B=PASS May 2016 Interview (Page 2 of 3)
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-It will certainly be a compilation of everything you’ve put into the VISUALIVEs so far. I think it will be amazing! And the new album “LAST MOON” really has turned out amazing. As I said at the beginning, each song is deep and overwhelming, and on the whole, a “Japanese” world view spreads through it, so I feel that this CD exemplifies “Zipang Rock” [=genre created by GACKT named after an old word for “Japan”].
“Well, I’ve been working this whole time to establish Zipang Rock. But it’s incredibly difficult. There are things that fit into the song, but also arrangements that make you go "No, we can’t do that”, and I have a lot of failed songs. There are a lot of songs on “LAST MOON” that use Japanese instruments, but if you ask me “Does putting Japanese instruments into it make it Zipang Rock?” the answer is no, definitely not. There are a lot of them, aren’t there. Foreign artists who put Japanese instruments in their songs and fail.
-They think it’s Japan-esque, but it ends up sounding like Chinese music.
“Exactly. It’s like "That’s not Japan, it’s China. Or Vietnam.” (laughs) You definitely can’t do it unless you have a uniquely Japanese sense. That said, there are a lot of Japanese people failing at it too.“
-It demands a certain subtle sense of balance, right?
"Yes. It’s important how you complete the songs to make them beautiful, and simply adding Japanese instruments doesn’t make it Zipang Rock. For example, Japanese rock music originated from Western rock music, and eventually the Visual Rock genre was born from that. At the beginning, that Visual Rock had a lot of cool music. There was extremely gothic stuff, and sexually obscene and introspective stuff. That’s because the musicians listened to a lot of music, including Western music, understood it, and then added in their own tastes, while trying new things. But the Visual Kei kids these days listen to Visual Kei music and try to make "Visual Kei” songs, so their world is becoming more shallow. Of course, some of the songs are good, but there are so many kids like that I think it’s a waste. If you don’t listen to lots of different songs, you can’t make anything new. In other words, what I want to say is, everything is like that, and so is Zipang Rock. If you don’t study and dig deep into Western music, Classical, Gagaku, lots of things before you try it, it won’t go well. It’s that audacity of “I can do it because I’m Japanese”.“
-In that way, you intensively study music of course, but also whatever you need to express your ideas, right? I think that’s the reason why you’ve been able to establish Zipang Rock like this.
"Well, I’m trying a lot of different things, but it’s certainly still difficult.”
-For example, on this album, there’s a song called “Hana mo Chiyu” that incorporates waka [Japanese poems, generally the kind with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern]. Is this also because you studied waka a lot to create songs?
“I did study them. But actually I’ve liked waka for a long time.”
-So you liked literature when you were at school?
“No, I hated literature when I was at school. I thought, "Why do we have to study this?” (laughs). But as I studied various things like the origin of waka, and why waka were created, and why the waka poem form exists, and how they changed little by little depending on the time period, I learned that there are a lot of wonderful waka poems. They’re like love letters… that’s the main point. And the form of those love letters is incredibly beautiful. But, waka are so short, aren’t they? You have to express your feelings in such a short poem. I thought that was amazing. The layers of knowledge created are definitely interesting in a certain way. When I was young I didn’t understand how wonderful it was, so I wondered why we had to study them, but now I think it’s a good part of Japanese culture. And, when we go to create something new, we definitely need to study old things.“
-Ah, I see.
"But, the reason I put waka in "Hana mo Chiyu” wasn’t just because I decided to throw it in there.“
-Huh?
"On the music side of things, when I thought about how to make the sounds fit together, modern lyrics just didn’t fit over the song. It just stunk, no matter how I did it. So I was wondering why, and then I decided to write what I wanted to say like a waka, and sing that. I realized that waka fit with irregular time signatures, particularly odd-numbered time signatures. For example, shifting from 8/8 time to 6/8 time is a really easy one out of the irregular time signatures, because it’s an even number. But when you have odd numbers like 5 beats or 7 beats, because there’s a catch in the rhythm, it’s hard to put modern lyrics over it. And when I put waka to an irregular beat, it fit really well.”
-Ah, because waka have a 5-7-5 pattern.
“Right. I think it’s interesting.”