Translated from the book "Watashi mo Visual Kei Datta Goro" , 2006.05.05
Original Text: Tetsushi Ishikawa.
"First of all, we think we are Visual Kei."
Ishikawa: In 2005, Janne Da Arc's single "Gekkouka"[1] became a huge hit, selling over 300,000 copies. In addition, every venue on your nationwide tour was sold out. However, the numbers of "visual-kei like" spectators and older women dwindled, making way for an increasing presence of office ladies and female college students; "regular people", as it were. Congratulations on your huge success in the seven years since your major debut!
yasu: Ah, thank you very much.
During your MC at your live at the Budokan [2] , I couldn't remember anything but your bright laughter as you joked time and again, saying things like "It's okay for even Avex to have a visual kei band, right?!" and "Having this fatass here do visual kei [3], we're just awful, aren't we?!" That part really stuck out at me.
Hehehehe, yeah.
So, I'm just asking, but where does Janne Da Arc see themselves on the Japanese music scene?
Eh....well, first of all, we think we are Visual Kei...
Ah~You think you are, still!
Of course we do!! (Bitter laugh)
But, it's not just since in the second half of the '90s, at the same time that you were making your major debut, so many bands, despite being visual kei no matter how you looked at them, were saying, "Oh, we're not visual kei", and making that effort to show a sort of casual side to themselves, as if they thought suddenly to "erase their past"? I thought that perhaps Janne was that way, as well.
Ahaha. Not at all. Though I don't really know for sure if we were thinking that we should go visual kei either...but, with our makeup and long hair, for sure we think now "We're absolutely visual kei". However—if the band's fashion isn't something like T-shirts and pants, then don't they get categorized as visual kei from the start? I thought, "Well, if by doing this, people see us as that, then that's fine."
After all, to you, yasu, "Visual kei" has that kind of broad meaning.
Originally, that was fine with us, because that's what we did. We called ourselves "visual kei", too.
Oh~. You're capable of such pure respect!
(Laughs brightly.) Though really, we just thought that there were a ton of bands just going around in T-shirts like that then, and that wasn't rock at all, or something like that.
Ah, so you were thinking something like, what about us, we're just your average, poor guys?
That's right. After all, rock has always kind of flirted with making that kind of thing cool from the start, right? Don't you think so?
That's so manly of you, yasu! Talking to you today, I think you're so amazing, among so many of your fellow contemporaries who really feel a sense of victimization when they say that they have parts of themselves that are visual kei!
Ahahahaha, really? I just think, "How you present yourself is where rock begins, right?" Or, rather, I personally feel really good presenting myself in that way.
There is that aspect of rock in Japan these days that seems to think that, as far as a real image is concerned, it takes away from "the ordinary things people have" as well as "the individual". And then, there are also people like the readers of "Rockin' On Japan". (Laughs bitterly.) But, though this still exists in rock to some extent, lately this kind of conflict has been diminished, even though there's still that thought that things have to be "ordinary". As in, if you say that someone's look reeks of being just a bunch of poor guys, then that's what it is.
Well...I don't know about that, but there's that phrase out there, the "rock star", right? Though it's not that it's assigned the meaning of "I want to be a rock star" to me (Laughs), there's that little bit of a feeling to those people who do this kind of thing as just an ordinary part of their lives where it's okay not to be a "rock star" or a "hero" or anything like that...
Ah...to you, yasu, as your own policy, rock has to be something that you justdo, it can't have any special meaning outside of that, you mean?
Yeah. It's like, "Isn't it just natural to do this?". I also have the feeling that it's to be expected that you're going to show off. But, in this day and age, saying something like that is kind of laughable, isn't it? Of course, I'm able to laugh doing the things that I'm doing now, but that's just because I feel that "If it's just okay for us to do things this way, then that's okay, isn't it?". If it becomes that way because we're having fun, then that means we can laugh at ourselves, too, and that's good, isn't it? As a result of that, we had no choice but to assent to being swept up in that tide, and it became that we wanted to say "Janne Da Arc is visual kei!".
Since you want to feel that pride and sense of purpose in your work right now.
Ah, yes, that's true. In the beginning, Avex didn't really want Janne Da Arc to be a visual kei band...so when it started to turn in that direction, we had to have talks with them, like "So, our next concert...it's a little visual...is that really okay?" Ahaha!
Wahahaha! You really had some arbitrary conflicts with them, huh.
You could say that...for example, when we had our (Osaka)-jo Hall show [4], in the tour pamphlets, our hair was pretty long, and it was kind of a one-two punch kind of image. But, actually looking at it, in that way, those pictures were totally of a visual kei band. (Laughs.) The way we shot them was too, for sure. So, I'm sure you could probably say that they were deeply concerned about it, ahahaha.
How funny! But, Avex did sign Janne all those years ago knowing that you had Visual kei-like aspects to you. Even so, you can still say that they're concerned, though...
Well, it's more important to be aware of that, I guess...but even doing it, I was like, "Now what's going to happen?" (Laughs amusedly.) But, even saying that, because we're putting out things differently than just the usual acts, because it's us, we can still do it, right?
Well, to begin with, working in Visual Kei is a little dishonest, isn't it...
This is just something I can say from knowing you over the last three or four years, but Janne, at its heart, are a bunch of good natured, regular guys that just really like to show their smiles.
Ahaha. Yeah, we're just regular guys, aren't we.
So, you could say, for regular guys like yourselves, as a rock band, you decide to do make-up. It's kind of the same as going to a foreign country, showing your passport, and having to be admitted for a formal search, something like that.
Well...as for that...it's okay if it doesn't go quite that far...(Bitter Laugh.) But, it's different from the idea of "Presenting an image". Rather, I'm just transforming myself on the outside into someone who already exists on the inside, right? While I have the chance, I want to see something where, if I do my make-up and change that way, then what I decide to do with my make-up is good in its own way; or if I change because of the clothes I wear, then anything I wear works out.
It's the thrill of it.
That's right.
So, if they were able to look at it from your side of things, X, LUNA SEA, and L'arc~en~Ciel, all those great visual kei bands before you, there's a part of them that entered that world to play around with making that "normal person" something "out of the ordinary". So, in that regard the visual aesthetic isn't really a strong part of it at all (Bitter Laugh). This isn't like our discussion of the "rock star", but it's almost as if things get lost in being constructed with such catharsis phrases as "Get drunk on me!" "My view of the world is the most beautiful there is!" and "Here comes my own version of aesthetics, all right!" But, in Janne's case, it isn't that you wanted to force that sort of view on people.
Ah...yes, that's true. (Laughs.) Eh, but I wonder if you can say that using that sort of cool appeal makes it somewhat bad in its coolness? Well, I think that the result of being able to see that sort of appeal quite clearly is good enough, inside of myself anyway. As one would expect, there's something good about something that makes you ask, "Isn't this a little unnatural?" no matter what it might be. When you're appearing on stage, or just showing up somewhere, or using some kind of character...there's some kind of unnatural disposition that you're also using, right? I think there are also the kind of people who want to break through the idea of the visual aesthetic themselves, but if you really go that far, then it gets to the point where it just really feels far too unnatural. Something like, "There's these kind of people out there?" Ahaha.
Wahaha. What "realism", huh?
I think there are people out there who can really pull it off, like if they have the charisma and the drive to allow people to think "Ah, so that guy is really that kind of person..." but I don't think there are many of those kind of people around these days. For example, if you have someone like Eikichi Yazawa-san, you have that feeling like, "Well, if he does it, then it's okay", right?
Ah, you really get caught up in their presence.
Right, right. (Laughs.) And then, there are people like Kyosuke Himuro, who you just look at and go, "He's the perfect charismatic."
So, then, yasu, you got into this thinking, "It's okay if I don't have an ounce of charisma myself"?
Yeah, since I don't have that kind of influence at all! (Laughs loudly.)
Eh, so that was one of the things that made Janne Da Arc visual kei in the first place...
We're pretty dishonest, after all...(Sarcastic Laugh)
Dahahaha. Dishonest in the way that when you were starting out as amateurs, you thought, "If we went visual kei, then we could increase the number of people coming to see us at the live houses", right? Is that really how it started?
It could be? Ahaha...of course, I think that we did feel like we wanted to do certain things that were cool like that then. But, my knowledge of "things brimming with a visual aspect" stops with the '80s. Of course, I got into BOOWY, and other bands like them. So, to go into something visual like they do these days, I'm always like, what should I do? Like "Show me the bands of today already!", or something. (Bitter Laugh.)
Ahaha, well, that's understandable. When did you get into doing visual kei yourself?
Ah, I suppose about '96 or '97, maybe?
Oh, really? The first visual kei boom was already over by then, wasn't it? X had already stopped their activities as a band, and LUNA SEA was already involved in solo projects by then, as well. Then, there were bands like L'arc~en~Ciel and GLAY who considered themselves visual kei, but it was an entirely different world from before.
That's right. But, the bands I know are the ones with their hair standing straight up, like X and BUCK-TICK—and their makeup, too, all like "I have blue around my eyes! My lips are pitch black!" (Bitter Laugh.) So, since we all had the feeling of, "Well, I have to do that, too", LUNA SEA and the bands following them all did that kind of makeup as sort of a "musician's mark", did they not?
Wahaha. Certainly, in Janne Da Arc's case, too, there was the expression used of "natural make-up", which turned out to be an unusually faulty expression...
Ahahahaha! Comparing it to others, it's probably pretty natural though...but, for some time after that, we became aware of that feeling like, "Am I a girl, looking like this?!"
But, all five of you weren't opposed to doing your makeup, were you?
No~ There was nothing but opposition to the idea! Still, ka-yu and I were able to make do with it, but the other members never did their makeup, ever. It was like he and I were trying really hard, in the pictures on our jacket sleeves. (Defeated laugh.)
Dahaha. But that was the casual fashion for university students, 25 years ago.
As far as you was concerned, it was as if he'd never gotten rid of his glasses, either. (Laughs amusedly.) Also, for us, it was the first time we'd ever grown our hair out. Until then, we had always kept it short. Heeheehee.
Surely, that's a start from the foundations upward. But, you've come a long way from just being able to put up with growing your hair out to become a visual kei band. It's something you'd always been waiting for.
That's right. But, close-cropped hair is more of a techno-pop cut! (Embarrassed laugh)
Gyahahaha! There's a legend that the band that would later become Janne Da Arc was a Unicorn [5] cover band, is this true?
It's true, it's true. But, when I was a high school student, there was this hairstyle that they call the "mullet", right? That one where around your ears is really closely cut, but then the back is left fairly long. However, in addition to that, there was also the "sauvage"...in that one, if you looked at the back, it kind of looked like a cut a dancer would have. Ahaha. Those were the kind of cuts I had, a far cry from visual kei, for sure.
They did...could those be...?
To put it simply, that was how Tamio Okuda-san did his when he was younger. (Laughs.) And then, KATSUMI-san [6] was around too, right?
She was, she was!
See, if we all would have done our hair that way, everyone would have laughed at us, right? There was something close to that style in us, too.
For example, I wonder what kind of look that tattooed monster ka-yu had back then?
Back then, he had one of those "recent perms". So, when we started the band, he got himself a crew cut and started growing it out like that. (Laughs loudly.)
Dahahaha. You're amazing, Janne Da Arc.
Sure, we're amazing.
This is just out of curiosity, but what about the other three members?
The drummer before shuji didn't do anything at all. you-san was really new to the whole thing, because he'd never done anything outside of our own jacket covers...I want to show you how he looked back then! (Laughs Amusedly.) Even my own grasp of this "visual fashion" stopped with the '80s, really. Like, "Wind pants...? Is that like a skirt?" "Ah...is that what they call winpan [7]?" (Defeated Laugh.)
Ahaha. Well, you were standing in the place of someone out of the scene.
We didn't know how to make our hair stand up like that, either. "It looks like...they put...something in it and tease it up...or something?" That's what we were saying. But, it didn't stand up at all, not even close. (Pathetic Laugh.)
(Unicorn + DEAD END)/2 =Janne Da Arc...
Moving on from your early work, when you changed the appearance of your band to visual kei, it wasn't because your worldview, or that presented in your music, had changed. But, as expected, a the music itself changed, did it not?
No, there really wasn't a big change compositionally in our music. If we just speak of the music itself, we took a lot of influence from DEAD END [8], so it didn't really change at all.
Janne Da Arc's roots were Unicorn and DEAD END...(Bitter Laugh)
Ahaha. Well, our band's previous drummer was the leader, and so he always said, "Unicorn covers are the foundation of this band, so we're going to do them!" So, I just went along with it...but I did like the songs a lot, though, of course.
Even so, there's some real aesthetic, sound-wise...
That was DEAD END. I don't think that ever changed. It was like, "When you're having trouble, go to DEAD END." (Bitter Laugh.)
Ever since you've started doing interviews several years ago, I get the impression that you give off the impression of having the "roots of visual kei", yasu.
Heeheehee....while I'm glad to hear you say that, it's complicated, isn't it...?
Of course, your predecessors name such legendary bands as DER ZIBET [9] as well as DEAD END as the "originators of Visual Kei", like true Kansai types, for you guys it was all DEAD END, wasn't it?
That's right. After all, even listening to them now, I always think, "How cool~♥".
So, even though at the beginning you changed your look over to the dishonesty of visual kei, it was more that the style itself was close to what all of you liked in a musical sense that made you change.
That's right. The band's foundation was Unicorn, but DEAD END was the true basis for us musically, something like that.
Ahaha. Surely, now, MORRIE has relocated to New York. With such a minute distinction, it's very like Janne to be able to smile about it, but, in those days the sort of "Visual Kei Army" really exploded, in terms of people making music.
Yes, that's true...though for the first four years, we only ever played at BLOW DOWN in Hirakata. [10] That live house...well, in essence, no bands came there, so no audiences did either. (Defeated laugh.) So, every time we went there, it was always like bands from high school clubs, or company guys who had made a band on the side; and though there were some days where people did show up, it wasn't that they'd show up for a specific band. So, generally, the number of people in the audience never really increased at all. Due to how people thought then, like "Let's go and do a show in Osaka city proper", bands that were constantly on the move started to be successful. That's when we started really dressing up, too. After we did that, our audiences started to get larger and larger, something like that.
You wonder if you caused a reaction, for the time being, by dressing like that and drawing the new visual kei crowds that started waiting around, as well as appearing at, live houses. The crowds kind of had that feeling like they'd take one look at you and decide if they wanted to stay or go, so you really had to do the visual kei aspect back then.
We really didn't get that back then. It was still really strange for us, so we were reluctant about it, really. I may even say that even when we got up on stage, we didn't exude that sort of coolness at all, either. Even though we looked like we were really a visual band from first glance, we were still all like "Yes! Thanks for having us!!" (Defeated Laugh.)
It reminds me of one of those young comic duos. With that sort of Unicorn-esque appearance, you really managed to hit it off with the visual kei crowd, huh...
I really think so! (←Sincere)
After all, among all those other bands, there were some real visual kei ones, right?
That's right! (Laughs.)
Did you ever plan to meet with any of those people?
Not really, as you'd expect. Since we were polite to the other bands, we put a rule in effect that we wouldn't use the backstage areas at all.
What?
We would get ourselves ready and wait for our curtain call in a car parked nearby. Also, there wasn't much standing room, and we thought, "We can't just go and use one of the backstage rooms." (Laughs.) Other than that, it took the other bands a long time to do their makeup, right? So we thought, "There's no way we can go and do that", "If we disturb someone, that would be really awful", things like that. Ahahaha.
Even if the bands you were appearing with hadn't been around longer than you?
That's right.
Breaking Free from Rural Society: "Janne Da Arc's Miracle"
After a while, you set your sights on making your major debut, right?
Yeah. But it wasn't just a major debut; we were looking towards doing "Band-like Activities".
What do you mean by "Band-like Activities?"
Since I had already graduated high school, I worked for a construction company so that I could keep going with the band, too. But, whenever I would come across some of my friends, they'd always ask me, "So what are you doing now?"and I'd always say "I'm in a band". It was like, "I'm in a band, and that's my job." But then, they'd come back to it, and say, "Well, how many shows are you doing, then?" And I'd have to tell them, "We do one show a month at BLOW DOWN"...and that was about it, then. (Laughs.) But, if I said that, then they'd just tell me, "If that's it, settle down and get a normal job, would you?", right. I didn't want people to think that I was just messing around and doing nothing with myself.
Ahaha. That's a strange sort of "Workman's Complex", isn't it?
Isn't it though? It was like I wanted to be able to have the excuse of "Well, my work with the band leaves me so busy, this is the only job I can do", or something. (Bitter Laugh.)
It's a self-assertion that you really are in a band and are serious about it.
Yeah, I really wanted something like that. So, we tried out things like going to Osaka to play shows, going on tour, bringing out our own material, stuff like that. Doing that...you kind of get that feeling like, "I really am giving this all I've got," right? Ahaha.
Hahaha. Someone was really forced to evaluate you on that, huh.
Ehehe. Of course, we hadn't made our major debut yet, but I thought "It's not because we can't do it". "Even though there are a lot of bands out there, it's not because we can't do it," I said. So, suddenly, I got the idea that at least we had to put out a CD, and then that would be good. So, for me, putting out that first CD with my own songs on it made me even happier than when we actually made our major debut. My dream ended with that.
Gyahaha. That's great, being a man with no ambitions at all.
Ah, but of course, I did get to thinking that it'd be nice if we could make our major debut, though...
But, whether you're just doing things on your own, or making that miraculous major debut (Laughs), did you not feel that you had to keep going as a "visual kei band"? Did you not feel any sort of uncertainty in that way?
No, that's the strange thing, I just kind of took it like, "Well, this is the way it goes!" The people who hated makeup the most were you and kiyo, and they were the ones who would never shut up about it, either...and they were the same way when we made our debut.
Ahaha. That transformation on its own is amazing.
It was like, "There's something...off...about my eyebrows." (Sarcastic laugh). That's really what it became to us, because it was so strange.
When you get into visual kei, in terms of which way you go about it, there are several powerful "guilds" with their own individual style. In Kantou, it's Extasy, in Kansai, it's Free Will...could it be that Janne just happened to fall outside of that?
Well, we're really good at slipping through the cracks! (Amused laugh.) Of course, we did have a decent amount of conversations about that, though.
For me, that's what really is like the "Miracle of Janne Da Arc".
We really didn't make a peep at all backstage or anything, really. Even when there were bands we were acquainted with there as well, we didn't show our faces that often.
Like you weren't even there, like you weren't even there.
Yeah. (Laughs.) When we first heard people talking about such things, we totally thought, "They really have that kind of stuff?!" After all, we were still amateurs. But, we went around to the other bands in the livehouses in Osaka, and they told us, "Yeah, they're really out there!" and of course that would affect you, right? There's something scary about it, thinking people like that are watching you. So, we didn't really let that affect us at all....we just did things in a way that made sure we didn't stand out.
You were even trying to hide your own breathing, after all.
At that time, I think there were two separate factions on the Osaka scene.
Ah, so there was a lot of "Pick which side you're on already!", competition-wise.
Yeah...it really was a hot topic backstage among a lot of the groups, they'd be saying, "It sounds like there are a lot of people from this company going to livehouses all over the place!" But, in the end of it all, none of them ever really showed up. Ahaha.
After all, the world of visual kei really has that sort of "master-henchmen" or "older brother" mentality where people are really told to watch themselves.
Right, right. But, since we were a little bit new to all of that kind of stuff, we were really afraid of things like that. Ahaha.
Oh.
Well, it was just that we didn't know about it. Since it wasn't an easy thing to understand, it scared us. But, even though the other bands weren't actually saying it, it was pretty clear that we all were scared of how the whole thing worked. So, even though we knew we were scared, we weren't that scared.
You didn't even have a single encounter with anyone from Exstacy?
We didn't. There were some other bands at a show we did in Tokyo who had a run-in with them, but it turned out okay.
At that time, of course, YOSHIKI was no longer in Japan, and hide was doing other things...so maybe it was a blessing, somewhat, that you were able to feel that sort of "Safe!" feeling.
That's true. Also, we thought, "Even if we mess up, if we can just get through it and end it then that works," too.
Oh, you really set yourselves up with a lot of spirit! Though, I can't imagine it from the "good-natured Janne" of today.
Well, we were young. Now, of course, I hate it when that happens. (Laughs.) ka-yu and I have that kind of nature in us, mostly.
The other three members are just useless like that, after all. In terms of being knights or villains.
Heeheehee...well, you can't live without such feelings, right?
We thought, "So many people are deceiving us!"
Janne Da Arc released three mini-albums quickly during your indies period [11], and started having to impose a cap on audiences to your shows. It really looked like you had made it out well.
Um...to put it very simply, our first one-man show was February 22, 1998. So, by a year after that, on February 22, 1999, we had increased our audience by 10 times; about 2000 people came to our show at the Akasaka BLITZ. The one the previous year was held at BLOW DOWN, so it couldn't hold nearly that many people. So, that was the start of Janne Da Arc's golden age, so to speak, though it was a very short year (Laughs). So, in the course of that year, we released three albums.
Ahaha. How in the world must it have been to suddenly be thrown into such a busy life?
Um...though it's cold of me to just sing my own praises, things just really went on without a hitch. Surprisingly so, in fact.
Even so, in just that year, you were able to increase your audiences by ten times...
Due to that, though, the bands who we had done shows in Osaka with often said, "We're done with Janne Da Arc" or "We made you who you are", things like that...but you get the feeling that they're just saying, "We've had a career longer than yours." (Bitter laugh). Though, they might just be feeling like, "We actually said we were "done" with them...", right? So, saying words like that, well, that's just unthinkable. Of course, it might just be that it was only possible to acknowledge such things from the other side, back then. Ahaha.
In that year, did you think that you had rapidly become a huge hit somehow?
As for that...I think it was because Asahi TV Music made us that first PV. Heeheehee.
What, you're laughing about that? Ah, because "Break Out!"[12] picked you up after that, right?
That's right, of course. The very first album we did was entirely self-produced, but the second and third CDs were released via the Break Out! Label. Though I don't know if you'd say they were 'put out by them' or if you'd say they made us put them out...(Bitter Laugh.)
Hey, hey. Janne's success is due to being on "Break Out!", though, right? There aren't very many who make it that far.
That may be true...
To that point, all you wanted to do was put out an indies album, but after that, surely you turned to thoughts of making your major debut? In the sense of aiming for your next goal.
Well...I talked about this a little bit ago, but my only goal was to put out that first CD. It wasn't just me, though; it was all five of us. So, after that, we didn't really care what happened in terms of making a major debut at all. It was like, "Eh, we're okay where we are now."
Um...isn't that jumping to conclusions just a bit too quickly? I mean, your enthusiasm caught up with you.
Ahaha. Though "Break Out!" itself became something of a festival, we really didn't have any interest in it at all. We were thinking, "These impersonal programs, I don't really like them" and "We can't make our debut if it means being on programs like this where they're just pointing at us or something."
The mindset where you say, "If we can just release one album, then we're done" is just self-consciousness in terms of being an amateur band, though. You do gain your pride after a while.
Yes, yes, even though we didn't have any at all until then. Also, that program was the one that first introduced "The Four Princes of Visual Kei", right? La'chryma [13], Fanatic [14], SHAZNA [15], and Malice [16]. So, at that time, what we had done was good. But, we also thought that the fast track that being involved in that would put us on would be no good at all.
Certainly, if the show would have continued, more importantly, there would have been no way to tell how many bands it would have brought to the scene. I don't know if you'd call it "mass production of inferior products" or if it would be more like an impression of "extreme amateurism", but all of those things associated with those bands; their stage presence, the handling of their instruments, and even their world views would have been reduced to something that others just scoffed at.
I thought, "I hate being forced to be lumped in with people like that!". Though there was an event at the Budokan associated with the show [17], we didn't really feel like going to that too much, either. And then, they talked to us about being on an omnibus album with the other bands from the Budokan show, too. But, I had always been very clear on my opinion of absolutely hating stuff like that. Not only that, but I told the people from TV Asahi that quite clearly, right in the middle of the hotel restaurant, in fact. (Laughs.)
Hahaha...
I still can't forget it, even now. (Bitter Laugh.) I had already decided that I hated appearing in that way, so I was even more clear about it. I answered them by saying, " "Break Out!" itself is pretty horrible, so we hate it." Ahahah! "What, that's what I think!" "Because even seeing bands that have made their debut by being on a TV program, that's just not us." That's how the conversation turned out. "See, that's why I hate appearing together with bands like that." "If you're doing it that way, then it doesn't matter if we're there or not." So, that's why we didn't appear on the CD that they released that year.
Yeah, that self-awareness is correctly placed, and is very powerful. However...
Isn't it though?! The real question is what happens from here. (Laughs.) From throwing away any talk about that CD, the conversation turned to, "Well, this whole thing is just impossible then, isn't it?" Then, it became, "Instead of throwing this whole thing away, offer us a recording contract." And from there, it turned into "By throwing this away, we're standing up for a just cause."
At the same time, you also didn't want to have anything to do with it.
That's right. Something like, "Show us that it's not just because you don't want to work with Asahi TV". And then I said, "Well, I don't know what you mean". But, it became, "Because it doesn't matter what we do, then it's okay to do this, right?" Then the other members, too, they were saying, "It's okay, no matter what we do." (Bitter Laugh.) With that, if we signed into a contract, it would be for another two mini albums! Ahahaha!
Ah, those were the second and third ones you talked about before.
Yes, yes, heeheehee. It's so funny, right? There were a ton of forays into futility for us like that. When we were doing that second and third album, we were already saying, "Well, since we might as well put out a CD, get us away from just being on the Break Out! label, then!" Everyone who went on the TV program also had the same thing in mind, too. Since we had already blown off TV Asahi's Roppongi office, we started thinking, "This is impossible." When they started saying, "Well, then, you can't release a CD," then, we thought, "If that's the case, then we've lost negotiations with Avex, too."
Huh? I wonder where the talks with Avex fit in with all of this.
Someone from TV Asahi mentioned the idea of making a major debut on Avex. It turned into a conversation something like, "What, Avex?" "Someone around here said you wanted to do it." "Is that just because TV Asahi Music wants us to?" "No, no, it's not like that at all." (Laughs Brightly) And then, we brought up what I mentioned just now, about getting off of the Break Out! Label, and they said, "Let's just pretend this never came up." I didn't think there was any reason to keep talking with them, and that they were just being unreasonable; so I said, "If you're going to be like that, fine, I don't really care if I make a major debut or not." I think I was a real pain in the ass to deal with, back then. Ahahaha.
No, no, since you started out as a successor to all of those bombastic visual kei bands, we all knew what that was like quite well. Wahahaha.
Ahahaha! At the same time, we were thinking, "A lot of people are deceiving us! Even if I'm just going it alone, I have to stand up to this!"
Of course...when Janne Da Arc was first appearing on the scene, the visual kei music business was such that once a band went beyond that first 15 minutes of fame, the adults in the business would look at the bands with eyes wide as dinner plates. But, even so, that was just temporary, too. Of course, you knew that feeling quite well, seeing as you felt as if you had to fight a war you knew was in vain against those adults.
Is that what that was? (Laughs brightly.) But, um, more or less, isn't it better to say I made them think, "That guy's such a pain in the ass"? Even though it was all just an act, I thought it would be better to make some kind of image for myself—one that took the place of the kid from the country.
Wouldn't it have been better to have finally just said that?
Eh, even though I acted like that, it didn't have any effect at all, looking back on it now. (Defeated laugh.)
Wahaha. Eventually, your second and third albums were released on the Break Out! Label after all.
Yes, they were. Eh, then I talked to the other members about what we should do, because it would be a waste our major debut on something so small...and they said, "Well, that's all right, isn't it?"
[Introduction//Interview Part 2//Author's Notes]