think humans are creatures who constantly seek to improve their own situation. I think that’s what I was doing.]
– Of course, every human being wants to progress. However, in the story of L’Arc you’ve told so far, the people you met, the unbelievable timing and coincidences, the way incidents were so perfectly connected, the result of it all led you to progress in ways that others cannot. It truly seems that above and beyond your own efforts, something else was at work.
[I’ve always been lucky. I got as far as I did in life because of that “luck.” Lots of luck, and the rest was effort. It feels like that’s how I got where I am now.]
– Ooishi-san called you with excellent timing, your fortunate meeting at the AION opening, it really does seem like luck is what ties all of it together.
[But, like I said before, there’s a certain amount of effort required, too.]
– Concretely speaking, what do you mean by that?
[To have Ooishi-san listen to that demo tape, and have him take an interest in our music because of it, I had to put together some bass work, first. I went to AION shows, and even to the opening of that hall. If I hadn’t met Matoba-san from ‘Rockin f’ there, that demo tape never would have been passed along. There was luck involved in my going there, but I worked at it, too. To a certain degree, some people are lucky and others aren’t. That applies to people, and to places too, I think. So, it’s possible to work on improving your luck a little. I can’t give any concrete examples of how to do that, though. In my case, for example, I went to a lot of lives and got to know a lot of people that way, and that kind of effort ended up leading to good results. Back then, I was doing all the management work for the band. I got another phone, in addition to my private home line. I called it the “L’Arc~en~Ciel contact” office. Of course, that’s the phone number Ooishi-san called me on. I had a seperate mailbox set up for it, too. Having the mail forwarded to my home wasn’t cool, because then the fans found out where I lived. So it wouldn’t be cool to have the same phone for the band and for private use, right? I wouldn’t know which way to answer it, either. Act as if I had a lot of staff? I was doing it all on my own. That was another kind of effort. Because I worked on that aspect of things, I think I made some important connections. Besides, however many demo tapes we made, no matter how great the music on them is, we’re not constantly making music. If people could just go ahead and contact us directly, like for example, at a member’s home, we wouldn’t really want to answer the phone, right? I had a phone just for that, and an answering machine and fax, too. Because of that, I didn’t have to worry about answering the phone wrong. When I answered the contact phone, I always got a chill down my spine, and answered saying “What is it?” or something (laughs). Not a good way to answer, is it?]
– I see (laughs). Has your opinion on luck and effort stayed the same, or has your viewpoint changed since that era?
[It’s still the same.]
Interviewer : Toujou Sachie
Translated by Natalie Arnold
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