ROCK & READ #033 the GazettE - Ruki Interview [Translation 4/4]
OMG!! I am so terribly sorry that this took me so long!
First of all, this part was longer, but then also I felt that Ruki's whole way of speaking became more complicated. I could only do a couple of pages per weekend and then my brain was fried.
Rereading and editing it today I think there are still some really mushy parts.
So please be careful with this part of the interview and feel free to ask.
However, eventually it has come to an end.
Thank you everyone for reading and commenting!
(30,000 signs...23 pages..................*dead*)
Please enjoy this last part!
ROCK & READ #033 the GazettE - Ruki Interview
-- From this summer on you have been on your long tour throughout Japan the whole time. Right now the final at TOKYO DOME you had been heading towards has clearly come into focus as a turning point.
Ruki [Yes. The tour this time has been divided in part "01" and "02" and we began "01" with the thought of wanting to play "all songs of the GazettE". Making no difference between old and new songs, we just wanted to play all our cards. Honestly, the preparation was rather difficult. There were songs we had the feeling had been quite different already. However, there were also things of which we could reconfirm the things we have always thought of to be good parts and it was important to try and do all those songs after all. As we gradually squeezed in the songs, we also went with a changing set list every evening for the second half of the "02" part of the tour. As a result, we figured out what was necessary when aiming for TOKYO DOME and we have come up with what has become sort of a golden rule for us at that.]
-- I would like to ask, by which circumstances you eventually came to decide upon playing at TOKYO DOME again.
Ruki [At first it was Backstage Project's Sugimoto-san, who asked us: "How about TOKYO DOME?", which he recommended at the time, when we had done Yokohama Arena and we had been really worried about it at that time. Quite a bit of time has passed since then and we came to think that at some time, we would have to take up this challenge...Somehow, we always understood our own capacities and weren't aiming for insecure places either. We kind of had been doubtlessly buried in this expected range.]
-- It is understood as common sense, if you only reach out for the challenges you can win.
Ruki [Yeah. Gradually, the doubt concerning that grew bigger, though. As with the way the tour had been done, you kind of get used to it as you go about it again and again. First we'd tour the halls and only the finale would be held at a bigger place. Rather than repeating this procedure, we wanted it to be more like the explosion we have to eventually look towards. That's what we want it to be. That is, why we eventually decided upon TOKYO DOME as a result.]
-- As the rout that's taking you there?
Ruki [Yes. However, when playing places like TOKYO DOME, most let some time pass in-between (doing a tour), don't they? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do it like a festival. The moment we had decided upon DOME, we also decided upon the three month consecutive single release. With that, (we knew), we had to record about nine new songs and we decided to squeeze this into the tour schedule around the free times as best as possible. That's the flow of how we decided it. (laughs)]
-- That's a pretty masochistic development, isn't it? (laughs)
Ruki [Isn't that where the passion and the desperation comes from when facing something like that? Giving our utmost, when doing a tour doesn't change for once, but when then facing such a huge goal ahead, the sense of unity between the band members and the staff just becomes incredible. That's what it was like when we were doing Budokan for the first time. Playing at a big stage for the first time, and people around you tell you how impossible that is. (laughs) However, I realized again, that this is the time, when the band itself is developing the most and it does now, too. This is the kind of tour I wanted to do once again.]
-- Like "Team GazettE" is once again, growing to be something new?
Ruki [Yeah. That is the kind of passion I wanted to feel once again. We also understood that this would be hard on us, too. And actually it was extremely hard and I wanted just to get a break more than ever. (laughs) Besides making songs and playing live there were a number of things that we had to do, too. After all, making three singles is much like making one album. Yet, I thought that we could not let ourselves get cornered. It is not like I felt bored of ourselves, but I really dislike facing purely innocuous things. I just wanted a wall, some real obstacle, which everyone would tell us to be impossible to break through.]
-- Do you actually think of this as a wall this high?
Ruki [Of course. I think there is also meaning behind provoking those people to tell us "Do you think it's good to do this right now? “ We, as band members have talked about doing this unusually thoroughly. The opinions this time were really going apart, too. "Isn't that just a little scary?" along with voices stating "Do we need to rush it like this?" The result of it all came down to "I don't know, let's just do it." (laughs) Somehow, the GazettE has always been like that from the very beginning. For the first time we had been playing Tokyo International Forum, the first time we had been playing AX; it was like being mentally hungry for the things we thought impossible and going with that. Eventually, it has always been like that and that was, what we talked about with everyone.]
-- Actually, even as you have come this far, it is still a very narrow field in which people know about the success of the GazettE, right? It is not like a band that has been standing on the stage of TOKYO DOME is going to be accepted in a wider field automatically. Accordingly, isn't letting people know (about the GazettE) thoroughly, part of the motivation as well? Personally, this is what I imagine it to be.
Ruki [There is certainly this reality that, even if there wasn't this kind of motivation. Simply, when we actually decided on playing there, we did think about how the view of people would change eventually, and we did move on, being aware of the things concerning what we could be doing on that stage. (We thought about), what we could be doing, based on the fact that many other artists groups had been performing on the stage of TOKYO DOME until now. As for the timing this time, we will be playing right after LUNA SEA, don't we? And as that we would like to do something incredible in this position. Eventually, for us, the number of people we are able to mobilize is nothing we can just do. All we can do is make great songs. However I think this is still different from simply seeking to make songs that would gather as many people as possible there. Because this is not supposed to become a story about how much we change ourselves. Therefore, as for the things we can do either way, is busy ourselves and do what we can. I think it would be good if "we are understood by the people around us", concerning that.]
-- I see. Certainly, I think that the GazettE is aiming to be liked by just anyone. Even though that probably makes it sound bad.
Ruki [Ah, but we think like that, too. It certainly is like that.]
-- However, no matter what the preferences are, it's about being recognized. You wouldn't be negating that there is this kind of desire, would you?
Ruki [No I wouldn’t. That's something that's important. When I first learned about Visual-kei, I started out with the feeling "Woah, this is weird! “ However, I also remember the moment, when my feelings towards this changed from "What's this?" to "This is cool! “ Well, the time is different now, and it doesn't mean that things are taken in the same as they were back then... For example once, there was a time when Visual-kei CDs sold like an explosion, but then recently the charts are a battle about selling well or not, aren't they?]
-- Yeah. It is like racing with the technology for the sake of consumption.
Ruki [I think that a battle in that place is rather meaningless and something a bit different. Also, we can't keep up with the pros in the end. For example, when I first got to know LUNA SEA, and even though they had been on the top of the charts, they were different, which is why they fascinated me. And I think this position is still open today. We, ourselves, are intending to work our hardest towards that, yet, if we were to go with this kind of flow in our fields, it would be troublesome and rather mortifying, wouldn't it?]
-- Even more so since TOKYO DOME is a place where only "success" is forgiven and whatever it takes to achieve this success.
Ruki [Yeah. Somehow, even before "02" of the tour started, I somehow came to think that I would like this band to have a color it hadn't had before. Concerning the set and the lighting and such. When I thought about, what kind of color I would like the GazettE to show, I thought that this should be regardless of the Visual-kei (background). Yet, with it still being Visual-kei as it is.]
-- Including it not being just and overdone performance?
Ruki [The lasers we came to use are probably a result of that. We wanted to make use of something that usually isn't used like that by Visual-kei bands, but not just half heartedly but exhausting it fully. I hoped that in our case, people would say that "if GazettE does it, it's cool", when doing it. And of course it was meant to also include the "Rock-aspect". the GazettE is after all a rock band and that was a real must...Actually, for the "01" part of the tour, we did it with a more gothic appeal to begin with, however, it was that we came to think that it was maybe a little different. To put it differently, it showed us, what we had to do it differently in the next (step). Therefore, even though we had intended to use about the same staging for "01" and "02", we urgently came to change that. It was very motivating to change this in real time, too and we came to do something that hasn't been done by anyone anywhere else before. We wanted to make this a scene that no one would forget. This is not just about the aggression (during the live) or the "mood / rhythm" of it. After all, when playing on a big stage like that of TOKYO DOME, eventually, rather than the five people on stage, people's views often go to the screens, don't they?]
-- Certainly. Originally you would like the views of all people to go to the stage.
Ruki [That is one thing and I would also like to make the whole venue become much like a rave. Not like being divided into the stage being the stage and the seats being the seats. I wonder how far we can do this by using DOME. I thought that this is one place I would really want to create an unforgettable scene at first, when challenging it for real. Naturally, when you think of doing something as daring and try doing something unprecedented, quarrels come up. It is not really a thing to fight over yet there were so many things I wanted to do that I was told weren't possible. Yet, I wouldn't give in just saying "it can't be helped", and wanted to know the reasons behind it. I wanted to comprehend what it takes to make it happen. Like, if it was OK when being in the budget and such. I didn't want to leave these things unanswered.]
-- This seems to be the kind of fight that repeats itself throughout the history of the GazettE, doesn't it?
Ruki [It does. However, doing this, it is because we are working hard on grasping on to some kind of new sensation right now. Whenever we are completing the things of one tour at the end of it, something is different the next. For example, when it came to the stage entry for the "02" part of the tour, while having this imagine in our heads, there were things where we thought that they wouldn't be possible as we imagined them to be. Yet, when we came to see what we had mapped out in our mind having become real on stage, we had been feeling a shiver running down the spine on our own set for the first time in a long time. Certainly, we have to do things thoroughly, so we can honestly think of ourselves as a cool band. If it's not like that, it's meaningless.]
-- This is the same, when it comes to music, right?
Ruki [It is. For example, during the time of "DIM", while our enthusiasm was kind of low at that time, we wanted to do something definite for this album. Something that would be described as dark. This was also included in the tour and we realized something that was fresh for us as well...and we did that anew when it came to making "SHIVER".]
-- I can just agree to these words. Making "SHIVER", making "RED", they are overflowing with strength. It seems there is nothing you were lost about.
Ruki [No. After all there is what we perceive as a "cool band" isn't there? We have pursued this the whole time until "DIM". "This band has to do this kind of song and this band needs to do these things". That's what was there at first. However, we came back to the position in which we would think about what would be cool and what we eventually wanted to show ourselves....... It's kind of weird, while Visual-kei is kind of a closed scene, there are lots of exciting things about it, aren’t there? Yet to understand these good points ourselves, we had to realize the importance of turning outside and see how to show this that way. Back in the day, I really hated anything that was like pop.]
-- You mean the things that the record companies would want as a potential single song, right?
Ruki [That's still the same these days, though. (laughs) However, when looking at it from the angle of "conveying or not conveying", it is not like I don't want people to understand eventually. Yet, while thoroughly portraying our own style, I think this is all we can do. After all, the people in a record company are all normal people, too, aren't they? This also means that not all of them know really everything about music either. They are all people who just want to make "songs that sell". I was wondering to what extent we could get their agreement when making songs like we do with lyrics like ours. That's the key to it, I think. Because I am trying out to what extent I can do (what I want), is why I get into fights with them, ever since we moved (to Sony). (laughs)]
-- You do? I thought that the single you released after you had been moving was extremely easy to understand in parts.
Ruki [Even so I was told that it was hard to understand, still. (laughs) Like, I was advised to write this as if it was an e-mail that was written on the phone. And it is not like that person would have been especially touched at heart by words like that; it was just, because that was the kind of thing that was selling. However, at the same time, that person didn't know anything about Visual-kei, yet I knew that they were learning about it. Hence, I think it was a first step to conveying things to this kind of "outsider", getting their consent and taking this into account.]
-- On top of calculating the whole scene, it is good if you could find a common standard, right?
Ruki [Yeah. Right now we have been doing a number of experiments within our music and there have been good results as well, yet there are certainly some that aren't. (laughs) Moreover, I think there are also times, when we think too much about the balance of things. Like feeling the need to make a very heavy song after having released a ballad. I think it would be OK if we don't get too tied up with this kind of fixed balance either. Therefore, maybe, when looking at what we are doing now, I think I remember the resistance that would have been there with our earlier selves. However, when being too particular about things like that, you just can't move on. I think it is necessary to break down this kind of frame and just have to move on to something I think would be even cooler. Of course there are also fields where you have to stay true to your principles. Be it the lyrics or the feeling of the chords, there are fields, where you'd wonder where it went. Eventually, I hate it when it becomes neither one nor the other. Heavy stuff has to be thoroughly heavy as such. There has to be this kind of rebel spirit to it.]
-- That is the part you shouldn't miss out on even though you become a band that played at DOME, right?
Ruki [Or to say it in the opposite way, because we are a band playing at DOME we shouldn't lose that (kind of spirit). Since the stage of DOME is the one place we wanted to stand on since we were kids, there would be no meaning to it, if we stood on that same stage not thinking of us as being cool with it.]
-- That's totally understandable. And one thing I believe is that if there was a song that was undisputable seen as a signature song, the GazettE would become even stronger. To say it in an extreme way, if even people looking at the GazettE from the outside without having a special interest, but like that one certain song.
Ruki [I understand. For example in our case, the existence of ballads are kind of extreme. The chance by which they can be listened to, are also extremely different (from the usual). Until now it had been "Cassis" and "Guren". In December 2010 the ballad "PLEDGE" will be released and we wanted to make it something different from those (others). With that I wanted to make it something the previously mentioned record company representative would say "wow" to, because I think that if he wasn't affirming with it, it wouldn't lead to a reaction either when normal people would listen to it. However, of course first and foremost it also has to be something that we think about as the best we can do, too. After all, we want to spread the things and have them understood as what we think is cool. Back in the days, it was just that only the people that "knew" would eventually understand (what it was all about). However, now, we also want people to understand, that usually don't know (what it is about). We couldn't be satisfied with songs otherwise. ... Yet we didn't want to make something anyone could write, nor something that would be the usual J-POP ballad. First of all we wanted to make an awesome rock ballad. It was supposed to be a
ballad yet bringing things across in the rock (music) kind of way.]
-- And as a result "PLEDGE" can be seen as this kind of signature song.
Ruki [If it does, that's fine. That's the wish I have. I wanted to make a song without regret. Honestly, "Cassis" was a song I had regrets about. I hated how this one song was what we were told was "the GazettE". That's why the next songs where so heavy. However, if "PLEDGE" became this kind of signature song, I wouldn't see it as a problem. I can show this off with self-confidence.]
-- I have come to look forward to TOKYO DOME more and more. And of course to the things that follow.
Ruki [This might be kind of sudden, but I really think that B'z way of doing it, is really awesome. Among the people playing at DOME they are the ones doing it with utmost conviction. They are certainly the people one can see as someone doing the real ROCK among people. I think the same about the revival of sads, too. It's what you feel is rock music, they are the real players. I probably think this because I like Kiyoharu-san, though. (laughs) When I watch him the feeling of excitement is kind of different. They are not simply a band that got back together again. Just looking at one of his pictures, it just immediately makes me think how awesome it is. That people like him are here like that now is something very stimulating for us. And it would be no good if we as the Gazette could not reach past these sempais of ours at some point.]
-- Yeah. It would be simply losing to those who have reunited again.
Ruki [Eventually, Visual-kei isn't some industrial standard. There would be no meaning to us, if we just lost to the people from a different time that returned now. There are so many amazing sempais of ours. Previously, when I went to see Yoshii Kazuya-san for the first time, there was something that struck me ever since I saw a foreign live first. DEAD END were like that, too. It feels a bit like wondering what "god-like people would be like", though. (laughs) Like this kind of awesomeness. However, I don't think it is too favorable if we ourselves still keep wondering about these kinds of things. It seems that if we were to sit back in this position, the things we were reaching out to had been different. As I said, I do not want to become this kind of celebrity. There are people who act too much upon being a celebrity...I don't want to liven-up the sports news paper and I don't need to appear in ground-wave TV shows either. I want to exist as someone, who can release this one real record.]
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
PS: I am thinking of doing Reita's R&R intefview fom 2007, but I might squeeze some newer interview in between and I also have an eye on Sadie Aki's interview from R&R #033 just because it's REALLY interesting! >.<)m So let's see what my schedule allows me to do next :DDDD
First of all, this part was longer, but then also I felt that Ruki's whole way of speaking became more complicated. I could only do a couple of pages per weekend and then my brain was fried.
Rereading and editing it today I think there are still some really mushy parts.
So please be careful with this part of the interview and feel free to ask.
However, eventually it has come to an end.
Thank you everyone for reading and commenting!
(30,000 signs...23 pages..................*dead*)
Please enjoy this last part!
ROCK & READ #033 the GazettE - Ruki Interview
-- From this summer on you have been on your long tour throughout Japan the whole time. Right now the final at TOKYO DOME you had been heading towards has clearly come into focus as a turning point.
Ruki [Yes. The tour this time has been divided in part "01" and "02" and we began "01" with the thought of wanting to play "all songs of the GazettE". Making no difference between old and new songs, we just wanted to play all our cards. Honestly, the preparation was rather difficult. There were songs we had the feeling had been quite different already. However, there were also things of which we could reconfirm the things we have always thought of to be good parts and it was important to try and do all those songs after all. As we gradually squeezed in the songs, we also went with a changing set list every evening for the second half of the "02" part of the tour. As a result, we figured out what was necessary when aiming for TOKYO DOME and we have come up with what has become sort of a golden rule for us at that.]
-- I would like to ask, by which circumstances you eventually came to decide upon playing at TOKYO DOME again.
Ruki [At first it was Backstage Project's Sugimoto-san, who asked us: "How about TOKYO DOME?", which he recommended at the time, when we had done Yokohama Arena and we had been really worried about it at that time. Quite a bit of time has passed since then and we came to think that at some time, we would have to take up this challenge...Somehow, we always understood our own capacities and weren't aiming for insecure places either. We kind of had been doubtlessly buried in this expected range.]
-- It is understood as common sense, if you only reach out for the challenges you can win.
Ruki [Yeah. Gradually, the doubt concerning that grew bigger, though. As with the way the tour had been done, you kind of get used to it as you go about it again and again. First we'd tour the halls and only the finale would be held at a bigger place. Rather than repeating this procedure, we wanted it to be more like the explosion we have to eventually look towards. That's what we want it to be. That is, why we eventually decided upon TOKYO DOME as a result.]
-- As the rout that's taking you there?
Ruki [Yes. However, when playing places like TOKYO DOME, most let some time pass in-between (doing a tour), don't they? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do it like a festival. The moment we had decided upon DOME, we also decided upon the three month consecutive single release. With that, (we knew), we had to record about nine new songs and we decided to squeeze this into the tour schedule around the free times as best as possible. That's the flow of how we decided it. (laughs)]
-- That's a pretty masochistic development, isn't it? (laughs)
Ruki [Isn't that where the passion and the desperation comes from when facing something like that? Giving our utmost, when doing a tour doesn't change for once, but when then facing such a huge goal ahead, the sense of unity between the band members and the staff just becomes incredible. That's what it was like when we were doing Budokan for the first time. Playing at a big stage for the first time, and people around you tell you how impossible that is. (laughs) However, I realized again, that this is the time, when the band itself is developing the most and it does now, too. This is the kind of tour I wanted to do once again.]
-- Like "Team GazettE" is once again, growing to be something new?
Ruki [Yeah. That is the kind of passion I wanted to feel once again. We also understood that this would be hard on us, too. And actually it was extremely hard and I wanted just to get a break more than ever. (laughs) Besides making songs and playing live there were a number of things that we had to do, too. After all, making three singles is much like making one album. Yet, I thought that we could not let ourselves get cornered. It is not like I felt bored of ourselves, but I really dislike facing purely innocuous things. I just wanted a wall, some real obstacle, which everyone would tell us to be impossible to break through.]
-- Do you actually think of this as a wall this high?
Ruki [Of course. I think there is also meaning behind provoking those people to tell us "Do you think it's good to do this right now? “ We, as band members have talked about doing this unusually thoroughly. The opinions this time were really going apart, too. "Isn't that just a little scary?" along with voices stating "Do we need to rush it like this?" The result of it all came down to "I don't know, let's just do it." (laughs) Somehow, the GazettE has always been like that from the very beginning. For the first time we had been playing Tokyo International Forum, the first time we had been playing AX; it was like being mentally hungry for the things we thought impossible and going with that. Eventually, it has always been like that and that was, what we talked about with everyone.]
-- Actually, even as you have come this far, it is still a very narrow field in which people know about the success of the GazettE, right? It is not like a band that has been standing on the stage of TOKYO DOME is going to be accepted in a wider field automatically. Accordingly, isn't letting people know (about the GazettE) thoroughly, part of the motivation as well? Personally, this is what I imagine it to be.
Ruki [There is certainly this reality that, even if there wasn't this kind of motivation. Simply, when we actually decided on playing there, we did think about how the view of people would change eventually, and we did move on, being aware of the things concerning what we could be doing on that stage. (We thought about), what we could be doing, based on the fact that many other artists groups had been performing on the stage of TOKYO DOME until now. As for the timing this time, we will be playing right after LUNA SEA, don't we? And as that we would like to do something incredible in this position. Eventually, for us, the number of people we are able to mobilize is nothing we can just do. All we can do is make great songs. However I think this is still different from simply seeking to make songs that would gather as many people as possible there. Because this is not supposed to become a story about how much we change ourselves. Therefore, as for the things we can do either way, is busy ourselves and do what we can. I think it would be good if "we are understood by the people around us", concerning that.]
-- I see. Certainly, I think that the GazettE is aiming to be liked by just anyone. Even though that probably makes it sound bad.
Ruki [Ah, but we think like that, too. It certainly is like that.]
-- However, no matter what the preferences are, it's about being recognized. You wouldn't be negating that there is this kind of desire, would you?
Ruki [No I wouldn’t. That's something that's important. When I first learned about Visual-kei, I started out with the feeling "Woah, this is weird! “ However, I also remember the moment, when my feelings towards this changed from "What's this?" to "This is cool! “ Well, the time is different now, and it doesn't mean that things are taken in the same as they were back then... For example once, there was a time when Visual-kei CDs sold like an explosion, but then recently the charts are a battle about selling well or not, aren't they?]
-- Yeah. It is like racing with the technology for the sake of consumption.
Ruki [I think that a battle in that place is rather meaningless and something a bit different. Also, we can't keep up with the pros in the end. For example, when I first got to know LUNA SEA, and even though they had been on the top of the charts, they were different, which is why they fascinated me. And I think this position is still open today. We, ourselves, are intending to work our hardest towards that, yet, if we were to go with this kind of flow in our fields, it would be troublesome and rather mortifying, wouldn't it?]
-- Even more so since TOKYO DOME is a place where only "success" is forgiven and whatever it takes to achieve this success.
Ruki [Yeah. Somehow, even before "02" of the tour started, I somehow came to think that I would like this band to have a color it hadn't had before. Concerning the set and the lighting and such. When I thought about, what kind of color I would like the GazettE to show, I thought that this should be regardless of the Visual-kei (background). Yet, with it still being Visual-kei as it is.]
-- Including it not being just and overdone performance?
Ruki [The lasers we came to use are probably a result of that. We wanted to make use of something that usually isn't used like that by Visual-kei bands, but not just half heartedly but exhausting it fully. I hoped that in our case, people would say that "if GazettE does it, it's cool", when doing it. And of course it was meant to also include the "Rock-aspect". the GazettE is after all a rock band and that was a real must...Actually, for the "01" part of the tour, we did it with a more gothic appeal to begin with, however, it was that we came to think that it was maybe a little different. To put it differently, it showed us, what we had to do it differently in the next (step). Therefore, even though we had intended to use about the same staging for "01" and "02", we urgently came to change that. It was very motivating to change this in real time, too and we came to do something that hasn't been done by anyone anywhere else before. We wanted to make this a scene that no one would forget. This is not just about the aggression (during the live) or the "mood / rhythm" of it. After all, when playing on a big stage like that of TOKYO DOME, eventually, rather than the five people on stage, people's views often go to the screens, don't they?]
-- Certainly. Originally you would like the views of all people to go to the stage.
Ruki [That is one thing and I would also like to make the whole venue become much like a rave. Not like being divided into the stage being the stage and the seats being the seats. I wonder how far we can do this by using DOME. I thought that this is one place I would really want to create an unforgettable scene at first, when challenging it for real. Naturally, when you think of doing something as daring and try doing something unprecedented, quarrels come up. It is not really a thing to fight over yet there were so many things I wanted to do that I was told weren't possible. Yet, I wouldn't give in just saying "it can't be helped", and wanted to know the reasons behind it. I wanted to comprehend what it takes to make it happen. Like, if it was OK when being in the budget and such. I didn't want to leave these things unanswered.]
-- This seems to be the kind of fight that repeats itself throughout the history of the GazettE, doesn't it?
Ruki [It does. However, doing this, it is because we are working hard on grasping on to some kind of new sensation right now. Whenever we are completing the things of one tour at the end of it, something is different the next. For example, when it came to the stage entry for the "02" part of the tour, while having this imagine in our heads, there were things where we thought that they wouldn't be possible as we imagined them to be. Yet, when we came to see what we had mapped out in our mind having become real on stage, we had been feeling a shiver running down the spine on our own set for the first time in a long time. Certainly, we have to do things thoroughly, so we can honestly think of ourselves as a cool band. If it's not like that, it's meaningless.]
-- This is the same, when it comes to music, right?
Ruki [It is. For example, during the time of "DIM", while our enthusiasm was kind of low at that time, we wanted to do something definite for this album. Something that would be described as dark. This was also included in the tour and we realized something that was fresh for us as well...and we did that anew when it came to making "SHIVER".]
-- I can just agree to these words. Making "SHIVER", making "RED", they are overflowing with strength. It seems there is nothing you were lost about.
Ruki [No. After all there is what we perceive as a "cool band" isn't there? We have pursued this the whole time until "DIM". "This band has to do this kind of song and this band needs to do these things". That's what was there at first. However, we came back to the position in which we would think about what would be cool and what we eventually wanted to show ourselves....... It's kind of weird, while Visual-kei is kind of a closed scene, there are lots of exciting things about it, aren’t there? Yet to understand these good points ourselves, we had to realize the importance of turning outside and see how to show this that way. Back in the day, I really hated anything that was like pop.]
-- You mean the things that the record companies would want as a potential single song, right?
Ruki [That's still the same these days, though. (laughs) However, when looking at it from the angle of "conveying or not conveying", it is not like I don't want people to understand eventually. Yet, while thoroughly portraying our own style, I think this is all we can do. After all, the people in a record company are all normal people, too, aren't they? This also means that not all of them know really everything about music either. They are all people who just want to make "songs that sell". I was wondering to what extent we could get their agreement when making songs like we do with lyrics like ours. That's the key to it, I think. Because I am trying out to what extent I can do (what I want), is why I get into fights with them, ever since we moved (to Sony). (laughs)]
-- You do? I thought that the single you released after you had been moving was extremely easy to understand in parts.
Ruki [Even so I was told that it was hard to understand, still. (laughs) Like, I was advised to write this as if it was an e-mail that was written on the phone. And it is not like that person would have been especially touched at heart by words like that; it was just, because that was the kind of thing that was selling. However, at the same time, that person didn't know anything about Visual-kei, yet I knew that they were learning about it. Hence, I think it was a first step to conveying things to this kind of "outsider", getting their consent and taking this into account.]
-- On top of calculating the whole scene, it is good if you could find a common standard, right?
Ruki [Yeah. Right now we have been doing a number of experiments within our music and there have been good results as well, yet there are certainly some that aren't. (laughs) Moreover, I think there are also times, when we think too much about the balance of things. Like feeling the need to make a very heavy song after having released a ballad. I think it would be OK if we don't get too tied up with this kind of fixed balance either. Therefore, maybe, when looking at what we are doing now, I think I remember the resistance that would have been there with our earlier selves. However, when being too particular about things like that, you just can't move on. I think it is necessary to break down this kind of frame and just have to move on to something I think would be even cooler. Of course there are also fields where you have to stay true to your principles. Be it the lyrics or the feeling of the chords, there are fields, where you'd wonder where it went. Eventually, I hate it when it becomes neither one nor the other. Heavy stuff has to be thoroughly heavy as such. There has to be this kind of rebel spirit to it.]
-- That is the part you shouldn't miss out on even though you become a band that played at DOME, right?
Ruki [Or to say it in the opposite way, because we are a band playing at DOME we shouldn't lose that (kind of spirit). Since the stage of DOME is the one place we wanted to stand on since we were kids, there would be no meaning to it, if we stood on that same stage not thinking of us as being cool with it.]
-- That's totally understandable. And one thing I believe is that if there was a song that was undisputable seen as a signature song, the GazettE would become even stronger. To say it in an extreme way, if even people looking at the GazettE from the outside without having a special interest, but like that one certain song.
Ruki [I understand. For example in our case, the existence of ballads are kind of extreme. The chance by which they can be listened to, are also extremely different (from the usual). Until now it had been "Cassis" and "Guren". In December 2010 the ballad "PLEDGE" will be released and we wanted to make it something different from those (others). With that I wanted to make it something the previously mentioned record company representative would say "wow" to, because I think that if he wasn't affirming with it, it wouldn't lead to a reaction either when normal people would listen to it. However, of course first and foremost it also has to be something that we think about as the best we can do, too. After all, we want to spread the things and have them understood as what we think is cool. Back in the days, it was just that only the people that "knew" would eventually understand (what it was all about). However, now, we also want people to understand, that usually don't know (what it is about). We couldn't be satisfied with songs otherwise. ... Yet we didn't want to make something anyone could write, nor something that would be the usual J-POP ballad. First of all we wanted to make an awesome rock ballad. It was supposed to be a
ballad yet bringing things across in the rock (music) kind of way.]
-- And as a result "PLEDGE" can be seen as this kind of signature song.
Ruki [If it does, that's fine. That's the wish I have. I wanted to make a song without regret. Honestly, "Cassis" was a song I had regrets about. I hated how this one song was what we were told was "the GazettE". That's why the next songs where so heavy. However, if "PLEDGE" became this kind of signature song, I wouldn't see it as a problem. I can show this off with self-confidence.]
-- I have come to look forward to TOKYO DOME more and more. And of course to the things that follow.
Ruki [This might be kind of sudden, but I really think that B'z way of doing it, is really awesome. Among the people playing at DOME they are the ones doing it with utmost conviction. They are certainly the people one can see as someone doing the real ROCK among people. I think the same about the revival of sads, too. It's what you feel is rock music, they are the real players. I probably think this because I like Kiyoharu-san, though. (laughs) When I watch him the feeling of excitement is kind of different. They are not simply a band that got back together again. Just looking at one of his pictures, it just immediately makes me think how awesome it is. That people like him are here like that now is something very stimulating for us. And it would be no good if we as the Gazette could not reach past these sempais of ours at some point.]
-- Yeah. It would be simply losing to those who have reunited again.
Ruki [Eventually, Visual-kei isn't some industrial standard. There would be no meaning to us, if we just lost to the people from a different time that returned now. There are so many amazing sempais of ours. Previously, when I went to see Yoshii Kazuya-san for the first time, there was something that struck me ever since I saw a foreign live first. DEAD END were like that, too. It feels a bit like wondering what "god-like people would be like", though. (laughs) Like this kind of awesomeness. However, I don't think it is too favorable if we ourselves still keep wondering about these kinds of things. It seems that if we were to sit back in this position, the things we were reaching out to had been different. As I said, I do not want to become this kind of celebrity. There are people who act too much upon being a celebrity...I don't want to liven-up the sports news paper and I don't need to appear in ground-wave TV shows either. I want to exist as someone, who can release this one real record.]
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
PS: I am thinking of doing Reita's R&R intefview fom 2007, but I might squeeze some newer interview in between and I also have an eye on Sadie Aki's interview from R&R #033 just because it's REALLY interesting! >.<)m So let's see what my schedule allows me to do next :DDDD