from the recent Phoenix New Times interview:
NT: How did X Japan manage to get on the Lollapalooza bill this year?Y: I know Mark Geiger. Actually, he is my agent. Our agent. He is one of the Lollapalooza founders. Also I've been talking to a few people in my entertainment life. Attorneys...all those people and asking "How should we debut in America? Should we start doing clubs or some small venues with a couple thousand people?" Then someone said, "If you can get into a festival, that might be the most interesting and shocking way to introduce X Japan." We started talking about Coachella and then Lollapalooza, the two biggest ones. By the time we started talking about it, Coachella was already happening, so...then let's do Lollapalooza. Mark and I started talking about it and he said he's in. We're in.
"I know important people."
NT: How have the American fans reacted to news of the Lollapalooza show, the new X Japan album, and the tour?Y: Well, I think they are very excited. And then...to me our fans are not normal. The relationship between our band and our fans is a little more than normal artists' fans. They're so passionate. I don't know...they just really care about us. I do too. It's vice-versa. Same feeling. It's like, I don't feel like I'm just doing Lollapalooza or this big show...festival by ourselves as a band. I feel almost like we're doing it with everybody together. Let's rock the place with us. You're part of our X Japan family. It's like a festival or a show. No matter what you do on the stage, a great performance or technically whatever...we're going to create the show together. That's X Japan's concept from the get go. Our thing. So we create the show together. Tomorrow's show is going to be the same thing. Let's rock the place together.
"I command amazing dedication."
NT: How does it feel to be reunited after ten years?Y: I feel like I'm still dreaming. When we broke up, I thought everything was over. Then especially right after we broke up, Hide died (the band's former lead guitarist passed away in May of 1998). So, I never even thought about...didn't even think twice that we can reunite. So, I still feel like when I wake up tomorrow morning, it will be a dream. It's so unreal. And now we're performing Lollapalooza, it's just...I feel like I'm dreaming.
"My life is like a dream."
NT: Does that have anything to do with Sugizo? (Sugizo became the band's new guitarist and sixth member after the reunion)Y: Yes. I asked him to play some dramatic guitar solos. Yeah, he's really become part of X Japan now. He was almost co-producing the sound. Because he likes to be in the studio.
Believe it or not, a lot of musicians, when they finish their part, they just leave and get drunk (laughs) but for some reason Sugizo, he is staying like...I was usually staying until 2 or 3 a.m. and just working he was just staying and then supporting me. It was great.
"I work very hard late into the night. Others don't."
NT: How was Sugizo selected as the sixth member?Y: Well, I've known him for a long time, like before even Luna Sea debuted...actually they debuted their first album through my label come to think of it. (Laughs) I never thought about...well, you know we are friends, but I didn't know how good he was until we worked together. We first worked on a band called S.K.I.N. Sugizo and then Gackt and Miyavi...they are all like super stars in Japan...and myself just made a band and performed together. Then I didn't realize. "Oh my god, he's a really great guitar player on top of being a really great friend." So, then also Hide knew Sugizo very well. It's a very natural process that he joined the band. He was a supporting member for our reunion...first couple of shows. Then I said, "Sugizo, why don't you join us?" He said "How about Hide?" and I said, "You are the sixth member, not the fifth member."
"I hang out with superstars."
NT: How far do you want to take the North American tour?Y: As far as we can. When we perform, we perform from...seriously, we use our entire energy. It's like our show is so exhausting and like physically, maybe mentally too. So we just throw everything we have. We don't think about next moment or tomorrow. I don't know how many shows we can do, but we are ready to do as many shows as possible 'til we basically die. We are that serious.
"We work really hard on stage."
NT: What is your end goal?Y: I just believe from the get go like the music has no boundary. So then, I think our fans proved it. I just wanna break that boundary through music. I don't know if we're going to be like famous or anything, we just believe in the power of music. Music doesn't have to come from one country or two countries. It could come from all over the world.
"I want everyone on Earth to know who I am."
NT: Do you think your music has spread so much because of the internet?Y: That could be part of it, but it doesn't have to be the internet. When I went to Thailand almost ten years ago, I went to the airport. There are 3000 fans singing my song. I think it was "Tears." I thought it was some kind of candid camera or something. People trying to trick me. This was the first time I went to Thailand...for vacation. Then somebody said that somebody bought X Japan's single then brought it to Thailand then played it on the radio and it just spread from there. One person. It's like an infection or a pandemic. I thought that was very interesting and then cool.
So because of the internet, it has more chance to spread. But the internet is just a tool. I think the music itself is more important than anything else.
"My music is more powerful than the internet and doesn't need the internet to spread."
NT: Was it always called X?Y: No. We use to call it Noise or something. Actually Toshi was not even a vocalist, he was a guitar player. I was playing the drums, the piano as well. We had a vocalist, but we went to different jr. high schools. Then the vocalist had to leave. So who's going to sing? Everyone sang and Toshi was the best one, so he became the vocalist.
"I didn't give up my instruments like my life-long best friend did."
NT: This is a personal observation here, but it seems to me that X Japan songs either rock extremely hard or are emotionally charged ballads. Do you think that has anything to do with your dual nature as both the drummer and pianist?Y: Interesting. I think so. People have...like sometimes people are angry. Sometimes people are sad. So why can't we have different dimension in the music. More then ten years ago we were talking about debuting in America and the label people said you have to have one dimension. You are either hard or pop. Why can we have ballad and super fast song at the same time? It won't work in America. Well, we'll see. Because I play the piano and drums, they're different instruments, but it's the same music. I mean, those instruments are just tools to express our feeling. Some people think it's kind of strange that we do heavy and...also I do rock and classical music which is the same music. For us it's not that different. Our show in Japan is usually three hours long. If we are playing three hours of heavy stuff, people will get really tired and then...we have a combination of those and that makes X Japan interesting.
"My music is multidimensional and I am admired for my ability to play multiple genres and styles. Also, I play on stage for a long time."
NT: What was it like recording Eternal Melody with George Martin.Y: It was a really great moment and then I learned a lot from him. I started doing orchestration after I worked for him, so he was a very big influence for me. I tried not to think he was the producer of the Beatles, because I can not concentrate on what we were working on. It was such an honor. It's great.
"I work with influential people."
NT: Why did the band break up when it did?Y: I think there are a lot of element that caused that broke up. We were pretty popular in Japan. I wanted to go outside of Japan. I wanted to come here, but for some of the members were so comfortable to be in Japan where they are super stars. Why do we have to do the things all over again. Five of us are not really thinking to break through and go out of Japan. Some members were like I don't want to go back and forth between America a couple times a month. Something like that. The main reason, I have to say is that Toshi and I started not talking. So then we decided to go separate way. That's the main reason.
"I had drive and ambition that others lacked."
NT: Tell me how you went about writing Art of Life.Y: The way I started writing the song was kind of funny. I was with Sony record. Then they said...we were talking about some MTV promotion or some radio promotion or something like that. And I asked them, why does every song have to be three and a half or even four or under five minutes. Then Sony people said, it's easy to play of course, but you can do whatever you want. Okay, let's say I made a thirty minute song, what would you guys do? Then they say, of course we're going to promote and I said, "hmm. Interesting." Then I went home and started writing a thirty minute tune...well, not thirty minutes. I tried to make it ten minutes and something but my idea kept coming to my head. Then I started thinking about what should I write about? I started thinking about my life so that's how everything started.
"A song about my life couldn't be anything less than half an hour."
NT: Is there some sort of idea you were ultimately trying to express with Art of Life?
Y: Yes, I think I tried to convince even myself not to die. Try to keep going. It's a very positive message I think. Because I was very...at a certain point I was very suicidal like...I don't know, I just hated life a lot of times. That's also the message for people, also myself as well. I had to convince myself to keep going. Then I wrote the song.
"I experience negative emotions."
NT: How did you learn English?
Y: When we came here, we did some kind of press conference and nobody spoke English. They said, how're you going to do this without speaking English. I said, I will learn...I said that in Japanese probably (laughs). So I just learned.
"I can do anything."
NT: How long did it take?
Y: I would say three years. Before I went to the recording studio I did like three hours lesson six days a week.
"I work hard."
NT: When will we hear more from S.K.I.N.?Y: Good question. When the time is right. Because X Japan is doing something. Gackt is doing something. Miyavi is doing something. I mean that project is not dead. We're still talking about it, quite often actually.
"You'll never hear about SKIN again, and it's Miyavi and Gackt's fault, not just mine."
NT: It just so happens I discovered a recording of you and Toshi playing a set in high school in which you played Deep Purple, Frank Marino's "World Anthem," and something by Loudness. Are these your early influences?
Y: Loudness was the pretty much only rock band in Japan at that time. The only major rock band.
"I am embarrassed by my early influences and have nothing positive to say about Loudness."
NT: How has Japanese rock changed since those days?
Y: It's pretty diverse right now. Yeah, but it's not really super heavy band. It's so hard for super heavy band to become popular. Like Metallica is amazing, they are doing that heavy stuff and they became popular. In Japan it's even harder. So...there are tons of rock bands, but to become super big, you may have to have some kind of melody or some kind of hook or something. I don't know, it's very diverse right now. So a rock band can become popular nowadays.
"It's super hard, especially in Japan, but I became super big playing heavy stuff."
NT: Are there any up-and-coming bands that you're excited about?
Y: I don't know, I've been thinking so much about X Japan lately. For sure there are a lot of great bands. I like Dir en Grey too, by the way. I also produced their debut album. I did five or six songs. They recorded in my studio.
"I don't pay attention to new music now. I made Dir en grey popular."
NT: Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Y: I feel very lucky to have all those fans in America already to support us. We would like to move forward. Please support us.
"My current American fanbase is unsatisfactory."
The number of people taking the BJT has been on the rise... In fiscal 2008, a record 9,300 people took the test.
Ｘ ＪＡＰＡＮのギタリスト、故ＨＩＤＥさん（享年３３）の所属事務所「ヘッドワックス」が、リーダーＹＯＳＨＩＫＩの所属事務所に対し、ＨＩＤＥさんの 肖像権の使用禁止を求める訴訟を起こすことが１５日、明らかになった。ＨＩＤＥさん側は「契約が締結しない状態で、ＨＩＤＥの映像をライブで使用された」 とし、一両日中に東京地裁に提訴するという。この訴訟を機に、ＨＩＤＥさんがＸ ＪＡＰＡＮから「脱退」という形になる可能性が出てきた。
The ceremony this year stood out from past memorial events with the presence of the U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos. He is the first official U.S. representative ever to attend the peace ceremony in Hiroshima. The U.S. State Department simply said Mr. Roos was representing the United States "to express regret for all of the victims of World War II."
