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sneek-m · 7 years

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Perfume Interview: An End to Their Twenties and an Infinite Future

Music website Natalie recently interviewed Perfume in conjunction to the release of their new single, “Mugen Mirai.” It has a lot of great conversation about the group’s recent switch into future bass, the performance for Docomo, and the meeting of Yasutaka Nakata and Perfume’s parents. I wanted to share this with other Perfume fans who can’t read Japanese, so here you go! The original interview is here.

A Heartwarming Result

Natalie: Great performance at your fan club show! I wanted to talk about how you announced fans can share info about the show after it was done, but I read it was a requested setlist made from fan votes...

Kashiyuka: It was really fun. I thought, “so everyone wanted to watch a song like this.” But it was full of songs we haven’t performed in years, so it was difficult trying to remember the choreography. [laughs]

The set list was made from a fan club poll asking “tell us one song you want to see live,” but were you originally going to use the poll results for your show?

Kashiyuka: No. When we were deciding on the set list, we started to think how it would be fun if we just did the songs from the poll.

Nocchi: Right. When we tour to promote an album, we want to play all of our new songs, and include everything we want to show, but our number-one priority was for the fan club members to enjoy themselves. Though, even we didn’t know which songs would make them happy.

A-chan: The number-one song “The Best Thing” was a song we first performed at our first fan-club tour in 2010, so it was a song that was special between us and the fans. So, it was heartwarming to see that the number one ended up being that song. There was a big gap for votes between first place and the rest.

There’s going to be a fan club tour in 8 cities during May, but because you allowed fans to share what happened at the show, does it mean the shows are going to be different?

Nocchi: We haven’t decided yet. But there’s so much time between now and May, so we thought it would be kind of sad if we didn’t allow fans to share. Also, February 14th is the anniversary of the fan club launch date, so there was also us wanting to share a special moment with the fans. So we put ourselves in a corner having to make something new. [laughs]

Nakata’s message in “Mugen Mirai”

How did you feel when it was decided you will do the title song for Chihayafuru again?

Kashiyuka: We were very happy! At the celebration of the Japan Acadeny Awards, director Norihiro Koizumi and the staff told us, “if there’s a sequel, the title song will definitely be by Perfume,” but we thought they were just mentioning that because they were in such high spirits.

A-chan: Mackenyu-kun (Arata) and Suzu Hirose-chan got an award that time. We were congratulating each other, so I thought they told us that just because we happened to be there. I felt kind of bad.

Nocchi: I mean, if they said “congratulations on the sequel,” we would’ve replied “let’s do well next time too.”

A-chan: They’re such loyal people, actually offering it to us...

...And after you got the offer, “Mugen Mirai” was recorded.

A-chan: Yes, if there was no Chihayafuru, I don’t think “Flash” would have been made, and the same with “Mugan Mirai.” It was made specifically for Chihayafuru.

Kashiyuka: The moment they let me hear it for the first time, I imagined it playing with the end credits rolling. The song fit perfectly to conclude the story.

“Flash” definitely had this excitement to it that made it feel like a “title song,” but this time, the song felt like the ending theme.

Kashiyuka: See. Like how the lingering feeling in the music moves you.

A-chan: Whenever we reach a goal, (Yasutaka) Nakata-san would often tell us, “This isn’t the end, it’s going to continue from here.” When we got to play our dream venue Budokan for the first time, he gave us “Dream Fighter,” and I feel the same feeling from “Mugan Mirai,” so I felt Nakata-san really liked Chihayafuru and put a lot of love into the song.

Kashiyuka: I think I hear more wistfulness the more I listen to it, so I like it more and more. But since Nakata-san shifted our sound into future bass with “If You Wanna,” I was still worried about how the sound would fit into this more traditional mood of Chihayafuru.

Nocchi: That’s right.

Kashiyuka: Even when I actually hear it in the end credits after feeling so much from watching the movie, I was really worried that I felt that way because I’m so used to hearing it, and people watching it for the first time might not fully have a feel for it.

A-chan: When we watched it at the press preview, it got really quiet the moment the music started to play. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: But when we did press together with Suzu-chan, we heard responses like “the music hit exactly at the right time, and it added color to the movie” and “I started to cry at the ending,” so we were relieved. It might be thanks to director Koizumi who really likes music. He’s so good at tying scenes and music together. Not just the title song but the timing for the different sounds and the transitions were brilliant.

A-chan: Director’s probably good at making music videos.

Nocchi: Aside from our music video, they also made a version with footage from Chihayafuru, and we were grateful for that.

A-chan: When we watch that, the scenes in the movie start flashing back.

The Importance of Perfume Trying Out Future Bass

Just before, Kashiyuka-san mentioned how Perfume’s sound shifted into future bass with “If You Wanna.” "The Perfume sound” definitely has been technopop and EDM until recently, but I thought it was going to change through these two singles...

Nocchi: We sang over four-on-the-floor EDM for a while, so there wasn’t much shock hearing “If You Wanna” for the first time. That song would be the more assertive song on an album. But when we were discussing whether to make “If You Wanna” or “Everyday” the A-side, we heard from Nakata-san why it’s so important for Perfume to put out a future-bass single right now. He would teach us about it many times when we do our recording or meet up to have a meal. He told us future bass is already the norm all around the world.

Kashiyuka: But even then, I’m Japanese, so I have these ingrained ideas like how the chorus should have the important message of the song, so it’s a bit worrisome. Like, we’re just dancing without singing anything. Even though what we made before was still dance music, there were still a lot of songs structured like a J-Pop song with the verse, pre-chorus, and then the chorus, so I think I was still not adjusted to songs with calm verses or without anything during a build-up. I’ve been getting used to future bass quite a bit, but some parts of me are still nervous.

But in a good way, I think it’s obvious for current Perfume to release a single like this.

A-chan: Does that mean people think it’s normal for us to take new sounds from overseas with our own spin?

Exactly. I feel this current image of Perfume of “doing J-pop by taking in new dance-music styles while using new technology for your performances” has become so accessible, so if you make music that’s away from the center, the public will still take it as a standard.

Kashiyuka: Mikiko-sensei’s choreography has a big influence on making that happen too. And single covers and music videos or outfits. The entire team makes this song seem good. It’d be so embarrassing if it was just us and the music.

The Dance for “Mugen Mirai” Would’ve Been Different 5 Years Ago...

Speaking of choreography, I thought the dance for “Mugen Mirai” was quite different from what came before.

A-chan: When we asked sensei, she said something like “contemporary-like jazz.”

Nocchi: Ohh. We used to take jazz classes in Hiroshima. So nostalgic.

A-chan: I love a loose type of dance where you move your hand, and your whole body moves, but I don’t have an opportunity to do that with Perfume. [laughs]

There are a lot of dance where your move your body very precisely.

A-chan: Right, right. It’s the first time dancing to choreography like this, so it’s fun.

I think it’s a mature dance fit for the three of you now.

A-chan: I’m going to go back to our talk about our fan club tour, but going back to the choreography for “The Best Thing” after such a long time... Oh, it’s so cute!

Nocchi: Hahaha. [laughs]

A-chan: I wanted everyone who came out to have fun, so I’ll do the dance all the way through, but it’s a little embarrassing. Really, the type of dance is different from then and now. On the other hand, I used to think, “what kind of things are they making us kids do, who are not even quite 20-years old?” with the moves in “Take Me, Take Me.” With that now I feel it’s finally OK. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: It’s fit for that age. [laughs]

A-chan: Would it mean something different now that it’s actually fit for our age? [laughs] Even the dances that I had mixed feelings about back then, the more years I put in, I learned how to dance more different types of choreography, so it feels good to realize my ability to express has been expanding. The dance for “Mugen Mirai” probably would’ve been something different 5 years ago.

The ability to change how you express yourself with any age means you can continue to do your thing for years without problems. I think that’s something the fans find relieving as well.

Nocchi: Oh, I see. If that’s so, then we’re glad.

The Fun in Being an Adult

Sorry we keep talking about your age...

Nocchi: No, it’s fun. [laughs]

2018 is going to be the last year the three of you will be in your twenties.

Nocchi: Whoa...

A-chan: I just turned 29, but now that I think about it, that’s amazing.

Kashiyuka: Right, amazing. Our twenties will be over.

Nocchi: People who don’t normally think about us probably have a image of us in our teens, so if they were told that Perfume is turning 30...

A-chan: They’ll probably think, “wow... I’m old.” [laughs]

Nocchi: In my early twenties, I didn’t know how we were going to look or how the public image of Perfume was going to be. It’s a miracle that we’re still in Perfume.

Kashiyuka: No one expected us to be around for this long.

A-chan: Only our mothers. [laughs] There are no female artists in our agency (Amuse) who have been around this long, so they expect a lot from us.

How do you want to spend the last year of your twenties? Well, I think you barely realized it after I brought this up, so I don’t expect you to have had thought of anything special.

Kashiyuka: Hm, I don’t really have anything decided for my last year. Because I don’t know what it is that I can only do in my twenties.

Well, there might not be anything. [laughs]

A-chan: Or, being an adult is really fun.

Kashiyuka: Yeah, the more I become an adult, the more it gets fun. The world keeps getting bigger.

A-chan: When I turned 20, there was a time I felt disconnected with my age. I was irritated, thinking “why am I not understood? I want to be an adult already.” I was probably inexperienced, so it’s no surprise I wasn’t really being heard. So being an adult is a great thing. I can use my time how I want, and I have experience so I can think of what to do without making mistakes, but of course the responsibility is all on me.

There are definitely more things you can finally do now that you’re an adult than things you can’t do anymore. You probably couldn’t launch your apparel line when you were younger.

Nocchi: Ah, you’re right.

A-chan: Oh, speaking of, you were talking about that, Nocchi. How we put out a photoshoot for our last year as a teen, so maybe we’ll do another for the end of our twenties.

Nocchi: My twenties are over in half a year. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: Right, because you’re born in September.

Nocchi: Yeah, A-chan says she feels like she also gets older the moment I turn a year older. But I’m the opposite where I don’t feel like I get older until A-chan’s birthday.

A-chan: What is that? That’s so funny. [laughs]

Nocchi: So I feel like 30 is already in six months even though I just turned 29.

Kashiyuka: So you feel you grow old in half-a-year’s time... That must hurt a lot.

Nocchi: Hey, don’t say that! [laughs]

You Can’t See the Intensity

We got away from our talk of “Mugen Mirai” a little bit, but I heard you filmed the music video overseas for the first time.

Kashiyuka: We went to Guam.

Nocchi: It was an intense schedule too when I went to New York and Kashiyuka went to London for the Docomo shoot, but that experience came in use this time around. Now we’re used to travels after such quick notice.

Kashiyuka: We also improved in skill.

Nocchi: Yeah, Kashiyuka had a lot, getting to the hotel at 11 p.m.

Kashiyuka: They told me, “OK, make-up at 3 a.m.” What? In 4 hours? [laughs] They wanted to film at dawn, but it’s a far place from the hotel, so calculating travel time, we had to do make-up at 3 a.m.

So, how long did you exactly get to sleep?

Kashiyuka: I was afraid I was going to oversleep, so I couldn’t really sleep [laughs] We all did our solo shots at different places, so we couldn’t really meet up at each other’s shoots. So the first day in the morning was me, A-chan took hers in the morning on the second day, and Nocchi said she hadn’t done much and slept pretty well both days. [laughs]

A-chan: When we did our close-ups, she asked, “I haven’t done anything, but is that all right?” [laughs]

Nocchi: Yeah, for my solo scene, we took it during the two hours of sundown.

Kashiyuka: The sun is important while filming outside, so we can’t really film when it’s cloudy, but the sunny days in Guam were really hot and really bright. They record right when it gets really bright, so all of us are seen with serious faces.

The wind was strong, so it looked pretty chilly.

A-chan: Then I’m glad. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: You can’t tell from the video, but the wind was strong, it was really humid, and the sun was shining so strong. It was all really intense.

A-chan: It was ridiculous. There was nowhere to hide from the sun, so it was beaming on us the whole time, and the whole time I thought, “wow, this must be how it feels to faint from the heat.”

Kashiyuka: “This must what they call a heatstroke.” [laughs] Nocchi filmed hers at an edge of a mountain where I was impressed from how far they hunted for that location.

Kashiyuka: You can’t really see the intensity.

A-chan: There’s a lot you won’t know even when you’re watching the music video. I was standing on this base with red sand, but it was so windy that the sand would start flying. I was also on this slope, so I’m standing on this peak on one foot trying my best to keep balance, but they used none of that scene. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: I was also dancing by the water on these little slippery rocks covered in moss, but most of it wasn’t used. [laughs] Everyone did their best in the most intense places.

Feeling Each Other in Separation

The B-side, “Fusion,” was the song used in the Docomo project that Nocchi-san mentioned earlier. I was actually at the Shinjuku venue with A-chan-san to cover the event.

Nocchi: A witness! Amazing.

I was a witness, but one person started dancing without no information beforehand, so I did not know what was happening seeing it at the actual venue.

A-chan: Yeah, it’s hard to know what was going on. [laughs]

Though, it was a unique experience. I never saw a performance where only one person dances to a song.

Nocchi: Yeah, there’s never really a time where we aren’t together as three of us in front of a live audience.

Kashiyuka: Right, there’s never been a time when we were alone.

A-chan: When we film, there are many times we dance alone. But this is the first time we’re seen alone in front of an audience.

Kashiyuka: It was also set up where the footage of the three of us in three separate countries will come together as one, and we had to dance while feeling each other’s presence that wasn’t actually there, so it wasn’t the same at all as our music video filming. Each of our dances became different when we rehearsed in different countries. So I realized just how much I danced while feeling the other two next to me. The rehearsal was just 12 hours before show time, so we panicked. We watched each other through our monitors with time lag and adjusted our movements little by little, telling each other, “raise your arm at this angle during this part.”

If you danced with the three of you together, you could’ve shown that it synced nicely, but it wasn’t going to work the same layering footage of each of you alone?

A-chan: Right. If you put together footage from cameras set up in the same way like that, you can see the mistakes clearly from tiny differences in how we move. We practiced a lot together many times, but we practiced at home alone because we were unsure. And because we practiced alone too much, we got our own ticks with our dance so that might have messed things up too. [laughs]

Nocchi: We didn’t know that it was going to be a performance where parts from the three of us will combine to show one person. So when we were told that, we were taken back a little from how serious this was.

Kashiyuka: Even when we rented out separate studios and brought in the same triangle set-up, we didn’t really know how exactly they were going to put together the footage.

A-chan: They could only use the 5G technology for the live stream, so we had to rehearse with time lag, and that was also tough. Even when we tell each other, “oh, that angle,” when we were dancing, the song has already moved on, so we didn’t know what the other would be talking about.

Kashiyuka: The song has no lyrics, so it was even more difficult. We couldn’t tell which part using song lyrics, so we had to rewind the rehearsal videos to be like, “here, here!” So it was really tough. Even we prepped ourselves, our chant would be off due to time lag.

But it all came together in those 12 hours.

Kashiyuka: That’s what we had to do. It’s like that whenever we work with the people at Rhizomatiks, but they always tell us, “Perfume can do it 100%. If it works or well or not is up to the gear.”

It’s assumed that it will go well because Perfume always takes on the task.

Kashiyuka: Yes, yes. There’s a lot of pressure because it’s expected for us to succeed, and failing is out of the norm. It was such a different atmosphere with us standing by alone in the triangle with the room really quiet.

That’s such a high level of demand...

Kashiyuka: But I’m happy they chose Perfume to take on such a difficult challenge, so it makes us want to answer to their expectations more.

Nocchi: In my mind, I don’t see myself who’s given such high expectations, so I’m glad they trust us to think “you’re Perfume, so you can do it, right?”

You can’t see the other two while dancing in separate countries, so you must have had some worries when you were actually performing.

A-chan: In the end, I believed in myself. Once we realized we weren’t in sync even when we practiced so much, we tried so many different things in those 12 hours before the real thing, so I figured all I could do now is trust it. But what’s so surreal is, sometimes I feel the presence of the other two when I dance!

Nocchi: Yeah! I feel like that too!

Kashiyuka: There were times I got chills because I felt the others controlling their breath. I almost had tears. Going through this experience, I think we grew another step in terms of our performance. I think our bond grew stronger too,

Aside from it being used for the Docomo project, “Fusion” was also performed with Nakata-san at his OTONOKO festival. It was the first time Perfume and Nakata-san performed together, so it made quite the headlines.

Nocchi: Perfume never played at Nakata-san’s events. On my own, I thought we weren’t allowed. The same way we think taking stage with Nakata-san as something special, Nakata-san unexpectedly thought it was something special too. So, through that, Nakata-san’s parents and our parents first met each other. [laughs]

Kashiyuka: They told each other something like, “thank you always.” [laughs]

A-chan: They cried while talking to each other. [laughs]

Nocchi: They told each other, “we finally met!” It was apparently the first time for our family to meet Nakata-san, so we were really moved.

A-chan: We feel a certain distance away from Nakata-san, and part of that, we keep on purpose. We had a fun, candid conversation that time, but our families were crying.

Kashiyuka: The conversation didn’t stop.

A-chan: We kept on talking. Nakata-san’s mother is the complete opposite from her son where she’s so passionate and full of emotion. She was also a character. I saw that and thought, “ah, Nakata-san is also a child to another person, he also has blood flowing in him.”

Even after 15 years, it looks like Nakata-san still has that sort of image for Perfume. [laughs]

A-chan: Speaking of, just recently when we were talking with Nakata-san, we were talking about how nice it would be to perform together again. We got to discussing where would be a good place to play, and we thought how about for Natalie?

Really! We’re grateful.

Kashiyuka: Definitely, if there’s anything we can do with Natalie.

Nocchi: Yeah, it would definitely be really fun.

#Perfume

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