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turtleations · 2 years ago

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Interview with PATA (summarized)

Published in the hide BIBLE (by Akemi Oshima) 2008

Note: The same thing as for the interview with Toshi applies here: This is not a translation but a summary of what I learned from an interview that was too long and too difficult for my limited Japanese skills to fully translate. Read at your own risk, knowing that I may have interpreted things incorrectly. I left out things I was too unsure about to post them here in any kind of good conscience.

Again: If anyone who understand Japanese and knows this interview reads this and recognized something I am totally wrong about, please let me know so I can fix it!

Things Pata tells us:

- When Pata returned to Tokyo Dome, it all felt very nostalgic and familiar. He continues to talk about baseball.

- He first saw the hide-hologram during the rehearsal and recognized the guitar solo of Art of Life from the movement of his fingers, even though there was no sound. He points out that during a performance he doesn't actually see hide, because he's standing next to him.

- Pata first met hide when he re-joined the band in 1987. They needed another guitarist, so they asked him to come back and Yoshiki introduced them when they met for rehearsal.

- His first impression of hide was "Guy who wears a hat and leather pants". He also seemed like a kind older brother type.

- Pata doesn't remember what songs they played during rehearsal, but since there were lives soon after, it was probably songs from that set list.

- They had to go the same way on the train, which was when they started talking a lot, though he doesn't remember what about.

- Since they were both guitarists, the talked about what to do with this, how to handle that etc.

- Pata had only done recordings with X when he helped them out as a guest before, so his first live with hide was his first live with X as well. He thinks it was probably at the live house Kagurazaka EXPLOSION. [Note: This appears to be referring to a place that was called Rock House EXPLOSION at the time, had several name changes, and finally settled on Kagurazaka EXPLOSION in 2008.]

- They had three shows in Tokyo and then immediately moved on to Osaka.

- At this time, PATA used his job at the video store to copy the music video X had made for their promotion. He asked for permission from the store owner to use the equipment, but the cost of it was deducted from his pay.

- Toshi was in charge of their finances and they would give him the money for studio fees etc.

- PATA had no money left to buy things at this point. It took him a while to financially recover. So making the video actually did cost money.

- They distributed the videos for free. Every band was giving out free cassette tapes or song sheets at that time, so they wanted to do something different. There was a refrigerator involved somehow.

- At this time, PATA often drank with HIDE. Because he lived nearby, hide would come and stay at his place and then sleep under the Kotetsu. [Note: A kotetsu is a heated blanket attached to the (low) table, creating a warm space underneath.] The kotestu was the only form of home heating PATA’s place had to offer in winter. He didn’t mind himself since he slept in bed, but HIDE would complain that while his body was warm, his ears were cold, and because his ears were cold, they hurt. Then he would accept that there was “nothing to be done about it, since it was the home of a poor person”.

- This was around the time of the album “Vanishing Vision”. Pata was still working at the video store.

- During their tour, they went directly from the Material Arts Stadium to an event in Kyoto. All of their hair was styled upwards and caught on the ceiling of their car. They slept on the lawn. There was no time for a full styling before the next performance, so they changed clothes but left their hair as it was, deciding to merely fix what needed fixing when they got there.

- Pata doesn’t actually remember if hide was the one who created his mohawk hairstyle.

- Nori of the Tokyo Yankees used to cut and dye Pata’s hair. He was a kohei of Pata’s from Chiba and used to go to beauty school, though Pata doesn’t think he graduated.

- hide used to style Pata’s hair before performances and got it vertical. For Yoshiki, George used to do it.

- Pata accepted having to do his hair this way to go with the style of the band.

- One afternoon, the back of their van opened and spilled their newly made promotional stickers as well as hide’s luggage onto the highway. The doors were probably not closed properly and opened from the vibration. They did not notice immediately. Pata’s luggage barely escaped doom.

- While they were collecting the stickers, a highway police man yelled at them “Do you want to die?!” But since they were poor, the stickers had to be rescued, even though there was a high risk of being run over – a fate that hide’s luggage did in fact suffer.

- Shit like that happened to X all the time.

- During the recording of Vanishing Vision, which took place in Roppongi, Pata was so broke he had to borrow money from the band’s manager to get back home. He then had enough left for some food and a bit of beer. His power had been turned off but since he only returned home around 5 a.m. when it was already light outside, that wasn’t much of a problem. He still had water and heating, so he could at least shower. He lived like that for about 3 – 4 weeks, until recording was over.

- Also during the recording of Vanishing Vision, hide developed tenosynovitis in his right hand. Pata can’t tell if it was caused by playing too much – he himself has had it in both hands, and since it happened so much, at some point it would just start hurting for whatever reason.

- Pata didn’t really have anything to do with Extasy Records, which existed since before he and hide joined the band.

- They would often go to Mother Farm in Chiba on a whim. It was a location that always came to their minds since four (later three) of their five members were from Chiba.

- hide and Pata went to the Sea of Trees at Mount Fuji at least twice. [Note: The Sea of Trees in this case means the forest of Aokigahara, which is known as a popular suicide location and also a place where criminals like to hide bodies. It is said to be one of the most haunted places in Japan.] One time was during the Rose and Blood tour. Hide’s playful mood was in full swing and he would just drag them anywhere.

- They stayed at the holiday home of a friend of hide’s.

- Once they stayed in Karuizawa to go see a live of ZI:Kill in Kanazawa from there, but they arrived too late because hide, whose sense of geography was shit, thought Karuizawa was close to Kanezawa, which it is not.

- They took the guys from ZI:Kill to Aokigahara later, after grabbing them unannounced after they finished another life in Tokyo. It was early in the morning when they arrived and all the shops were closed, so they ate bentos from the convenience store. Also, it was cold.

- They had come in two cars. Afterwards, Pata’s car went straight home, but hide took ZI:Kill to Yokosuka. They took a commemorative photo there, which always looked weird to Pata until he realized it was because ZI:Kill had been abducted straight after the live show, so they were still wearing their make-up. (They did have time to remove it, apparently. They just didn’t.)

- When hide and Pata had been to the Sea of Trees before, Taiji was with them. They stayed in Kawaguchiko [Note: A town at the foot of Mt. Fuji.] and the guy at the inn let them borrow his van to go deeper into the forest. Before long, the car suddenly stopped and died on them, and they all freaked out. Turns out, they had just run out of gas, so they pushed the car up a hill and then rode gravity back to town.

- At some point, they went into the forest with flashlights, promptly lost sight of the car and the street and got lost. After freaking out a little they found the car again and were happy.

- Pata knew Kyo (D’erlanger, VO) from Chiba since long before X, and at some point wondered why he hadn’t seen him around in a while. Turned out that Kyo had joined hide’s band Saver Tiger in Yokosuka, so he was rarely around anymore.

- hide and Pata were seen as a unit because they were neighbours and therefore hung out a lot. hide was usually the one with the stupid ideas and Pata the one to be dragged along.

- In a magazine that came out around the time of X’s professional debut, hide wrote “Playing with Pata” under both “Hobbies” and “Thinks I like”.

- hide was the type to annoy people without mercy when he was in the mood, but if he wasn’t, wouldn’t call at all. [Note: Alternatively: If Pata wasn’t in the mood, he wouldn’t pick up the phone. I have been unable to figure out who was supposed to be the subject of this sentence.]

- Contrary to popular belief, Pata did not move to Asagaya because hide called him there but because the people from Sony wanted everyone to live nearby. Pata did not like any of the places on offer, but he picked one anyway because he didn’t want to cause trouble. But then hide, who had paid better attention to the environment, let him know that there was a much bigger apartment above the one Pata had given his okay to, so Pata decided to take that one instead.

- By this time hide had already found a good place for himself.

- hide called a bunch of people to the neighbourhood.

- Kyo lived just on the other side of the station. They were all involved in the incident where he broke his hip. [Note: Read more about that in this interview at Nopperabou.net.] At first, they took him to hide’s place, but because he was in so much pain, they soon had to take him to the hospital, where he was hospitalized at once. It happened just before a live performance of Kyo’s band, but with willpower and a corset he was able to participate anyway.

- hide was generally the one who asked Pata to hand out. Pata usually only called first if he already had people over.

- When they were drinking together, they didn’t talk much, since Pata wasn’t the talking type. Usually, there were other people around for hide to talk to and bring life to the party.

- In L.A., Pata was the only one who did not live in the same apartment building as everyone else because he thought it would be too much to be around them all the time. Later, hide moved to an apartment that was walking distance (about two blocks) from Pata’s place.

- On the topic of memories of L.A.: A story about how Pata was abducted by hide and Co. to a theme park where he felt super sick after the first roller coaster because he had just gotten up after a night of drinking and was hungover. Things like that happened to him a lot. [Note: More about that particular adventure at the blog of bunnychuu45: Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4]

- One time during one of hide’s solo tours, Pata tried to escape from the hotel in Hiroshima because hide had this no-drinking-rule the day before a performance. Pata’s plan was to have a taxi take him to the nearest bar, but security, led by Ito-san, was in on him and managed to prevent his clever escape.

- On what hide meant to him: He was the only one Pata ever considered his partner in music, even though he used to perform as a pair with just one other guy. At the point of the interview, Pata had spent half of his musician’s life with hide. Out of the members of X, hide was the one Pata had spent most time with, and outside of X as well, probably.

- Pata felt that hide was far ahead of him, even though he was only one year older. He wished for hide to sleep well, knowing that Pata will do his best to make sure his rest remains peaceful.

#Pata #x japan #interview #summary #hide #hide Bible #my Japanse still sucks #it would be kind of the Japanese languagge to meet my halfway and just tell me who the subject of the sentence is more often #it's not as obvious as one might think

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