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okurappa · 7 years

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ӍuʂȋȼѦ December ‘16

Thank you for allowing me to cover your tour this summer.

All: No, thank you for coming.

For this interview we'll be going over everything that's happened in your 20th anniversary year since we interviewed you about your album this past February. First I'd like to start off with the live taping of your stadium tour, BFLY. I understand that the DVD has just been completed – what are your reflections; what do you remember about those hot summer days? Masu?

Masu: As time goes by I'm forgetting little bits and pieces. Watching it brings me back in time to a few months ago… I gained a new perspective from it (the DVD) because I was able to see the faces of our fans as they were listening to us, which was something I couldn't do at the time because the venues were too large. The perspective is refreshing.

There were even people who, during the opening movie, were crying before you had even come on stage. What were you thinking when you watched that?

Masu: It's one of Banba's (Banba Shuichi, director) strong points, that he is able to express so well the emotion running through the space before the show starts. Especially because it's impossible for us to see what's going on in the hall before we go out. We're in the backyard, slowly getting ready for the live, and outside all the fans are there, and that's something we don't get to experience… And this time in particular everything was outdoors, so we even got to see it in the light of day. We couldn't see every individual face but we could see how we were being received overall, and that's what mattered. While we're playing, we're thinking about what kind of reactions we're trying to get, and I was happy to be able to see them.

What about you, Chama?

Naoi: Watching it just reaffirmed what the four of us are always thinking, that we're incredibly grateful to be able to perform at all. Whether it's a clubhouse tour or a stadium tour. In a club it's easy, because it's set up for live performances already. You have amps, lights – all you have to do is book the venue and hope enough people show up, and it's done. But thing with Nissan stadium is that it's not meant to be a concert venue, so you have to have people to set up the stage, and people to come watch you, or you can't do it. And the day before it was raining and raining… Sudden showers, right?

It was.

Naoi: And setting up the stage is a tough job, plus they didn't know if it would rain or shine on the big day, so we couldn't rehearse very well since the whole thing would change based on the weather. There are people who came, people who have been coming since we played in clubhouses, people who have stuck with us through all our various stages, and we're so grateful they came. Because without those people we never would have graduated to a huge venue like that. But I also think that there were people who came to see us only because we were in such a large venue. Maybe older people, people who can't stand for hours. They couldn't come see us in a clubhouse, but they could come sit and watch at Nissan. Watching the DVD I could also see children, elderly… Men and women of all ages is how the saying goes (laughs). Seeing that, I was more grateful than I have ever been. It's not like we'll be able to do it again right away; it's a miracle that we were able to do it at all. We're so thankful to all the staff and all the fans for their support both off and on stage.

Fujiwara: I remembered how amazing Toshi (Atsunori)'s stage direction was. He really pays attention to our songs… I could tell that he tried to get close to them and understand them. And watching it, I could see how people were experiencing the atmosphere he created… I felt like I was standing right next to everyone in the crowd. Although I do feel the closest to them when I'm actually on stage. But to actually physically be next to them (laughs), and see their expressions, that's something that I can only experience through the DVD. I was glad to see that they were having a good time.

What did you think of your own performance?

Fujiwara: Ah… It was like watching someone else. Too much time had passed, although I do remember parts of it. Like, oh right, that one thing did happen in the middle of that song. It was fun to see again all those little things I vaguely remembered (laughs). But there wasn't any lessons I took away from it or anything like that. Especially because it's not the first time I've watched us perform.

Right, this is the fourth live DVD. What about you, Hiro?

Masukawa: Someone already said it, but it was like a reminder of how we couldn't have done it without everyone's help. This year we've started taking each of our songs and looking at them more closely, and the DVD showcased the result of all that work. We couldn't have filmed it if our luck was off that day. Like, if it rained, then we wouldn't have been able to do it. I'm really grateful for everyone who helped us put it together. And I'm happy I got to see everyone's faces and hear our performance from their perspective.

Do you ever look back on that day and reflect on your performance?

Masukawa: Well… I remember what I remember, but I was so focused on playing (laughs) that even if you ask me how it was… I remember little flashes but my impressions bleed into each other. ...I know we've said it a hundred times but what we do doesn't really change. That's always been our stance… Yeah, but it was a good live.

Fujiwara: I think I mentioned this on stage too, but I didn't really feel the scale of the venue. When I looked up I thought, wow, there are a lot of people here, but it wasn't the first time we've seen a crowd that size. I'm used to seeing those sort of numbers at summer festivals, for example. And there are more important things than the number of fans. Brining our songs on stage in front of everyone and having them listen has nothing to do with the number of people or the scale of the venue. That (the numbers) is brought up often as if it has significant meaning, but that's not what we care about. No matter how many – if it's a crowd of 70,000 then it's 70,000 individuals. There's still a physical distance between us no matter the number. But my voice and our music reaches all the way back into the ears of the furthest person. Distance literally does not have anything to do with sound. We want and are happy to feel connected to each person through our music. It's brought us joy over the past 20 years. And – this is key – it was the exact same way at Nissan. It was a great example. We were standing on a huge stage, in front of tons of people, but I didn't just notice it, and that's it. I have our fans to thank for that. I truthfully wanted to go around and shake every single person's hand; from the bottom of my heart I wanted to. We're lucky to have fans that we love so much. It's really thanks to them that I even had that desire in the first place. … When we were playing in clubhouses with a capacity of barely 100 – there were times when we didn't fill the house, playing for maybe ten people…

And they were all your friends, too?

Fujiwara: Yeah (laughs). Nissan is no different than that. We still held the desire to have our music reach everyone, and we were able to bring that with us on stage. I'm really thankful to our fans for helping grow that desire within us… I think that we still haven't really reflected on the performance. We're too focused on wanting to go back out again, right away.

Naoi: Ten minutes after we're done we have a meeting to review how it went, every time.

Even going into detail by discussing each song.

Naoi: Yeah, we talk about how each song went.

Fujiwara: The meeting takes about 30 to 40 minutes. Our dinner gets cold (laughs).

It must be like a switch flips when you have those meetings.

Naoi: It doesn't actually. We just want to play really well! (laughs).

Fujiwara: There's no switch!!

Naoi: We even did it after the second day at Nissan, for the festival. And after the festival, because sometime in the future we'll perform again, and we want to do it well.

Fujiwara: Because if we have the will to improve, we'll improve. Right? And we want to get better. More and more.

Naoi: So we naturally started having these reviews. ...Although I imagined that after Nissan was over, I'd be freer.

Fujiwara: You'd feel freer?

Naoi: Yeah. I imagined that I'd feel like getting naked, and smacking all four of your asses before running away, that sort of feeling…

Masukawa: What sort of feeling is that? (laughs)

Fujiwara: You'd get naked, and smack four asses? (laughs)

Naoi: Yeah!

Masukawa: Are we naked too? (laughs)

Naoi: No, you're not.

Fujiwara: Four? So you're going to smack your own ass?

Naoi: Oh, I mean three… (laughs)

Masu: Hahaha

Naoi: I thought that I'd smack all three of your asses and shout, “Catch me if you can!” Then I'd run away.

Masukawa: Really! (laughs).

Naoi: I'd run zig-zags through the racks of folding chairs (laughs). I imagined that that's what I would do.

Hahahaha.

Naoi: That's how long we were focused for. We were all in live mode, trying to pull through the tour. But in a good way. That's why I thought that it would be so liberating to finish, but it wasn't, not at all. I had really been looking forward to it too. But we were already looking ahead to the next thing… But I thought it turned out alright. Because, if Fujiwara had said how much he loved filling a huge venue, then maybe numbers would have become our goal. Maybe we would have aimed for that. But it wasn't like that at all. After it ended he asked the staff what all the good points were and what all the bad points were, just like any other day (of the tour), because we had the summer festival and we were scheduled to be in for recording. We toasted with orange juice, had a review meeting, got a massage and went home. Even though we should've gone out drinking that night.

Masukawa: We sat in the corner of this huge room, toasting with the orange juice someone brought us, and it was really satisfying.

Fujiwara: It was. It wasn't like we were indifferent about the tour ending. It was a good ending for us. Just relaxing with big glasses of juice.

Masukawa: It was really great. That one toast felt more like a fitting close than a long review meeting ever could (laughs).

Fujiwara: Yeah, like Chama said, it's not like we had to run around with our asses out (laughs).

Masu, did you have any other thoughts?

Masu: Personally I was surprised that you didn't think I was part of the chorus (laughs).

Fujiwara: Hahahahahahahaha.

(Remembering that I had written in a review that Masu hadn't sang once the entire live) Ah… I was surprised when I saw your mic when I watched the DVD. …You were singing after all.

Masu: Hahahahahahaha! Shikappe, how many years, no, decades have you been following us? I was the one who was surprised, me not singing is too unbelievable (laughs).

I'm very sorry. I'll be more careful next time.

Naoi: He was really giving his all from the very beginning.

Fujiwara: He was trying his best, in his own way.

Masu: And you thought I wasn't singing, after having known me for how many years? (laughs)

Masukawa: (laughs) But really, wasn't this the most you ever sang?

Masu: It was. Even though I brought it up, there's really nothing good that can come of digging up that mistake (laughs).

Fujiwara: Let's just say that Shikappe's mistake was a chance for you to mention that you were part of the chorus (laughs).

Thanks. Since we've already been over your thoughts on the live DVD and the live at Nissan itself, I'd like to get the full story on your thoughts on the tour as a whole. Again you've been kind enough to let me come along and cover the whole thing. This time you decided to do something different and keep the same set list over fewer lives. I think that now more than ever you feel tense, or concentrated, like you're climbing upwards.

Naoi: Thanks. Like we said earlier, playing in a dome or in Nissan stadium is totally different from a clubhouse. We can't wing it and decide on the set list right before we start and have the PA do whatever. Our lighting team and sound team have been the same since forever, but I think our staff team wanted us to rehearse more. They wanted us to start three days before the first day of the tour at Kyocera Dome this time. We have to make sure we line up perfectly with the background clips, and the sound team has to make sure they're on time as well. […] Before we started the stadium tour we sat down and talked and made the decision to keep the same set list. We weren't nervous about it as much as we were resolute in our decision to make it as good as possible. I think the staff felt the same way. We didn't feel any pressure or nervousness about it. We thought we could do it and we wanted to do it well. But Nissan was a different story. Because there were sudden showers and we couldn't do a real dress rehearsal… All the staff who built such a great stage despite the circumstances are really amazing.

Fuji, what did you think about the tour?

Fujiwara: When the dates were set it looked like we would have a lot of time between shows, but in reality we were really busy for those three months. It feels to me as if we were on tour for a lot longer than we really were, because even though it started April 9th, if you include everything we did leading up to it, then the anniversary live in February is when it all starts to blend together. It was very intense… I don't know how to describe it. It's like pursuing the 16th note on the first bar, every day. And after you've found it, there's a warm welcome waiting… Lots and lots of smiles… The fans', of course, but also the band's, and the staff's, and our friends' smiles who we meet up with sometimes. It's like remembering all their smiles at once (laughs). Enough that it became part of the setting… All of that happiness is waiting there right after the 16th note on the first bar. At least that's how I feel about it looking back. ...I was really happy. It ended so fast.

So you could go so far as to say that, say, if you had a month of time until the next live, you were constantly focusing on it and the time passed in a flash?

Fujiwara: If the live on May 22nd ended, for example, and you were to ask me if I was thinking about the next live from May 23rd until July, you'd be wrong. I had a vague idea of when the next live was, but I was preoccupied with writing and rehearsing. Because concerts aren't like an assignment we have to complete. I wasn't thinking about it like that. It was more like, as we made music the date of the next live drew near.

Now I might be wrong, but since you started your WILLPOLIS tour it seems like you're having more fun on tour than you were in the past. Out of all the tours I've followed you on, this most recent one stands out as being the most fun for you. Like the three minute long dance arrangement at the end of “Butterfly” at Nissan. It wasn't something that we ever see from you.

Fujiwara: I think a big reason for that is that we've had a lot of lives recently, for us. If you compare these past years to our 20s, we've been on tour more and played live more. The more we play live the more meaningful the destination is. And… I might be misunderstood if I say this, but I've come to believe in our fans more than before. I used to explain things in words, but some things I can't explain to our fans with anything other than music. If we throw something at them we can trust that they'll catch it… And because of that I feel freer when we're performing. More than before. I feel that when I look at these three as well, and I know it's not logical but but I feel like we can perform more now. With that… Of course it's subjective, I have no idea what our fans are really thinking. But I feel like when I go to see someone I like live, and they look like they're having fun, there's no better thing. It feels right. Because having fun means you're happy, you know?

I want to ask you something as the band's songwriter. Tours and lives have clearly become more important to you over the last three years. Is it because lives as a form of art or expression have become more important? Or is it something else? As a songwriter, do you feel like performing has become another form of expression like writing a song?

Fujiwara: No, I don't know. I haven't thought about it. Concerts are fun, but when we decide on a tour it's like… “Oh, a live.” (wry smile). I've always been like that.

Yeah, I've always found it refreshing.

Fujiwara: Hahaha, yeah. If I wasn't afraid of being misunderstood I'd say that even now, when we decide on playing live it leaves me in a depressed mood.

Like always.

Fujiwara: It happens, of course. I never get nervous or anything, but it's like as soon as I get up on stage it's already ended. And the four of us aren't the type to fool around in the meantime. Chama just said it. That he thought we'd be free when the last live ended. It's exactly that. As soon as we start the tour the tension is there but it's comfortable. When we're sitting in the conference room making the decision to go on tour, it's like a weight I have to carry (laughs). It's always been like that. But also… I want to see our fans, it would make me really happy… It's like that (laughs). It's a hard thing to voice because it's so abstract… or should I say seemingly exaggerated. Behind every individual fan that comes there's a large process. They had a certain kind of yesterday, a certain kind of year, a certain kind of decade, they were born in such and such place… You can go back into the history of each person. And then you can imagine, this is what their tomorrow will be like, and the rest of the month, etc. Each person has an infinite number of paths ahead of them. And if there are 70,000 people, there are that many more pasts and possible futures. And above all that, there are 70,000 versions of “now.” And each of them is music in that moment, to us. I think people reading what I'm trying to say here both understand and don't understand at the same time (laughs).

Yeah (laughs).

Fujiwara: There's always a piece of that that isn't logical. You can explain the need for food, clothes, and shelter with logic. And then there's music, which has nothing to do with that, and is more important than anything to a lot of people. When we perform, the live is created between us and them, and the room itself becomes music. I can't explain anything; neither can our fans. After all, in the past we were terrified of capturing those moments on DVD…

Naoi: Although that hasn't changed.

Fujiwara: Yeah. We've always combined our strength and relied on our fans' support and encouragement, though with great trepidation.

Hiro?

Masukawa: I think it was a unique tour, if only because of the relatively few number of lives we actually had. But that turned out to have some unfamiliar effects. Like, usually whether we perform ten times or 30 times, there are changes. Good changes more than bad changes, for me, like if we blew one live then we could work to redeem ourselves for the next week's live. And that's great, but this time we were aiming for the same quality of performance from Kyocera in Osaka all the way to Nissan. Rehearsing so much that we didn't have any time to even think about what was going to happen after the tour. Even though after Osaka we had a month until Nagoya, we were still in that mindset. We performed each time striving for the best possible performance as if it were the tour final. Although the hard times were hard, it isn't often that I get to say that I felt complete to the point I did with this tour. … I don't want to be misunderstood, it's not like our previous tours were bad. It's that I can only feel the way I do now because I have the experience from those older tours. I used to get the feeling that I did better in the second half of a tour. So I took that experience and used it to figure out what I needed to improve on before we started this tour, and I think I was able to start from scratch and rehearse right.

It goes without saying that this year has been a great memorial year as your 20th. I want to ask you to look back over the whole year. Did you have the album Butterflies done by the time you performed at the year-end festival?

Fujiwara: Eh, did we?

Masu: It wasn't ready yet, right? We had finished recording.

Fujiwara: Wasn't there one vocal recording left?

Staff: Sorry, it was all compiled by the end of the year. Mastering was also complete.

Fujiwara: Yes, as you can see, the mastering was done (laughs).

Ahahahahahahahaha.

Masu: And that's how we look back on the year (laughs).

You safely made it out of last year, and then with your first performance on Kouhaku you began the new year. In this interview we'll be covering everything after the February release of your album Butterflies. In the roughly ten month's time since then, there are probably things you've come to understand, conclusions you've reached, things you've felt from your environment, and things you've noticed are different from before. What is Butterflies to you?

Masu: It's taken me a while to remember it. We finished it and received the mastered version, but I was busy and I didn't listen to it (laughs).

Fujiwara and Masukawa: Ah!

Naoi: It was practice hell, back then.

Masu: We were rehearsing for 20. This time around I feel like I was able to understand the album better through the tour, rather than having it feel complete when we finished it. This includes the WILLPOLIS tour – we've been constantly on for the past few years. And through it we've created the album and performed live. Normally I would listen to the album after it was finished and we had some time, but this time I didn't feel like it. It was done and the release date was decided, and we had a tour to start… it was like there still wasn't any distance in between the album and myself. During recording I do most of the work in understanding a song, but I can't understand it fully until I've performed it live. I need to do that in order to see it in a different light. Then I can understand it. Playing them live is all we did; I never had that bit of time to sit and listen.

Too busy to listen to Butterflies…

Masu: It's not that I was too busy (laughs). I listened, in a way, but I wasn't able to put it all in order. If I have the time after it's done, I can look at from a very objective perspective. I can look at it as it's own work. But this time I couldn't. I was in the wrong head space, always thinking about how to re-arrange things for the tour. I listened, I did. But I was analyzing everything in terms of the upcoming lives. For all intents and purposes the album and the live were one.

And now, after the tour? What do you think?

Masu: Now that the tour is over I have a better grasp on it, and I think it was an album that had a lot of songs that I was happy to be able to share in that capacity, and a lot of songs that are just plain good.

Chama?

Naoi: 20 was the biggest thing this year, because we decided we wanted to do it all on our own. We covered a bunch of songs from all different periods. Old songs, some we played for the first time, and a lot of the songs we had to completely rebuild. So we had a lot of rehearsing to do. While we were making Butterflies, there wasn't much time for us all to get together and rehearse as a group. Fuji-kun wrote songs, and us three rehearsed, and then Fuji-kun would join us late at night… We were really busy. We had to redo a bunch of songs for 20. It was more than fixing the arrangement; it's that we had to make it so that we could get into a groove with them. I noticed, when doing that, that I had learned a lot more about music since back then. I react faster now as well. When we appeared on NHK's SONGS, that was one take. I was so nervous (laughs).

(Laughs)

Naoi: We're already bad with television as it is, but of course the NHK staff were… There were so many cameras.

Fujiwara: There were a lot.

Naoi: We didn't even deserve the fantastic set they made for us. We were rehearsing a lot because we wanted to do it right. And we were constantly rehearsing for the tour too… Back to talking about Butterflies – I think this album helped us understand how to carry a groove between the four of us. When we were done with it I noticed that each song had a groove that was easy to get into, and because we were repeating the same set list – the set list was essentially just the album – I uncovered new aspects of the songs that hadn't come through when we recorded. Butterflies is a groovy album. We've always liked our music and liked playing together, but that deepened with this album. It'll always be like that. There is no end. We're more certain about our music and our band. We're Bump of Chicken, playing Butterflies Bump of Chicken style. I'm really glad we completed this album in our 20th year. It's obvious and I've said it before, but if we didn't have music we wouldn't have anything. Fujiwara Motoo is really amazing, writing it for us while he was so busy with such a hard schedule. That's what I think.

Fujiwara: It's like… All of it, the whole album came to be from just me playing acoustic and singing.

Ah, but, haven't you always done that?

Fujiwara: I have, but this time it was different. In the past, sometimes our arrangements tended to get a little out of hand. Probably because we kept on pushing new things we wanted to try… I can't explain it well. Every now and then I would perceive a song differently when I was only singing along to my guitar. Not that the song was good or bad, I mean that the impression it left, the feel of it, was different in my mind, to the point that I thought our listeners might also feel the same shift. Although there wasn't ever an opportunity for anyone to listen to the acoustic versions. All the songs we recorded for Butterflies were pretty much the same whether we played a band version or an acoustic version. I'm really pleased about that. It might even be something that I was aiming for since forever ago… I don't mean that I was explicitly working towards making all the songs exactly the same as the acoustic versions. I didn't want to do anything weird, although in the end I ended up doing a lot of weird things (laughs). Hm, I wonder how I should put it… It's something I feel and it's hard to put into words… Compared to older songs, the arrangement of all these songs are closer to the original conceptions of the songs. I realized that while we were on tour. Chama just said that we played “Bell” during 20, and compare that to “Ryuuseigun,” a song with an arrangement we never could have done in the past. Like the incorporation of rests in the band ensemble in “Dai Gaman Taikai,” that's something we wouldn't have been able to pull off, let alone even conceive of. The closer and closer we get to the essence of our songs, the fewer words there are per line, and the depth of the instrumentals can be more easily heard. It's a little more harsh on the ears. In the two examples of songs I just gave, the arrangements are tending towards the lighter side, but in “Houseki ni Natta Hi,” for example… In another interview I think I said it was like running watercolors; we could never have done that kind of arrangement in the past. We're only able to pull it off convincingly because of where we're at now. I don't think that we would have been able to physically create an electronic-infused song like “Butterfly” without hurting the foundations of the composition itself – the words, the chords, the melody, the rhythm. Even if we had thought of it we never would have been able to execute it.

Along with the last edition of 2016, which this interview will be in, we're also releasing a special yearbook compilation. My favorite 50 albums of 2016 are listed there, and Butterflies is at the top of that list.

Fujiwara: Thank you.

Naoi: Really? That's too much.

Masukawa: Shikappe, thanks!!

I only said it because I want you to spoil me for it (laughs).

Naoi: Hahahahahahahahahaha. Ok, we'll treat you!

Fujiwara: Should we get Starbucks? Or maybe give you a sticker?

Naoi: We might actually do it, really (laughs).

It really is the best album. My life hinges on my job so I wasn't fooling around when I picked it. The composition is what really stood out to me about the album.

Fujiwara: Thanks.

I can say that from a relative standpoint, but also, for your songs and your albums, the quality here is extremely high, especially when it comes to the core and essence of each song. That's why I completely understand where you're coming from when you talk about acoustic versions and the essence of songs. “Ryuuseigun” and “Houseki ni Natta Hi” come fourth and fifth in the album, respectively, and even though they're different songs, with different BPM and different grooves, they both function on a scale necessary for them to be played live. It's a power that comes from beneath the arrangement, meaning that each song was born from a place independent of genre or rhythm or technique. And because of the that the arrangements stand on their own. You've given us an album that is of the utmost quality in both songwriting and arrangement, which is why I chose it.

Fujiwara: It's an honor, thank you. I appreciate it. I should say that when it comes to quality I'm always trying? Or something like that (laughs).

I know you are (laughs).

Fujiwara: It's like how every child is dear, that kind of feeling. Like how I call a song “complete” even though it's still just me and my guitar, without the band arrangement. And then we stick an arrangement to it and it's closer to how it's supposed to be, more correct, deeper, easier to understand. We can't have it be too little or too much. And like I said, we couldn't have come up with arrangements like “Ryuuseigun” or “Houseki ni Natta Hi” in the past. 15 years ago it didn't occur to us to do anything but play really intense low chords. That's not how it's supposed to be. There's so much to music that can't be expressed through volume. There's not just two switches, one for quiet and one for loud. Especially with a guitar, there's choking, sliding, and more vague techniques and notes that can all be used to express a song with the very particular nuance it was meant to be expressed with. And I spent forever focusing on how to use those techniques to their full extent. I didn't care about anything else. I couldn't be confident in my skills if I messed it up. In my own skills, and also all of us, as a band – we couldn't let ourselves be confident in our songs if we were wrong (laughs). I think we were able to face that part of ourselves. This tour made me reaffirm that belief.

Hiro, what is Butterflies to you?

Masukawa: It's an example of how we pushed ourselves to the max. We went simple, we went a little electro, stuff like that. I personally challenged myself with getting into a groove like I couldn't before. Like when we were aiming for a simpler sound, there was a song that had a bit of a swing to it. In the past I think that Fuji-kun would have written the song and then we would have all rehearsed it, and then we would have put it aside and considered it done for the time being. But this time we didn't stop. We stayed in the same groove for ages, for hours just playing the same thing. So if you ask me what I think now, I think that (Butterflies) has carried us all the way until now, through the release of the live DVD. And if you ask me my opinion of the album, I'm not sure I can answer. It gets more difficult as the days go on. There are different memories attached to each song, at least that's how I feel.

The 11th of February is your anniversary, and on that day you had a commemorative anniversary live. Like Chama said earlier, this was a rare instance in which you were able to look back on your own history in a positive light for a day.

Masukawa: We decided on 20 and made a list of all the songs we wanted to play. We wondered what albums they came from and it turned out that we had about three from each album. When we picked songs we didn't think about whether or not we could play them or how it was going to work, we just made a list of everything that popped into our heads. It was practically the first time we decided to do a live. I'm really glad that we got to celebrate the band through it. But we had to do a ton of rehearsing (laughs).

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Masukawa: We didn't want to wing it like we used to. We wanted to be armed with the best. So we rehearsed a lot, and the old songs felt new and fun, and we got to play with them for the first time in a long time… It made me think of how we've been making amazing things since the beginning (laughs). It was a memorial live.

Fujiwara: But you have to remember that looking back on the past was not the theme of thing. We definitely talked about it, but we didn't want that to be the reason why we did it. Right?

All: Yeah.

Fujiwara: We wanted everyone to see what we're doing in the present. Because without our fans telling us, we wouldn't understand that we've come 20 years. Our 20th anniversary is just one of those things we might have blew right by without realizing. We wanted to have a celebratory show, a live that only happens once, but saying we wanted to have a unique live just this once is not that different from what we're always saying about our lives. We weren't thinking about looking back or anything. Like what Masukawa said; since we weren't promoting an album this time we played whatever we wanted to play. Strangely, it was balanced with songs from each period in time, and that was good. When we started rehearsing the set list, we had songs that we play all the time, like “Glass no Blues” even though it's old, and songs we haven't done in forever. When it came to the latter we tried to move the way we used to when we played them, like a muscle memory, but it was really bad (laughs). “That was terrible,” we'd say, and then we'd split up and go over the ensemble […] We check it over and put it back together, and when we try to play it again the song shines. It's how it's supposed to be. We repeated that process many times. It was amazing… I know I just said that we didn't do it because we wanted to look back, but if that wasn't the pretext for the live then we wouldn't have come up with that selection of music. Because for a regular live it's based around a tour, an album, a single. So knowing that we could do whatever we wanted… Well, technically we can play whatever we want at regular lives too, but usually people want to hear songs from the album they just bought – oh, but 20 was the day after we released an album (laughs).

Hahaha, that's right.

Fujiwara: There wasn't even one song (from Butterflies) in the set list, I'm sorry to everyone who thought we would play them (laughs). It was a really rare opportunity for us, if you think about it. The opportunity was greater than the mere fact that it was our 20th. We've always said that music is everything, but what we are able to do now, our ability. Through our rehearsals we understood that if we, in the present, face our songs, we can delve more deeply into conversation with them. It was a wonderful experience. Really, I'm very happy that we were able to do a live like that. Celebrating our 20th anniversary was a very integral experience, and maybe it's just me, but being able to share it with everyone, and being able to tell that they were all seriously listening to us made this live feel slightly different from all the others. It was moving because of them. It felt a little different than usual, even when compared to the tour we did right after. Even though we did the same thing. It's just music. But did you know that we're still celebrating our 20th?

Until February 11th, 2017.

Fujiwara: Until the 10th (laughs). We'll be in the same mentality until then. I thought it was a great thing that we tried.

Masu?

Masu: The fans left the biggest impression on me. As a performer, at first it seemed like they weren't even into it, how fixedly they were standing there listening to us. A kind of nervousness I had never seen before. Afterward, when I heard what people had to say, they said that they were preoccupied with wondering what song was going to come next. It's the band's 20th anniversary, but our fans have walked through their lives with our songs for years, and it was a chance for them to relive those periods as well. It was a different kind of live from our usual tours.

You played the song “Bump of Chicken Theme” at the very end of the live. The fans weren't sure what exactly to think of it (laughs).

Fujiwara: Haha, no one knows it. We haven't played it since before we became how we are now.

Masu: And since they don't know it they couldn't get into it (laughs).

It's my job to put things into words, and I can't even quite describe what that atmosphere was like (laughs).

Masu: We only decided to do 20 because of our own egos. And we also decided that to hell with it, we're going to play this song, because we want to (laughs).

Fujiwara: We didn't care if it fell flat (laughs).

Masu: Because to be played on our anniversary was the fate of this song from the beginning. To hell if you don't want to hear it! (laughs)

You don't often see an atmosphere like that at an arena live.

Masu: It was a bit cold (laughs).

Yeah (laughs).

Naoi: But I thought it was a… really good song (laughs). That was our only chance to play it. And it was the first time it was recorded and put on a DVD.

Oh, that's right.

Naoi: It's never been on a CD. In a sense it was recorded in the best possible way, and I'm glad. The song's message is really important to us and I'm glad we didn't decide to do it spontaneously. It's not like “Glass no Blues;” we don't play it all the time, and most of our fans aren't familiar with it. I say “most,” but maybe it's zero. A long time ago, at my house, we played the chords Fuji-kun wrote for us without really understanding anything about them, or anything about music theory. You could say the rhythm pattern wasn't based on anything. Not based on anything at all. And daring to play it again with the best of our abilities tied us together more strongly, I think. It was interesting to see the difference between playing it our best back then and playing our true best now.

Maybe it's rude of me, but didn't you think you played it a little too well now, and doesn't it bother you?

Fujiwara: No no no, I don't think so (laughs).

Naoi: Nope.

Masukawa: Yeah, not at all.

Masu: I think you say that because you used to come to our lives way back when we were terrible. But just because it's an old song doesn't mean it's simple.

Naoi: There's not one piece of music that's simple (laughs).

I see. We've already talked about your stadium tour, but did you also write the new songs “Aria” and “Answer” during it?

Fujiwara: I'm pretty sure.

Naoi: It was our producer who told us to play “Aria” at Nissan, right?

Fujiwara: It's not like we didn't see that coming.

Masu: Right, but I still wish he hadn't suggested it (laughs).

Ahahahahahahaha.

Masu: Because once he went and said it it's not like we could say no (laughs).

Naoi: Didn't we just talk about it? How it was the same set list and we gave our full attention to each song. We couldn't even think about cutting corners. If there was an encore, we'd play “Tentai Kansoku;” if there wasn't, that would be the end. Each night after “Tentai Kansoku” we were dead tired. We had the review meeting, and staff would ice Fuji-kun's throat, and ice our hands… And at Nissan, it was outside, and hot. We couldn't possibly do any more. And then they said to us, “Oh, you have 'Aria' done, everyone will want to listen to that.” We knew as much but we would never, ever suggest it ourselves.

Fujiwara: Yeah, we knew that we should probably do it (laughs).

Naoi: We wanted to do it more than anyone (laughs)! But we don't underestimate lives. We don't do it just cause we want to, we do it after we've made it so it'll be delivered in the best way possible… We were over capacity. And then our producer had to go and suggest that we also add in some extra time after “Butterfly!” (laughs).

Fujiwara: “Wouldn't some dance time be great,” he said (laughs).

Naoi: “You just do whatever you want. You're good at that, right?” (laughs).

Masu: I don't know where he got that idea from (laughs).

Naoi: We were all thinking, what the hell is wrong with this guy (laughs). Since that took up about one song's worth of time, (with “Aria”) our total time increased by two songs' worth.

I'm glad you ended up doing it.

Naoi: Yeah (laughs). I think it's a good thing too, even if you didn't say so!

Masu: It would have been the end of us if it wasn't (laughs).

(Laughs). It's thought that the fact “Aria” and “Answer” were tie-ups must have had a lot of impact on your writing process. On top of that, you wrote them both while on tour. Can you tell me about any pressure you felt as a songwriter?

Fujiwara: If I look at our activity these past few years, compared to our 20's we've been, I'm not sure how to say it… Energetic (laughs). We're moving at a fast pace. My friends ask me what's changed; why are we trying so hard.

You mean over the past three or four years?

Fujiwara: Yeah (laughs). All the time. “It's amazing. What's wrong, why are you trying so hard?”

Naoi: “Trying so hard,” that's funny (laughs).

Fujiwara: We've always been trying hard (laughs).

Masukawa: Maybe we should feel sorry for ourselves if that's what they think of us (laughs).

Fujiwara: If I can't write, everything ends. But I can write. I wrote a song, so let's record it. We have a song, so let's go on tour. That's all it is, over and over again. And when the tour's over, we're offered a tie-up with a work we really like. And that's all we've been doing these past few years, just repeating that.

I see.

Fujiwara: They're surprised, “Can you write four songs in that short a time?!” I don't know. But I tried, and I did. And once I was done writing, there's no where to go but forward… And before I knew it here we are (laughs). I guess I wrote them.

Why were you able to write them, I wonder?

Fujiwara: Naturally it was a really big deal when I started being able to write songs in the studio. And then there was the tour, which was like a fuel for me. I was able to see how our fans were receiving our songs. Right in front of me I could see their reaction, and it was like my gasoline. You could call it a reason, a motive. “Aria” especially, because I wrote it and performed it on tour, so I had a very clear picture of how our fans would listen to it.

I think our readers have a solid understanding of what you're talking about when it comes to tours and lives, but what about writing songs in the studio? What's the reason that you were able to start writing them there?

Fujiwara: It's actually very simple. Studios have business hours. When it closes at the end of the day, there's always time to review what work has been done. That was really big for me. When I'm at home… I'm not very techy, so when it comes to reviewing what's been recorded, well, I don't have the means to record anything. I think in this day and age we can record things on our smartphones but I've never tried that.

You don't record little melodies or anything?

Fujiwara: I don't. Setting aside the issue of what constitutes song writing, it's not of a good enough quality to use. I think going into the studio to do it is important. Because if I can record something on an acoustic guitar, and sing something to go along with it, even if it's not a song yet I can go over what I've done at the end of the day. Look at it objectively… I'm thinking about music 24/7. Music is always happening in my head, day and night. Well, a lot of song writers, or maybe every song writer is probably the same way, but I'm especially bad at turning it on and off. I don't have boundaries. So the studio cutoff time acts like a temporary on-off switch for me. I didn't have that when I worked at home. It was like I'd fall asleep holding my guitar, every day. It's really important that there's a stopping point independent of my own volition. There were a lot of things I came to see because of it.

“Aria” is the theme song for a drama. What do you think about it when you listen to it in that context?

Fujiwara: Aogeba Toutoshi is very good. We always talk about it every week (laughs).

Masukawa: Like, wasn't Kitora great (Kitora Ren played by Mackenyu)?

Fujiwara: And, remember that look on Aoshima's face (Aoshima Hitoro played by Murakami Nijiro)?

Naoi: And how Kitora and Aoshima did that thing! It was great!

Fujiwara: I cried! We competed to see who cried (laughs).

Naoi: It doesn't really have anything to do with “Aria” (laughs).

Masu: It's just like any other drama-lovers' conversation (laughs).

Ahahaha.

Naoi: If anything we just mention in passing that it was played.

Fujiwara: Right, right.

When you're writing a song for a movie you usually know most of the details. But with a drama, you know next to nothing. The script isn't even finished.

Naoi: Yeah. Before Fuji-kun starts writing the song, they give us a script to look over so that we know what we're making it for. But I can't read scripts (laughs). The only thing written down is dialogue, so most of it flies over my head.

I get it (laughs).

Naoi: And we only had the script for the first show, so we were left wondering what was going to happen next. I had no idea how it was possible to write a song based off only that, but then when I read it again after “Aria” was written, I totally got it (laughs).

Fujiwara: Hahaha. It doesn't matter what kind of story it is because the process never changes. I take the overlap between the things the story is expressing and the things I express, and that constitutes 100% what I want to express in this instance. Well, I extract words and melody and chords from that pool and turn it into a song. And as with any tie-up song, we then go searching for the arrangement that best fits it. This time we didn't have as much to go on so that part was a little difficult (laughs). I think it would apply to anyone though.

Masukawa: Hey but I honestly didn't think it would make me cry that much (laughs).

Naoi: The four of us don't watch dramas often. What were we doing when it was airing again?

Masu: Recording for “Answer” I think. It started on July 17th?

Masukawa: Yeah, the same day as Nissan.

Masu: It was on the TV backstage at Nissan […] (laughs). We saw the climax before we should have.

Masukawa: When we were eating the catering and reflecting a little bit. We knew the season was starting.

Masu: But we were going in and out and we didn't see the whole thing (laughs). We watched it after we went home.

What did you think of the song when you first heard it?

Masukawa: It only took us three days before we started recording, right? Unlike “Answer.”

Naoi: Nissan was coming right up and we were super focused.

Masu: I thought it was a really good song, but at the same time I doubted whether we could do it (laughs). It seemed like the most difficult thing we'd ever had to do.

Naoi: Seriously, we went pale. It was the first time I'd felt like that about a new song. Like, let up a little (laughs)! Have us work on this when we're not so busy! We haven't really gotten into a groove before with a song with such a high BPM.

Masu: It wasn't a matter of mentality so much as it was a physical problem (laughs). Could we be ready for recording in three days?

Naoi: In other words, it was like being told to shave two seconds off a 50 meter dash by the next day. Is that humanly possible? And we had Nissan to worry about…

Fujiwara: I was still working on it alone to figure out the arrangement. I sent Hide-chan a message on LINE asking if he could play an 8 beat rhythm on the hat at 220 BPM, and I got back a video of him playing it (laughs).

Ahahahahahahahaha. Cool!

Masu: I didn't want to say if I could or couldn't without trying, so I decided to show him what I could do and let him decide (laughs).

What did you think of it?

Fujiwara: He could do it (laughs)!

Masu: I could do it, but I couldn't hold it for very long… Which I didn't want to have to point out myself (laughs).

Naoi: The fact that we actually have a song is a miracle above anything else. We're thankful for it. Whether we can do it or not is something for the three of us to figure out.

Masu: That's what we should've been thinking about when we got it, but all I could think about was how soon recording was scheduled for (laughs).

Naoi: Yeah (laughs). But as I've said before, there's never been even one time when Fujiwara Motoo hasn't made a deadline. He actually gets things done ahead of time. But for some reason, this time it was by the skin of our teeth (laughs). Seems like TV dramas are particularly difficult. It really… well, we ended up with a good recording!

Masu: Hahahahahahahaha. We were hoping we would get something good.

Fujiwara: I think Hide-chan's video was the most interesting thing to come out of it (laughs).

About “Answer,” it's for the anime adaptation of one of your favorite manga, with which you collaborated to make “Fighter.” Musically, it's consistent, and it helps that “Answer” and “Fighter” make up the opening and ending songs. This must have been a new challenge for you.

Fujiwara: It was great. I'm happy we had the opportunity to write the opening song for a work we love, and I'm grateful that a previous song of ours was used as the ending for the same work. It was kind of a surprise. “There's an offer for you to do the opening for Sangatsu no Lion, do you want to do it?” Of course we want to do it! I don't really remember them asking us if “Fighter” could be used for the ending… I wonder. But if I think about it, “Answer” stands on its own. I did change “Answer,” the title, from English letters to katakana to match “Fighter.” I figured since they were going to be a pair I might as well.

In this song of breath and pulse the word “fighter” can be found as well. And similar things can be found in “Answer,” particularly, “The honest reason why my heart beats / my breathing continues / my chest is warm / Is because.”

Fujiwara: But that can be said for most of my songs. “Breath” is a common theme, as well as “heart,” “pulse,” “laughing,” “crying,” “rainbows” (laughs). “Tears,” “hunger;” they're all easily found.

Is hunger really all that common?

Fujiwara: Relatively speaking I think hunger comes up as a topic fairly often. I could keep naming themes left and right if I wanted to. The main reason is that since I don't make any particular effort to be different, the same things come up again and again. Trying to be different is unproductive because you're unable to say what you want, and you try desperately to say things that don't need to be said. I'm always thinking about what I truly want to sing about; what needs to be sung about. And as a result the words I choose tend to overlap a bit. But that's just part of a writer's color. Things like that happen. And another thing – there's quite an overlap between my personal field of expression and Sangatsu no Lion's. That the words I extracted from that overlap are evenly distributed between the two songs is proof of that (laughs).

Everything you said is right, and it's amazing. The words that you hold with conviction are everything. […] The conviction, the trust you put in your own words forms the necessary basis for the music to build upon. How did you become so confident in them?

Fujiwara: No, it's like… That's all I'm capable of doing. I wonder how I came to possess it. I've always thought it was futile to fix a song that isn't broken. Change it when it's not necessary. At the beginning, when the band was just an extension of hanging out, I just wrote nonsense English. I've talked about this before, haven't I?

Yes.

Fujiwara: When I wrote “Glass no Blues” it was necessary to put what I was feeling into words. I won't go into detail, but that was the first time I felt I had really written lyrics. “Glass no Blues” was the first real song I wrote; the first time I had put my thoughts into lyrics. I really value that time. I've been doing it the same way ever since… surely.

The first verse in “Answer” is really great. It reminds me of you in a nostalgic sense, and it's fresh in a way I haven't heard before.

Fujiwara: Ah, isn't it the best? I started with that verse.

It's a great song. Are you writing others?

Fujiwara: We have one more. It doesn't have a band arrangement yet. I think if I went into the studio now I would end up writing, but at the moment I'm not in the process. We're busy with other things (laughs).

Is that right. But you have a song, and it seems it will be done before long.

Fujiwara: When you put it that way, I've gotten that feeling sometimes as well. But these past few years, I've felt more often than not that if I were to go into the studio at any given moment, I actually wouldn't be able to write anything. I feel the same way now, but I know that if I did go in, I'd probably write anyway. That kind of feeling. Statistically speaking I'd probably write (laughs).

To wrap up, how was your year? A stadium tour, new songs – and it's your anniversary year. A lot went on.

Masukawa: It was nice. We started by welcoming the new year with a Kouhaku performance. It's a little surprising to think that a year has passed since then, but if I think about all the things we did, we were actually pretty busy. And we were always looking forward. We talked with our staff a bit ago about the future. Nothing concrete is decided yet, but we talked about what we want to do next year and the year after; things like that. In that way we've been, and continue to be, looking forward to the future.

Fujiwara: What's hard about looking back is that I can't get a good overall grasp on the last couple years, even if I remember it all vaguely. All four of us have that tendency when it comes time to close out another year. I think it's because we're living to the fullest in each moment. Each new project is clearly defined, and we face it, and we end up with no time to reflect when we move onto the next thing. It's like we've been constantly going full-throttle. It passed by in a flash. It passed in a flash, but when we talk about each specific thing they all seem like they're so far in the past. So looking back feels strange because of that, but when we've talked it all out I can see that we had a lot of lives. Regular lives, and lives we had to pluck up courage for. A 20th anniversary live that was unlike any other live we've had or will have, and I'm glad we got to do it. Also, we wrote songs, and recorded, and released them so everyone could listen to them… As musicians, it was a year in which we were really happy, and very blessed. We've said “thank you” many times, but there were so many moments in which a simple “thank you” wasn't enough. From the bottom of my heart I want to take that feeling and turn it into music and give it to everyone next year, and the year after… It's a cliché, but I'm really happy to be able to say that I want that from the bottom of my heart.

I think this year you were often reminded that you've been performing for 20 whole years.

Fujiwara: Remember when I said earlier that we didn't decide to do 20 because we wanted to look back? We didn't do it because of that, but because we did it, it hit us that we've been going for 20 years. And now it comes up more often – we're more easily reminded that it's our 20th year.

What kind of feeling is that?

Fujiwara: It's like… you could say, “It's your 20th year, so what?” But for us four, it started as something great. 20th years can be found all over the place, in different forms. This project has been going for 20 years, this manga is celebrating its 20th anniversary, someone is turning 20, I've been in the company for 20 years now – no matter the form a 20th year will visit. If you do something for 20 years, you'll have an anniversary. It's something that can come and go if you aren't careful; if you don't have your antenna up. It came and we hardly batted an eye. We did 20, went on tour, and when we met each other's eyes we realized, oh, we've been doing this for 20 years. We had those moments after 20, here and there. […] And then, even though we've been performing for 20 years, Masukawa Hiroaki chooses the 20th year to finally start playing with his back up against mine! After 20 years (laughs)!

Masukawa: I thought I had been doing it all along (laughs)!

Fujiwara: Maybe you used to, and then you stopped (laughs).

[TN: Short paragraph about how turning 30 is also a pivotal moment compared to an anniversary] This year your activity has been very aggressive, and we've had more chances to hear your music, whether live or on the radio. So in a very real sense it was a busy year.

Fujiwara: In my mind, turning 30 and the band turning 20 were two very different events. Turning 30 is an individual event, although since we were all born in the same year, it happened at the same time for all of us. There was a kind of immense bittersweet pain to it, because in our 30 years we met each other…. That kind of personal feeling was very strong, along with the feeling of how I couldn't take for granted the fact that we had been together so long…. But when the band turned 20, it wasn't personal, it was a band event. That divide might be even more strong than in other bands. I have a lot of respect for the band. The mark, the…

The name.

Fujiwara: Yes, the name. I have a lot of respect for it. It's weird, but it was like I wanted to send it a bouquet… From other people's perspective, they might think, “He wants to send flowers to himself?” It might be something only the four of us understand. It's the 20 years we've been shouldering this name. There's a difference there.

Thank you, I understand. Will I get to see you next year?

Fujiwara: Hah. You probably will, but you just made me doubt it (laughs).

Masu: We have to think of what we can do to get you to come see us (laughs).

Masukawa: Hahahaha.

Naoi: Next year is honestly not decided yet. There are things we want to do, though, so I'm sure we'll see you.

Fujiwara: You won't be easy on us.

(Laughs). I'm looking forward to it.

#bump of chicken #bump of chicken translation #shinbangchangjo #reu-tei

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