WHAT's IN February 2011 - ken interview
The last one ^^V
This time is ken-san looking over present and past
Subtitle (mine):
WEIRD FACES
Here it is.
More and more flexible, there’s no critical point to his curiosity. Intuition and experience. Subjectivity and objectivity. A guitarist and a composer. Self-controlled, he can enjoy at the same time several elements. He’s enjoying his own everyday changes. So, more and more interesting.
This ken will talk about “TWENITY” and “FIVE LIVE ARCHIVES 2”, his own changes, L’Arc~en~Ciel’s 20th year.
---Looking at your 3-discs best compilation, where do you feel you changed your way of writing?
kIt has changed gradually, since several things happened during each song and time. Before joining L’Arc~en~Ciel, I was composing songs without thinking to have a huge audience, just like: “I like composing songs, I like playing guitar, and that’s all” (laugh). I didn’t worry about what could happen or what I could do after making songs, I was making songs only because I liked it. “Voice”, the first song in “TWENITY 1991-1996” was composed in this way. It’s a song I composed before I joined L’Arc~en~Ciel. After joining, I thought for the first time: “Ah, my songs will reach people” . “As if in a dream” was only a motif before I joined the band, it became a song after that. Instead, I think I composed songs like “White feathers” and “Vivid Colors” after I joined L’Arc~en~Ciel. After that, I thought: “the relationship between people that make songs and people that listen to them is like that… I understand… ahh it’s wonderful”.
---Even if you knew how pleasant was reaching audience during lives, writing songs was maybe more pleasant, as usual?
kYes, it was like that as usual, but there was something in me that underwent several changes, after all. In the beginning, I sometimes composed songs with the impression that I was letting out my sensations. It’s still like that, but recently, practising guitar a little more, I’ve come to think that I want to see what comes out with exercise, and that I want to write, to listen to a song composed in this way.
--- I’ve the impression that many songs ken-san composed in “TWENITY 1997-1999” are medium [tempo] songs.
kI don’t know which speed can be defined medium, but I remember that, surely, when I was composing “Kasou” or “fate”, their tempo gave me a good feeling. I was fascinated by that tempo, and I felt good only listening to it.
--- In these 20 years, there was something else you liked?
kAt the time of “Niji”, arpeggio. Then, but in a period different from this album, strings.
---Coming to “TWENITY 2000-2010”, any change?
kIt’s quite recent, but there’s a hard change in composing songs. I’ve added the software of a synthesizer to my PC, and I’ve got used to work with it. Before that the work was recording with synthesizer, saving and then doing it again together with that, but now it can be saved in one shot. Now I can put out quickly the sound I have in my head in a shape more similar to it. That is considerably great to myself. I felt I could pursue more romance in the synthesizer. “MY HEART DRAWS A DREAM” was made in the middle of this.
---What do you think about LIVE DVD BOX “FIVE LIVE ARCHIVES 2”?
kIn the past, before a release, I was checking images a lot. So, at the release time, I knew, or I thought to know it perfectly. Since we are still working on it, I did only little check. About shots of myself, I said to the staff: “Tell me if I was doing a weird face” and “Because if I watch it, I won’t enjoy it. Look only for weird faces”. Even for this LIVE DVD BOX, I’ve only checked weird faces, then, watching it for the first time on the release date, 30th March, I will enjoy it with: “ooh…”. It’s the same also in the case of cds like the best compilation we were talking about before, I always look forward to watching and listening to them only after they have been completed. I think I want to enjoy them in the same mood as fans: “ooh…its’ fresh!”
---A person from staff shows you images saying: “ken-san, here is a weird face. What do you think? ”?
kYeah (laugh). Suppose they show me five weird faces. Among them, sometimes there are faces I think to be ok. Staff person asks: “Hey, ken-san, isn’t it a weird face?” I answer: “No, no, no, it’s a good intoxicated [by music]face”. This kind of check (laugh).
---It seems that the history of weird faces can be seen in the BOX.
k There’s a history about weird faces…(laugh). In the past, I didn’t like smiling faces. Even now, it’s quite the same, but in the past I really disliked it. I thought: smiling like that is no good. I didn’t know why, for some reason I didn’t liked it. Half way through, the maximum permissible level of smiling has increased, and slowly I’ve started to use it. Once…maybe I’ve started to notice it with eyes enjoying the live, and not checking the images. For example, maybe I have decided my point of view. Well, usually there’s only one pattern. It’s really a waste… Besides, also the releases of works are relatively a lot. If it’s so, it’s possible that I feel like watching various pattern of myself. Maybe, if I kept always saying: “Cut, cut the smiling face!”, I would remain without knowing a part of myself. If I stop that, the myself I don’t know will come up. If I watch it relaxing myself, I will probably understand another good point of the live, and maybe it will be possible to see also a funny scene of the performance. I think I’ve come to such a feeling.
---Are you aware of the fact that you have become able to overlook yourself?
k Yeah, somehow… images of live, to me, are something more private. But I think that I enjoy watching them and I’m happy. Of course, I’m wearing an outfit and I have hair and make-up done, but now, without thinking that it’s because there’s a shooting, I’m only playing with utmost effort. Because I’m doing a performance, it’s a natural mode, different from the one used in a shooting for a music clip or for the jacket [of a cd], isn’t it? If I think that are this kind of images, I like them.
---2011. After a long time, you’ll hold a live as L’Arc~en~Ciel member at the beginning of this year. [*this interview was made in 2010]
k Yes. I’m switching the conversation to equipment, but I’ll play with a new guitar, a new amplifier, a new effector, and I’m excited. Since rehearsal, a little bit… well, I feel I’m doing it in excitement.
---Inside yourself, somehow … you bought a new equipment because you wanted to switch it on and change?
k A sort of, but also in these 20 years, the equipment has changed rapidly. With several timing. Sometimes I wanted to play with this guitar, to use that amplifier, or in order to play this genre, in order to make that song. There are really so many timing. This time, the first cause was the good condition and the renewal of my guitar. After that, by chance, when I went to the shop, I found a good amplifier, too. With this new combination, thinking of new speakers, I bought them. I’d like to play soon with them and I look forward to listening to their sound at the live.