Exclusive YOSHIKI Interview Right Before the X JAPAN European Tour! Composition and text: Joana
2011/06/23 - YOSHIKI Interview Right Before the X JAPAN European Tour
Just yesterday, on June 23rd, 2011 X JAPAN's YOSHIKI had agreed to participate in an interview with musicJAPANplus right before the beginning of European tour. While it had been the middle of the night in Los Angeles, he took time off his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us via Skype. Please enjoy the following interview!
-- Q: It's your first time to perform in Europe and many fans have been waiting for you're a long time. What are your expectations and hopes towards this tour?
YOSHIKI: We are very excited to meet our European fans, especially since we were supposed to go to France for a long time. A lot of things happened, like management trouble, but finally we will able to be there so we are very excited.
-- Q: You are playing in four different cities in Europe, which place are you looking forward to the most.
Y: Pretty much everywhere! I have been to England and Paris, but I have never been to Utrecht or Berlin, it will be my first time to even be there so it should be really interesting.
-- Q: The venues in Europe are not as big as they usually are in Japan for X JAPAN, what are your thoughts on the scale of the venue?
Y: The capacity? We did the North American tour last year, where we played venues with a capacity between 2,000 to 4,000 people. We really liked that. It's a very intimate feeling and we really enjoyed this feeling as a result of that capacity. We could see the audiences' faces and we could hear them well. That was great. We are looking forward to that same kind of vibe.
-- Q: Please tell us something you would like to accomplish with this world tour of X JAPAN.
Y: Well...uhm...Europe is also a very important place and many European fans have been waiting for us, so we feel the need to thank them. So what is it that we want to accomplish, I don't know...just spread love. (laughs)
-- That's always a good aim. And it is probably the best chance to revive the X JAPAN hype, which has been really big in Europe.
Y: I see. (laughs)
-- Q: Many fans will be expecting to hear the X JAPAN classics. Can you reveal just little bit on the set list you are planning to play?
Y: That's super secret. Of course we are going to play some of our signature songs. We want to play those.
-- Q: Is there as song you are especially looking forward to playing live in front of the European audience?
Y: Really anything. Well, at the same time we are releasing "JADE", which is coming out on June 28th. Even though that's a new song, we have put very much effort into that and we are looking forward to playing that song as well. Well...all songs are very meaningful for us and every song is special. (laughs) I can't name just one.
-- Q: Even though you have been living abroad for a long time already, as an artist, how do you think is playing overseas going to influence your future works?
Y: I have been living in America, yet I haven't been playing that many shows here. The first one was a last year.
(And when it comes to Europe), when I first heard that there are people who love X JAPAN, I was shocked and that was three, four, five years ago. We didn't even know we had fans outside of Japan and it was out dream to play outside of Japan.
Hmmm...(keeps thinking) I'm not sure.
-- It's OK, we can just go to the next question, because it's connected to that.
Y: Ah, OK. (laughs)
-- Q: Your song lyrics are often in Japanese, English or both. Have you thought about adding more languages to that as you are touring the world?
Y: I'd love to do that. Actually the one song I wrote, which is playing when X JAPAN enter the stage, maybe this tour as well, that opening song is in Italian. Also, with Violet U.K., there is a song...of course I had to ask my translator and French teacher, because there is one song that is in French.
As far as it comes to the songs of X JAPAN, since ToshI has to sing it, it's only Japanese and English. I'd love to write in lots of different languages, though. (laughs)
-- You just talked about your French teacher. Are you studying French right now?
Y: Yes, actually I have been, but for the past four five months my schedule has been crazy and because of the Japanese earthquake I was doing a lot of charity work. Therefore I stopped and studied a lot less. Maybe after this European tour again. I actually learn a lot of different languages like French and Spanish, Portuguese, maybe Russian and I'm just really....well, it's my hobby to study different kind of languages.
-- The European tour should definitely be a great motivation for that, since you play in so many countries.
Y: Yes, I think so.
-- Q: You have inspired a lot of people all around the world to start making music ever since, how do you feel about that?
Y: Well, our fans inspired me first it's like a good relationship, you know. Because without my fans, I don't think I'd survive. I went through very hard times, but my fans are always there for me, so that's how I survived and X JAPAN re-united. So now I want to spread that love again from our side as well.
Also, the songs and lyrics I am writing come from my personal experience, especially death and sadness.
Yet, I am very glad if I inspired all these musicians and fans to write new music.
-- Q: There is one thing I always wanted to know personally, since I got into Japanese culture through Visual-kei. Even though J-Pop and K-Pop are very popular as Asian music right now, it was Visual-kei that brought Asian music overseas on a major scale. Why do you think is that.
Y: I think, because Visual-kei is very unique. I mean, when we started, we couldn't belong anywhere. We were playing some heavy rock (music), but at the same time, we were putting on interesting make-up and had the crazy hair. We really couldn't belong anywhere, but at the same time it's like a new genre, if you look at Hip Hop, Rock, Hard Rock or Heavy Metal. Visual-kei was kind of a new genre, so that was the reason, why people started noticing something from around the world.
-- I think this also made it a lot easier for other genres, like Pop and Rock.
Y: I hope so!
-- So your new single "JADE" is coming out on June 28th, when you are actually in London. By what chance was the single written, what is it about?
Y: "JADE" is about ... hmm...pain. A lot of my songs are talking about death, but "JADE" is more positive than other X JAPAN songs. The lyrics say things like "Your scars are beautiful" and "Your blood was beautiful", so it is giving people a little more hope. It's kind of a twisted love song.
Also, when looking at it, my lyrics also have a lot of ... double-meaning, but it is usually about my own experience and probably most about pain.
-- Q: You are the main composer of the song, what part did the other band members have?
Y: Well, for this song, ToshI recorded here in Los Angeles, and SUGIZO recorded here as well. Pata and HEATH recorded in Japan, and all of them did a great job playing and we closely worked together for this song doing the arrangements. Well I did the arrangements. (laughs) They played pretty good.
When I write and compose a song, I usually have a complete vision. Like almost 100%. I already hear the guitars and everything, which I wrote into the music score. Therefore I give them the exact direction actually. (laughs)
-- Q: Because of the Tohoku earthquake the single release had to be postponed. Did you as the band leader decide to do that? Did you decide it as a band?
Y: I decided to postpone the release, since I didn't think it was a good time to release the single, because I wanted to concentrate on my charity work. We wanted to support Japan and I pretty much stopped everything, to do charity for a while. Then slowly we went back to recording and planned the release anew.
-- Were you disappointed when you realized that the you still couldn't release the song?
Y: Of course we were disappointed, but because of what happened in Japan and because I care about the people that were suffering, so I thought it was more important to support them than releasing our music at that point.
At the same time, though I really wanted to bring the music to the people around the world as soon as possible, but finally the day is coming.
-- Is there a message that you would like to give to the people who are going to see X JAPAN live next week and the week after?
Y: Yes! I am so, so looking forward to seeing you all and I don't know how to describe the feeling, because I am just so excited. We are doing out rehearsal in London and some of the members are leaving for London tomorrow (2011/06/24) and I'm leaving the day after tomorrow I guess.
We are looking forward to seeing you, so come and see us!
