燦~san~ Interview - Isshi
" I myself may be searching for the thing called 'light' "
In last month's interview, the album title 燦~san~ was a symbol for "light". That was the sole answer you lead us to when you were finally making this album, Isshi-kun, and there was a story then, right?
Isshi: Certainly, this time it's a work in which we depict various things and various songs, but as you expect, when we compiled it into one album, the words we use to express that are crucial. Ahh, which also includes the meaning of that word used as the title. So, when I look again at the lyrics of each track, I guess I wonder if the part about that 'light' is communicated.
When you were making each track, that's...
Isshi: I wasn't entirely conscious of it.
Is that so. To that extent, when you were writing "Genei no Katachi" last year, it didn't seem like an album vision all the same. But, you diligently included it here didn't you? It's a verse of 'light'.
Isshi: Yes, that's right. Well, I think so anyway. This time I'm constantly thinking 'What will I write? What will I express?' so in short, it might be 'Something I search for myself'. That thing called 'light'.
I see. Incidentally, due to the tracks this time, all the songs had a story of various points of view on things like your past self and your current self, but for example the idea of "If that's my past self I'll write like this" is something that is born from inside of you right?
Isshi: When done from an objective point of view, my old self and current self are different, just as you'd expect.
That's, ahh, that's the case for everyone isn't it? Like it or not.
Isshi: When I look back, I think things like 'This kind of thing was probably better in the past than now.' And so, while I look hard at such things to fix them, I just mean that if I was the me from that time I wouldn't have written these things, or written with this kind of feeling.
So it was like that?
Isshi: I often listen to our old recordings, and look at our old photos. But naturally, it's lower quality than now so I say "Hmmm" quite often. (wry smile) But it's just that there's the past and there's now, right?
Going on from that point, which lyrics this time did you write while thinking most about the past?
Isshi: Ahh, maybe "Oni wo Awaremu Uta"? I had nothing in mind but 'me around my high school days' while writing it. Furthermore, it's that kind of literary style.
And you were a considerably mature high school student right? (wry smile)
Isshi: Originally, I didn't much like writing love or romance. But I like writing such things more now.
Conversely, the one that is a projection of your most recent self is "Satsuki" right?
Isshi: Right. As an extension of myself up to now, can I say it was easy to understand how to write it?
Despite that, with regards to the words, the aesthetic sense truly seems like you, Isshi.
Isshi: If it was me a little before now, even just in the case of kanji, I'd purposely write them in hiragana*(1) you know? But that's me thinking about the design as I look at the content.
In these lyrics, there's the verse "My voice doesn't reach you" but if this is your current mental state... something you're sending out now, Isshi, surely your voice should be reaching people right? I'm thinking along the lines of 'What kind of daily dilemmas do you feel in this area?'
Isshi: How do you mean? For me, the feeling isn't particularly a certain meaning like 'I want to reach you!' Instead, if pushed I'd say it's more like "Ahh, aren't you listening?" (laughs)
Again, that's a fairly light mood isn't it?
Isshi: But it isn't that I wrote these lyrics with my mood as it is. Because this is a story, too.
Is that what you're calling it?
Isshi: "White hands" were in the video right? That's kind of a girl's sense that appears.
And therefore they're painful feelings like that, I see.
Isshi: Well, if we're talking about the lyrics, this time the exquisite one is "Boufura," I think.
I also understood the explanation for all the songs to be a story, but the lyrics for this one are scary and unpleasant aren't they? However, are you depicting a person with a drug addiction?
Isshi: Shin said, "Write some painful lyrics." So, because death is something that humans are always thinking about, I thought 'There's nothing like the pain one feels in the place between life or death'. And I thought, 'If that's not it, then what's painful?' So there it was.
It's delicate realism, and scary.
Isshi: Because it's practically what I saw in such people, in the past.
That is, did you lose your temper a little when you were in Nagano, Isshi?
Isshi: Nope, after I came here.
Ehh?!
Isshi: That's right, there are people who are obviously awful. But then, ahh, it's even in things like television documentaries that I watched.
Even in movies, such as Angelina Jolie's Gia and Johnny Depp's Blow, there are various works recently that depict indulging in drugs as a tragic end.
Isshi: I wonder if it isn't because it's scary that they can't quit. Even though they'll enter some place like a rehab facility, it seems useless for 70% of people. After all, if they lose everything there's nothing left but to die, so that becomes "I'll do it once more before I die."
I don't even have words.
Isshi: It's so scary, more painful than anything. I don't know others aside from cocaine or marijuana, but people abandon their life and personality to such things. But I think it isn't the case that when they lose such things humans become unable to do anything else, you know?
Moving on. For "Murakumo" as a band there were things you wanted to say which were said at the outset, so this is a declaration of will for Kagrra, from this point onward right?
Isshi: That's exactly right! Formerly, around the time of X and LUNA SEA, Visual Kei was a cool thing, but before anybody noticed, Visual Kei has become a gag, or if I say more, I wonder if it isn't something that is looked down on.
Reality sure is sad, isn't it?
Isshi: Because eventually, for our followers after that, the people who left didn't understand the subject matter, but that's just what I think.
To say that Visual Kei ＝ Gaudy Style is a trivial matter, because it's a common recognition that was attributed to that period, right?
Isshi: In other words, we're surely doing it in that vortex.
Harsh, isn't it?
Isshi: According to people who don't know anything, they may think of us like "Ah, I just wanna put on makeup and stand out," but, from now on we have to prove that isn't the case!
Though when viewed on the surface you have a complete fixation with it, as Kagrra, you have the attitude of placing importance on the music itself more than anything else. I think that's how this album really appears.
Isshi: I think so too. Besides, when I say it my way, it's not that what I'm finally aiming for is to cast off my human self, is it?
You said a long time ago that you want to be an Oni. Is that what you mean?
Isshi: Yeah. That's something that really doesn't change, and since I work on music while I have such thoughts, in this state I've differentiated Visual Kei from what people think and I don't have it in mind to change this style. And on this point, I wonder if it's not just music anymore but the method of making the music itself, that's the issue.
Going along with that Isshi, your slightly negative spirituality is reflected in your lyrics this time I think it's in "Meguru." So far just "Sou" and "Metsu" and the like were revealed to be melancholy, and as I thought this feels like it too.
Isshi: But, with this one I was wishing "Will it be okay to have it like this?"
Does that have the meaning of wishing for the cycle of death and rebirth?
Isshi: Yes... yeah. Well, I think actually it's something that came to me fairly recently. Even when bizarre phenomena happen, I'm thinking about things like that in those cases.
...what does that mean??
Isshi: This actually just happened yesterday. In my house. So, my house is 2 floors and I have to go downstairs to go to the toilet. When I returned upstairs a while after, to go back to work, there was an ice-cold beer placed on my desk.
Ehh... but you were living alone weren't you, Isshi? Even if you're living with your Dogs*(2).
Isshi: Certainly, I always keep the beer itself in my fridge. But, I know that I definitely didn't take it out myself, and there's nobody else other than me, and it was so cold that it could only have been just taken out. (wry smile)
What?!
Isshi: What I thought right away was, "Crap! I've got a stalker in my home!"
If that was the case, I'd say, that's more scary than it being a kind of spirit. Couldn't they be carrying something strange like a lethal weapon?
Isshi: Well, I checked all over my house and there was no sign of human presence, and when I looked the door was locked, and the windows were closed!
So that means...
Isshi: It's likely to be "that kind of thing" isn't it? When I think about it now, there was something like a white heat haze in my home for the first time this year, it looked like mist. My dogs were staring into empty space and crying 'uuuun!'
Waah~
Isshi: That's right, but it doesn't seem particularly scary to me, you know? Anyway, you might call it a 'miracle' but surprisingly I've had a feeling kind of like that recently.
Ahh, if the thing that happened doesn't cause harm itself, it's not scary right? Instead, it feels like a friendly nuance, like "Ahh, drink up!" (laughs)
Isshi: That's right. Therefore, it's in fact a lot like "Meguru."
Maybe there are spiritual waves swelling up within you now, Isshi?
Isshi: That's also right. More and more, I'm getting closer to things that are not human. (laughs)
In that regard, the album "燦~san~" is truly a work where various stories, settings, and scenes are depicted. How is your feedback for it now, Isshi?
Isshi: All of the work I do, and moreover, the meaning of what I sing coming together with the lyrics I write, I feel like now I'm getting closer to the nature of Kagrra,. As a vocalist I think I sang freely without being overly enthusiastic. At the same time, the next was already in sight as we were making this.
You certainly don't feel exhausted here, do you? If you can do so many things, I think you'll complete your work with the expectation that "The next should be even better."
Isshi: Yes, that's right. Ahhh but I don't mean 'It'd be good to do that' so much as it distinctly feels like 'I wanna do the next one this way!' Whether we can get that is also a big thing.
Isshi: Certainly, this time it's a work in which we depict various things and various songs, but as you expect, when we compiled it into one album, the words we use to express that are crucial. Ahh, which also includes the meaning of that word used as the title. So, when I look again at the lyrics of each track, I guess I wonder if the part about that 'light' is communicated.
When you were making each track, that's...
Isshi: I wasn't entirely conscious of it.
Is that so. To that extent, when you were writing "Genei no Katachi" last year, it didn't seem like an album vision all the same. But, you diligently included it here didn't you? It's a verse of 'light'.
Isshi: Yes, that's right. Well, I think so anyway. This time I'm constantly thinking 'What will I write? What will I express?' so in short, it might be 'Something I search for myself'. That thing called 'light'.
I see. Incidentally, due to the tracks this time, all the songs had a story of various points of view on things like your past self and your current self, but for example the idea of "If that's my past self I'll write like this" is something that is born from inside of you right?
Isshi: When done from an objective point of view, my old self and current self are different, just as you'd expect.
That's, ahh, that's the case for everyone isn't it? Like it or not.
Isshi: When I look back, I think things like 'This kind of thing was probably better in the past than now.' And so, while I look hard at such things to fix them, I just mean that if I was the me from that time I wouldn't have written these things, or written with this kind of feeling.
So it was like that?
Isshi: I often listen to our old recordings, and look at our old photos. But naturally, it's lower quality than now so I say "Hmmm" quite often. (wry smile) But it's just that there's the past and there's now, right?
Going on from that point, which lyrics this time did you write while thinking most about the past?
Isshi: Ahh, maybe "Oni wo Awaremu Uta"? I had nothing in mind but 'me around my high school days' while writing it. Furthermore, it's that kind of literary style.
And you were a considerably mature high school student right? (wry smile)
Isshi: Originally, I didn't much like writing love or romance. But I like writing such things more now.
Conversely, the one that is a projection of your most recent self is "Satsuki" right?
Isshi: Right. As an extension of myself up to now, can I say it was easy to understand how to write it?
Despite that, with regards to the words, the aesthetic sense truly seems like you, Isshi.
Isshi: If it was me a little before now, even just in the case of kanji, I'd purposely write them in hiragana*(1) you know? But that's me thinking about the design as I look at the content.
In these lyrics, there's the verse "My voice doesn't reach you" but if this is your current mental state... something you're sending out now, Isshi, surely your voice should be reaching people right? I'm thinking along the lines of 'What kind of daily dilemmas do you feel in this area?'
Isshi: How do you mean? For me, the feeling isn't particularly a certain meaning like 'I want to reach you!' Instead, if pushed I'd say it's more like "Ahh, aren't you listening?" (laughs)
Again, that's a fairly light mood isn't it?
Isshi: But it isn't that I wrote these lyrics with my mood as it is. Because this is a story, too.
Is that what you're calling it?
Isshi: "White hands" were in the video right? That's kind of a girl's sense that appears.
And therefore they're painful feelings like that, I see.
Isshi: Well, if we're talking about the lyrics, this time the exquisite one is "Boufura," I think.
I also understood the explanation for all the songs to be a story, but the lyrics for this one are scary and unpleasant aren't they? However, are you depicting a person with a drug addiction?
Isshi: Shin said, "Write some painful lyrics." So, because death is something that humans are always thinking about, I thought 'There's nothing like the pain one feels in the place between life or death'. And I thought, 'If that's not it, then what's painful?' So there it was.
It's delicate realism, and scary.
Isshi: Because it's practically what I saw in such people, in the past.
That is, did you lose your temper a little when you were in Nagano, Isshi?
Isshi: Nope, after I came here.
Ehh?!
Isshi: That's right, there are people who are obviously awful. But then, ahh, it's even in things like television documentaries that I watched.
Even in movies, such as Angelina Jolie's Gia and Johnny Depp's Blow, there are various works recently that depict indulging in drugs as a tragic end.
Isshi: I wonder if it isn't because it's scary that they can't quit. Even though they'll enter some place like a rehab facility, it seems useless for 70% of people. After all, if they lose everything there's nothing left but to die, so that becomes "I'll do it once more before I die."
I don't even have words.
Isshi: It's so scary, more painful than anything. I don't know others aside from cocaine or marijuana, but people abandon their life and personality to such things. But I think it isn't the case that when they lose such things humans become unable to do anything else, you know?
Moving on. For "Murakumo" as a band there were things you wanted to say which were said at the outset, so this is a declaration of will for Kagrra, from this point onward right?
Isshi: That's exactly right! Formerly, around the time of X and LUNA SEA, Visual Kei was a cool thing, but before anybody noticed, Visual Kei has become a gag, or if I say more, I wonder if it isn't something that is looked down on.
Reality sure is sad, isn't it?
Isshi: Because eventually, for our followers after that, the people who left didn't understand the subject matter, but that's just what I think.
To say that Visual Kei ＝ Gaudy Style is a trivial matter, because it's a common recognition that was attributed to that period, right?
Isshi: In other words, we're surely doing it in that vortex.
Harsh, isn't it?
Isshi: According to people who don't know anything, they may think of us like "Ah, I just wanna put on makeup and stand out," but, from now on we have to prove that isn't the case!
Though when viewed on the surface you have a complete fixation with it, as Kagrra, you have the attitude of placing importance on the music itself more than anything else. I think that's how this album really appears.
Isshi: I think so too. Besides, when I say it my way, it's not that what I'm finally aiming for is to cast off my human self, is it?
You said a long time ago that you want to be an Oni. Is that what you mean?
Isshi: Yeah. That's something that really doesn't change, and since I work on music while I have such thoughts, in this state I've differentiated Visual Kei from what people think and I don't have it in mind to change this style. And on this point, I wonder if it's not just music anymore but the method of making the music itself, that's the issue.
Going along with that Isshi, your slightly negative spirituality is reflected in your lyrics this time I think it's in "Meguru." So far just "Sou" and "Metsu" and the like were revealed to be melancholy, and as I thought this feels like it too.
Isshi: But, with this one I was wishing "Will it be okay to have it like this?"
Does that have the meaning of wishing for the cycle of death and rebirth?
Isshi: Yes... yeah. Well, I think actually it's something that came to me fairly recently. Even when bizarre phenomena happen, I'm thinking about things like that in those cases.
...what does that mean??
Isshi: This actually just happened yesterday. In my house. So, my house is 2 floors and I have to go downstairs to go to the toilet. When I returned upstairs a while after, to go back to work, there was an ice-cold beer placed on my desk.
Ehh... but you were living alone weren't you, Isshi? Even if you're living with your Dogs*(2).
Isshi: Certainly, I always keep the beer itself in my fridge. But, I know that I definitely didn't take it out myself, and there's nobody else other than me, and it was so cold that it could only have been just taken out. (wry smile)
What?!
Isshi: What I thought right away was, "Crap! I've got a stalker in my home!"
If that was the case, I'd say, that's more scary than it being a kind of spirit. Couldn't they be carrying something strange like a lethal weapon?
Isshi: Well, I checked all over my house and there was no sign of human presence, and when I looked the door was locked, and the windows were closed!
So that means...
Isshi: It's likely to be "that kind of thing" isn't it? When I think about it now, there was something like a white heat haze in my home for the first time this year, it looked like mist. My dogs were staring into empty space and crying 'uuuun!'
Waah~
Isshi: That's right, but it doesn't seem particularly scary to me, you know? Anyway, you might call it a 'miracle' but surprisingly I've had a feeling kind of like that recently.
Ahh, if the thing that happened doesn't cause harm itself, it's not scary right? Instead, it feels like a friendly nuance, like "Ahh, drink up!" (laughs)
Isshi: That's right. Therefore, it's in fact a lot like "Meguru."
Maybe there are spiritual waves swelling up within you now, Isshi?
Isshi: That's also right. More and more, I'm getting closer to things that are not human. (laughs)
In that regard, the album "燦~san~" is truly a work where various stories, settings, and scenes are depicted. How is your feedback for it now, Isshi?
Isshi: All of the work I do, and moreover, the meaning of what I sing coming together with the lyrics I write, I feel like now I'm getting closer to the nature of Kagrra,. As a vocalist I think I sang freely without being overly enthusiastic. At the same time, the next was already in sight as we were making this.
You certainly don't feel exhausted here, do you? If you can do so many things, I think you'll complete your work with the expectation that "The next should be even better."
Isshi: Yes, that's right. Ahhh but I don't mean 'It'd be good to do that' so much as it distinctly feels like 'I wanna do the next one this way!' Whether we can get that is also a big thing.
Notes:
*1 = "hiragana" was written in kanji (平仮名)... of course.
*2 = I wrote Dogs with a capital D because the interviewer used very respectful language お犬様 (o-inu-sama). Some things just don't translate as well as I'd like them to.
The beer can story was actually written in Isshi's book, Onkai!
*1 = "hiragana" was written in kanji (平仮名)... of course.
*2 = I wrote Dogs with a capital D because the interviewer used very respectful language お犬様 (o-inu-sama). Some things just don't translate as well as I'd like them to.
The beer can story was actually written in Isshi's book, Onkai!