Translated from Pakila Music, 2007.11.29
Original Text: Tomonori Nakazawa.
Following "SPELL MAGIC" and "Black Cherry", releasing their third single on 11/29, is Acid Black Cherry. They also appeared at a free show in Yoyogi Park in July. Being that the performance was broadcast on television, one would suppose that there are a lot of people who know about Acid Black Cherry.
Once again, please listen carefully to what yasu has to say.
Just as soon as you released "SPELL MAGIC" and "Black Cherry", you also decided to announce your third single, "Aishitenai".
I really didn't think I was releasing them that quickly, even though things got really hectic for me for a while. I'm okay now though. (Laughs.)
This is a song that's really a lot like you, yasu, in that it's showing us the side of yourself that you often showed us in Janne Da Arc, right?!
Isn't it though?! If I don't perform new pieces, and show my originality, while it's true that I'm a solo artist, I really didn't have any intention of doing something different from Janne Da Arc. Certainly, if the person who does the performance on stage changes, then through that change comes the difference musically and in outward appearance. But, it's not that I've changed the essence of who I am in any particular way. Rather, it's that I'm thinking, "While I have this chance, right now, I should put all of myself into what I can do at the moment."
This time, your line-up of musicians includes AKIHIDE (BREAKERZ) on guitar, SHUSE-san on bass, and Kozo Suganuma-san on drums. You've really come together, especially in terms of the rhythm section.
Though it's a very heartfelt song, I've really been able to bring together musicians who can make their instruments come forward in a big way, as far as rhythm is concerned. Thanks to them, despite the song being a rather gentle piece, it really turned out well, didn't it?
This "Aishitenai", did you not perform it on stage first?!
With Acid Black Cherry, we don't really have the live schedule where we're doing songs because we're making them into singles, and performing them because we announced that they are. I perform the songs I've written live, and then based on the reaction I get from them there, that's what makes me decide to make them into singles. Something like that, I may be able to say, makes me the happiest of all. Though, since I have that kind of tie-up, the kind of songs where I just try writing something like this or that is absolutely a good thing as well, though. As expected from the person who is actually writing the pieces, maybe it's that a certain piece of music I've written gets caught up in something, and moreso than just the various restrictions that I have, that sort of tie-in that I have in my head is what causes me, in many different ways, to change a piece into what it finally becomes in the end...? In this way or that way, it becomes something that expresses itself in an enjoyable way, and I really
don't have any intention of denying that--and then it becomes a piece that I decide I'd like to perform on stage.
So, with "Aishitenai", you're releasing it because it got a lot of positive support from the fans.
Our free live in Yoyogi in July was broadcast on TV, was it not? You could say that the reaction from that was huge, as well.
Since you were able to see the reactions on the Pakila Janne Da Arc community, as well as the various impressions that people here have written on blogs and the like regarding your appearance, right?
Even though it was only broadcast once, there were people who taped it to be able to watch it over and over again, and I myself was watching people several times when I was backstage, and to me it seemed as if there were a lot of people who actually came to see us who were on film in the broadcast. When I say it seemed like there were, since I couldn't actually see around, being backstage, that impression came from all the voices I could hear outside.
At that time, if I remember correctly, you performed six original songs (out of seven in the performance).
Even though I'm not performing any more than six songs at the lives I'm doing now, out of those, three have now become singles (Laughs). Though I'm sure that the people who actually go to the shows want to hear new songs, since I'm starting work on an album to be released next spring at the moment, I really just want to get people who go to the shows yelling and excited...
Of course, we're looking forward to that. This may be a question you get asked a lot, but as is true with these three singles, as with your time in Janne Da Arc, you've written a lot of songs from a female point of view. Why do you do that?!
Ah...why do I write in a female perspective...I suppose people say, "Is it because he's actually gay?!" or something (Laughs). Really, I don't understand myself in any profound way why I do, though. Probably, though, since in my case I'm writing songs from the tune first, those kind of lyrics call out to me, I think. Especially in regard to "SPELL MAGIC" and "Black Cherry", I really like the dimension of contrast that there is there—a hard sounding song, contrasted with the pretty word usage associated with women. But, there are also a lot of songs I've written in Janne Da Arc that are from a female perspective as well...but since I wasn't really aware that I was doing it at the time, I'll just say that this is just an analysis of my own style than anything else, so is that okay with you?!
Go ahead, go ahead.
For example, if I were to write in a male perspective, I get worried that it will just be nothing more than a "true representation of myself". So, in the way that it can serve to hide my shame, so to speak, writing from a female perspective has that part to it that makes it not me anymore.
Ah, of course...
And then, if there's a man speaking in the lyrics and he comes off as effeminate, that kind of slates him as a total loser, right? If I write that way, and leave it in a male voice, then that too is worrying in that it somehow is equal to me in some way. Of course, the opposite is true as well, absolutely. It's like, if I were to write something that presents the image of a horribly cruel man, then in some way, that man is me, something like that. Though I suppose that's totally fine in its own way. Nevertheless, if I write as a woman, then it's not me anymore...that aspect, I think, is the main reason why I write this way.
Though it is written in a female perspective, there are many expressions in your work that are overflowing with frankness and a sense of reality. For this reason, I can feel that you can empathize with them.
I think it's something close to when I'm writing lyrics, since in doing that I'm exposing myself in a very real way. Though I suppose coming up with words that fit and don't hold anything back really isn't anything special, though. Since I think that there are a lot of people who want to listen, even if just a little bit, of course I should show people who I really am.
So, I feel once again that you have a strong sense of empathy. This is a bit of a digression, but you're now using your real name, Yasunori Hayashi, with your compositions?
There's no deep significance at all behind me writing under my real name. It's just that, I guess you could say, "Yasunori Hayashi" looks really good is all, and has a nice number of strokes when you write it. I'm not the type to believe in fortune-telling at all, but there's no one who really hates it when you say something like that, is there? It can't hurt. Really, I just wanted to try using it. I don't know if I'll keep writing under my full name for my solo work, but as far as Janne Da Arc is concerned, I'll be writing as 'yasu' from now on.
As far as your solo work goes, do you feel no sense of discomfort with using your real name?!
Actually, when I started solo work, there was talk among us something like, "And if I appear under my real name, then what?!" If it's a cool sounding name, then it works, but in my case, my name is one that you really can't imagine as a musician's name, right? So, for the sake of "Just please, keep it simple", I cut it short. (Laughs.)
So, in "Aishitenai", the heroine, in an attempt to forget about her partner, tells herself that she doesn't love him. But, on the man's side of things, he's still courting her, and as she expects, she can't control her feelings of love for him, and she turns the tables in her thoughts by saying that "More than you feel you "love me", I love you". As the story of "Aishitenai" continues, you've successfully painted the picture of those kinds of paradoxical feelings that go back and forth between extremes.
I think that men and women both hold on to the same feelings. Maybe I can say that their values are the only difference. In a man's case, for the sake of "wanting to live as a man should", no matter how much he clings to a woman, he has no choice but to act tough in front of them. Though, I'm certain that there are women out there who are like that, as well. But, in a woman's case, there's nothing really...embarrassing about clinging to a man like that, is there? As for me, since I don't understand women's feelings in that way, I don't really know for sure if I captured it well.
Though I think you've really captured a woman's feelings well.
It's not like that, though...if I really understand women that well, then I should be really, really well-liked. And anyway, I always say, "The reason why I'm not popular with women is because I don't understand them." (Laughs.) At any rate, in regard to this song, if people just listen to it, I think that then they'll understand the real significance of the title, don't you?
How did the PV turn out?!
Well, at the moment, since only the filming is done, I can't really go into full details. This time, putting my desire to just want to have a good time in check, I'm shooting a completely serious PV. If I put a really funny video with this kind of serious song, I'll just turn us all into nothing more than a comic band, after all (Laughs).
You could say that. (Laughs.) And then, continuing in your Recreation Track series of covers, you've recorded the big hit from Saki Kubota in 1979, "Ihoujin".
Well, "Ihoujin" is just a pretty cool song, right? It has an intro with a lot of impact, and with just the repetition of that first melody, it really comes into its own as a song, does it not? I think it's of a really high quality, compositionally. But, it was really difficult to sing.
If you listen for how your emotions really swell when you're singing, I really got the impression that you made use of the original work completely, and the song really suits you well, yasu-kun.
A lot of people have covered that song, too. When I thought about how I was going to really present the kind of outlook on the world the song has through its arrangement, I thought, "This is just like kiyo," or maybe "If kiyo would perform this, it would become really wonderful," so I asked him to do it. It's a song that kiyo actually likes very much as well, and surely, if you listen to his completed work, he really gave it his all in putting the finishing touches in.
There's no way that you actually knew that song when it first came out on a personal level, either, right?
I was four years old when it was a big hit song, after all. But, I really like songs from the 70's and 80's very much, and they really have the greatest effect on me. I'm sure that one could question my taste in choosing a song like this to do a cover of, but in that sense I completely abandoned all awareness. And then, since it was a gigantic hit when it came out in the first place, I really wanted to bring it out again so that maybe the elderly people who knew the original song could say, "Ah, so the young people still play this one", and that's why I really dedicated myself to performing it.
Of course, "Ihoujin" is a song I'd really like to listen to. This is the end for now, but please tell us about what Acid Black Cherry is working on right now.
Next year, Acid Black Cherry will be releasing an album in the spring, and then I think I want to tour again. Before then, first of all, please allow yourselves to be moved by "Aishitenai". Though, if you compare it to the flow that Acid Black Cherry has taken to this point, it's a much more tender song. But, since from a sound standpoint it's very clear, and happens to be my favorite song, I want you all to listen to it as well. I think that it will become a very pleasant song for people who have yet to know about Acid Black Cherry to join us on, as well.