– You love cars, right?
[Can I say I love them? Well, I do like them a lot. But does it fit with what most people call love? Oh yeah, I loved them when I was in elementary school. I watched “(Taiketsu!) SUUPAA KAA KUIZU” (1) every week. On the way back from school, I could identify any car I saw at a glance.]
– Honestly, that period really was the “Super Car Boom” (2). Of course, back then it wasn’t as common to see those kinds of cars on the road as it is now.
[That’s true. But I sometimes saw a Porsche in my neighbourhood. What colour was it again? Greenish, I think. Also, the engine’s sound was easy to identify. “A Porsche is coming!” with that tottotto sound. Someone in my neighbourhood drove a Porsche. For some reason, it had a Shinagawa number (3).]
– Eh!? Really?
[Really! Seriously!! “How come he’s got a Shinagawa number?” I used to wonder. That might be why I wanted a Shinagawa number. The first foreign car I ever bought was a Porsche. At the time, I was living in the area for Nerima plates. I didn’t want that; I wanted to have Shinagawa plates no matter what, so I moved just so I’d be able to get them.]
– You went that far?! (laughs)
[I got my license right after my 18th birthday (4). In high school, the place where my band had rehearsal was easier to get to by car. All our band members lived really far apart. In high school, we had rehearsals until the middle of the night, so of course there were no trains, and we couldn’t get home, right? So the guy who had a car gave the rest of us rides. If we’d had two members with cars, we could each drive one other person. That’s why I absolutely wanted to get my license.]
– Did getting your license go smoothly?
[It was all straightforward. Reserving a spot at the driving school was tough, wasn’t it? Sometimes a lady from my neighbourhood would give the lessons. That’s how I managed to get a spot for lessons right after school let out.]
– Then you got your license smoothly, and immediately got a car!?
[There’s no way I had that kind of money! I used cars from home. At first, it was always my mom’s car. The first woman I had ride next to me once I had my license was my old lady. I’m a mama’s boy. That’s been settled.]
– That’s a very nice story. When you drive around, what sort of mood are you usually in?
[I compose music in my car pretty often. So, without a car, I get steamed. Even for the indies album Dune, I composed in my car on the way to rehearsal. For the indies era in Osaka, I was constantly living in my car, but when I went pro and moved to Tokyo I didn’t have a car. I was steamed for a while. Without a car, you get around by train, right? I hate taxis, but I hate trains even more. I didn’t have the money for a car, so I wanted to go back to Osaka~ (laughs). I really did want to go back for a while. About two years. I think I probably thought like that until I bought a car.]
– Do you still make music in your car now?
[I still do. I wrote STAY AWAY like that, and Driver’s High too. For STAY AWAY I had decided to compose music in the car, so I went out for a drive. I decided on my itinerary first. I usually do this in the middle of the night, so the roads are clear, right? Clear roads make you notice how cramped Tokyo really is. A trip that takes an hour during the day can be done in 10, 15 minutes. Anyway, that time I went out for a good two or three hours before coming back. I had already gone around the downtown core, and then I went over to Yokohama. STAY AWAY was made up while driving by Yokohama harbour. I think it was around 2 or 3 AM.]
– That’s interesting. The story, I mean.
[Driver’s High was done on the Kannana (Kanjou Nanagou-sen)(5).]
– It sounds very dream-like, or maybe not (laughs). How do you manage to keep track of the songs?
[Lately, with an IC recorder (6). Sometimes, when I’m stopped at a traffic light, the person in the car next to me notices and it’s super embarrassing (laughs). That’s why I got an IC recorder that looks like a cell phone. That’s my technique (laughs).]
– You don’t drive out very far, right?
[No, I don’t go all that far. Oh hey, you know we had the 1999 GROUND CROSS TOUR (7), right? That was around August. Later, in October, I went back to Ariake and wrote a song there.]
– Hoo. That sounds like a rather profound story. When you went back in the fall, it had turned back into an empty lot.
[That’s right. It’s kinda sad. Fall, that is. That’s the kind of song I ended up with. At the time, I had made up the song properly, but I’ve lost the data. So it won’t be finished any time soon. The melody is still in my head though, so if I ever feel like redoing it, it’ll come out.]
-Interviewer : Kikuchi Keisuke
Translated by Natalie Arnold.
[Can I say I love them? Well, I do like them a lot. But does it fit with what most people call love? Oh yeah, I loved them when I was in elementary school. I watched “(Taiketsu!) SUUPAA KAA KUIZU” (1) every week. On the way back from school, I could identify any car I saw at a glance.]
– Honestly, that period really was the “Super Car Boom” (2). Of course, back then it wasn’t as common to see those kinds of cars on the road as it is now.
[That’s true. But I sometimes saw a Porsche in my neighbourhood. What colour was it again? Greenish, I think. Also, the engine’s sound was easy to identify. “A Porsche is coming!” with that tottotto sound. Someone in my neighbourhood drove a Porsche. For some reason, it had a Shinagawa number (3).]
– Eh!? Really?
[Really! Seriously!! “How come he’s got a Shinagawa number?” I used to wonder. That might be why I wanted a Shinagawa number. The first foreign car I ever bought was a Porsche. At the time, I was living in the area for Nerima plates. I didn’t want that; I wanted to have Shinagawa plates no matter what, so I moved just so I’d be able to get them.]
– You went that far?! (laughs)
[I got my license right after my 18th birthday (4). In high school, the place where my band had rehearsal was easier to get to by car. All our band members lived really far apart. In high school, we had rehearsals until the middle of the night, so of course there were no trains, and we couldn’t get home, right? So the guy who had a car gave the rest of us rides. If we’d had two members with cars, we could each drive one other person. That’s why I absolutely wanted to get my license.]
– Did getting your license go smoothly?
[It was all straightforward. Reserving a spot at the driving school was tough, wasn’t it? Sometimes a lady from my neighbourhood would give the lessons. That’s how I managed to get a spot for lessons right after school let out.]
– Then you got your license smoothly, and immediately got a car!?
[There’s no way I had that kind of money! I used cars from home. At first, it was always my mom’s car. The first woman I had ride next to me once I had my license was my old lady. I’m a mama’s boy. That’s been settled.]
– That’s a very nice story. When you drive around, what sort of mood are you usually in?
[I compose music in my car pretty often. So, without a car, I get steamed. Even for the indies album Dune, I composed in my car on the way to rehearsal. For the indies era in Osaka, I was constantly living in my car, but when I went pro and moved to Tokyo I didn’t have a car. I was steamed for a while. Without a car, you get around by train, right? I hate taxis, but I hate trains even more. I didn’t have the money for a car, so I wanted to go back to Osaka~ (laughs). I really did want to go back for a while. About two years. I think I probably thought like that until I bought a car.]
– Do you still make music in your car now?
[I still do. I wrote STAY AWAY like that, and Driver’s High too. For STAY AWAY I had decided to compose music in the car, so I went out for a drive. I decided on my itinerary first. I usually do this in the middle of the night, so the roads are clear, right? Clear roads make you notice how cramped Tokyo really is. A trip that takes an hour during the day can be done in 10, 15 minutes. Anyway, that time I went out for a good two or three hours before coming back. I had already gone around the downtown core, and then I went over to Yokohama. STAY AWAY was made up while driving by Yokohama harbour. I think it was around 2 or 3 AM.]
– That’s interesting. The story, I mean.
[Driver’s High was done on the Kannana (Kanjou Nanagou-sen)(5).]
– It sounds very dream-like, or maybe not (laughs). How do you manage to keep track of the songs?
[Lately, with an IC recorder (6). Sometimes, when I’m stopped at a traffic light, the person in the car next to me notices and it’s super embarrassing (laughs). That’s why I got an IC recorder that looks like a cell phone. That’s my technique (laughs).]
– You don’t drive out very far, right?
[No, I don’t go all that far. Oh hey, you know we had the 1999 GROUND CROSS TOUR (7), right? That was around August. Later, in October, I went back to Ariake and wrote a song there.]
– Hoo. That sounds like a rather profound story. When you went back in the fall, it had turned back into an empty lot.
[That’s right. It’s kinda sad. Fall, that is. That’s the kind of song I ended up with. At the time, I had made up the song properly, but I’ve lost the data. So it won’t be finished any time soon. The melody is still in my head though, so if I ever feel like redoing it, it’ll come out.]
-Interviewer : Kikuchi Keisuke
Translated by Natalie Arnold.
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