Entertainment Station Interview
Original Interview and Text: Shigeru Tomoyuki
Summary: POLARIS.
[Shorter franker interview. Members discuss some phenomenon of the overseas show, not enough about sunglasses, the miraculous answers that led to a change of creation, yg softness and snarkiness, how they’re always challenging themselves, about Yumao struggles and late night work, each member tells of their particularities in the recordings, and also a small story behind each song.]
It wasn’t a divine blessing but, I feel something like fate is what led us to take on this theme song.
(wowaka)
First off let’s talk about your China tour,“HITORI-ESCAPE in CHINA ‘RED HOT POT TOUR’ from back in October 2018. How was it,your first one-man tour overseas?
wowaka (Vocals/Guitar): There was such good feedback and, I think they offered me an experience that’s so huge for my life. At the beginning of this year we had added Shanghai and Taiwan shows to the tail of our mini album “ai/SOlate” tour, so that was our very first overseas performance but. The idea of facing people of a different native language and singing a song.. I couldn’t even imagine how they would greet us. I was half excited, half nervous. Yet once I actually did it, I realized that they wouldn’t greet us any different from how people do in Japan. Just how Hokkaido and Kagoshima produce different reactions, the audience of Taiwan had Shanghai each had slightly different means of output but, I truly felt that we do reach them. It’s so amazing to me that such can happen even in a place where words are different, I was moved.
Shinoda (Guitar): Yeah. It’s ridiculous how much it felt we were communicating with them. Got me thinking “Are we really foreign celebrities?”(laughing).
ygarshy (Bass): That guy [ref Shinoda] even bought sunglasses and all.
Shinoda: Can ya not talk about that (laughing). Similar to how people sing along to “Wonderwall”at an Oasis show, they would sing our songs in Japanese for us.
Yumao: Not even simply the chorus,they can sing the entire songs.
wowaka: “Any song, always, everybody” means it’s a giant group sing-along huh.
Shinoda: Our MC talk also conveyed fine in Japanese, it was a mysterious sensation. I want to do it again, for reals. So much I would go right now even.
Thus on November 28 their new single,“Polaris” is to be released. The songs have such a live show ambiance to them, and I can tell Hitorie’s current mode is being reflected so rawly and lively. What was the intended theme behind the production?
wowaka: Where do I start… For starters, mid-last year we put out “Unknown Mother Goose” (The latest Vocaloid song under the wowaka name in 6 years. A Hitorie version was streamed in October.), and to string it together we released “ai/SOlate”. That was the first ever time when “Ain’t this what love means to me?” was a sensation that dawned upon me. “After those many days of album production and the evolution of my frame of mind, how is my physical flesh going to react?” was the idea I had in mind as I lunged towards the tour. After every live upon another, the sensation was honed. At our Fukuoka show there was a moment which from head to toe I felt “So maybe this it what it means, to hurl your everything at your audience”. This was by all means a personal experience but, I used the feeling as a propeller started to sense that the lives were getting even better. Stable, I went off to the Taiwan and Shanghai shows, felt many things, and suddenly after the tour ended I received a contact asking “Could you create a song to represent ‘BORUTO’?”
That was miraculous timing huh.
wowaka: That’s what I’m saying. “Naruto”hence “Boruto” has always been content that’s existed beside me almost naturally,from my childhood through to my middle-high school days. Everyone would be reading the original comics,watching the anime,that scale of influence was amazing. Then of course the anime’s representative music can’t be left unsaid. ASIAN KUNG FU GENERATION, ORANGE RANGE, such have all also written theme songs. Their oriental music left an intense impression on me. That ‘NARUTO’ songs always have cool rock bands doing them”.
Shinoda: Yeah.
wowaka: After receiving the request I read the entire original manga, it really is an awesome creation. Everything I felt in my middle-high school days sort of started to untangle, and many of those traits also correspond to this band’s current form. It wasn’t a divine blessing but, I feel something like fate is what led us to take on this theme song.
Halfway through the “ai/SOlate” tour I had investigated different ways I could make sound. So I felt the need to incorporate my new sounds firmly into my recordings. (ygarshy)
So you’re saying a memory from your teenage years linked up with Hitorie’s current form.
wowaka: That’s right. At the time I had not a clue that I was going to make music to live but, even in my lifestyle I was always brushing up upon music ,living along with it’s sort of inspiration. After all that I formed a band, and now we were requested to do the theme song at such impeccable timing. “What am I capable of doing now?” was the main question I faced, and then the result was “Polaris”. I want to show it my old self.
ygarshy: When I first received the demo from wowaka,I purely thought it was such a good song. It felt like a break-through, so much so it made me want to help convey wowaka’s message as straight as I could. If I explained it in the personal way, halfway through the “ai/SOlate” tour I had investigated different ways I could make sound. So then I felt the need to incorporate my new sounds firmly into my recordings. (ygarshy)
Similar to wowaka you felt the quality of your shows change?
ygarshy: Yeah, there was that. I don’t know when wowaka indeed started to gain that sensation but, there was a time when I told him “Leader I think your performance has been good recently”.
wowaka: Oh yeah yeah, you did tell me that.
ygarshy: That’s why wowaka’s performance had slightly changed to more effectively convey his will. Well, not that it matters if you convey it anyway, not to the audience at least.
wowaka: I believe they naturally sense it after all.
Shinoda what stance did you take during the “Polaris” production?
Shinoda: For me there was no special “I challenged this”, cause I normally just focus on gettin’ close to the image wowaka presents. For that cause,there’s songs where I’m allowed to bust out my ego, and songs where I feel I shouldn’t. Polaris is a hundred percent the latter. As for anything I struggled with, it took a lotta painstaking time to make the arpeggio on the chorus sound like a sparkle.
Yumao: I also devoted myself to conveying the impact I got from the song. Whenever I thought “Maybe I can shove a phrase in here” I would continue to make those parts extremely flashy. Also, on “RIVER FOG,CHOCOLATE BUTTERFLY” there was a lot of trouble balancing the programming and the real recording. Together with wowaka and I, we had worked on it until directly before the deadline.
Were there a lot of retakes during the making?
wowaka: Yes. Every album we always take on a new musical challenge, since I think it’s wrong to continue doing the same thing. Each member is always sure to try to squeeze in their best. Times when we express “I think you could do something more for this.” are starting to increase. When I listen to overseas music, there’s sounds that are really dry ,and songs that echo somewhere close to your ear, it often gets me thinking “How would we do this?”
wowaka told me “I want a cymbal that sounds dark”, so I brought in a super dark sounding cymbal that’s never been used from my house
(Yumao)
I see. The second track on the single “RIVER FOG, CHOCOLATE BUTTERFLY” perfectly exhibits that fascination in a new sound huh.
wowaka: True. We had written that song around June~July of this year but, the fact that I was in a “I wanna pursue this kinda music” phase is probably pretty obvious. I had only written one chorus then threw the rest at the members, I knew they could finish the rest of just that. Though once we started arranging it as a band, we felt “This needs a bit more of a hook”, so we added in the solo section, and finally the solo instrument ensemble. It became a really interesting song, didn’t it.
Yumao: We tested a lot with the drums as well. wowaka had told me “I want a cymbal that sounds dark”, so I brought in a super dark sounding cymbal that’s never been used from my house. I had absolutely no idea how to use it before so, I’m glad I got to test it on this song (laughing).
ygarshy: A synth bass was also used in the demo but since I was able to play the exact same phrase, both versions are used in the recording. Also the phrase I play near the end is a beautiful melodic line you don’t see often from me, so please make sure to give it some attention.
Shinoda: The song doesn’t have much guitar in it though. What am I gonna do at lives…
Yumao: Wouldn’t you be fine if you played a drum pad like you did last tour?
wowaka: Oh yeah, one reason I wanted to create a song like “RIVER~”was also because of the occurrences from “Unknown Mother Goose”to “ai/SOlate”, then the tour after. That tour was also the first time we had Shinoda play a drum pad.
Next is the third song,“Nichijou to Chikyuu no Gakubuchi", one of wowaka’s Vocaloid songs turned into a Hitorie version. This is the first time such music has been included into a Hitorie CD but, what was behind the decision?
wowaka: “Nichijou to Chikyuu no Gakubuchi” is a song I wrote in 2011. I was able to release a nationally distributed album of Vocaloid song (Unhappy Refrain), and the song is from around the final stages of production. I was to include 3 new songs, it was one of them. It was the last of the last of what I could still squeeze out of myself, from body to soul I was utterly exhausted to the core. With that experience behind me, after the release I never bothered to seriously confront the song. Following shortly after that we formed Hitorie but, when we first met Shinoda had said “I want to play ‘Nichijou to Chikyuu no Gakubuchi’ as a band”. Yet, I have the bad memories from when I made the song so, “That’s a bit uhh…” was all I could say.
Shinoda: Personally I had feelings of “If I can join a band with wowaka, first and foremost I want to play this song.” so.. I was shut down from the get-go.
wowaka: It was the whole “That’s the only thing I don’t want to do.” thing (laughing). The fact that it’s included in the new single is also because of events from last year to now: we created “Unknown Mother Goose”, released “ai/SOlate”… Then during tour rehearsals ,we starting talking about how “Let’s add one more song,a Vocaloid song into the setlist, how about we give ‘Nichijou to Chikyuu no Gakubuchi’ a try". For some reason I didn’t feel any rejective response from myself. After one session I thought “I can do this!”.
ygarshy: Yeah. It didn’t feel strange at all to play as a band.
Shinoda: The audience really took to it as well.
wowaka: Through performing it on tour it was turned into the band’s song. This also was Shinoda’s proposal but, when he suggested for us to add it to the single I had said “That’s real good! It’s now or never!”.
The melody is lyrical, there’s an emo guitar solo, the guitar riff is damn cool, it got me amazed sayin’ “So this is a guy who can write these types of songs too huh”
(Shinoda)
What parts of “Nichijou to Chikyuu no Gakubuchi”are appealing to you, Shinoda?
Shinoda: Even among wowaka’s songs it’s one that would stick out.
wowaka: Is that so? (laughing)
Shinoda: Your other Vocaloid songs were of a completely different taste. The melody is lyrical, there’s an emo guitar solo, the guitar riff is damn cool too, it got me amazed sayin’ “So this is a guy who can write these types of songs too huh”. More than anything, it’s really a song that fits bands. It’s guitar rock after all isn’t it.
wowaka: That is true. It’s a song created right before I started up the band so in a way it is “the prototype of Hitorie”. I’m happy we were able to give it form like this one.
Was it that you were able to distance yourself from the song, now that 7 years have past?
wowaka: That may be it. Though, I mean, there was never even any distance to begin with. Vocaloid songs and band songs alike are all my life, then there’s people who listen to me, follow me. That’s my everything to me, that I was finally able to realize.
Right now, I feel “I want to be amazing”
(wowaka)
It seems as if 2019 is going to be another thrilling year huh.
wowaka: Right now I feel “I want to be amazing”. This is partly inspired by “BORUTO”, as the protagonists of shounen manga are often weak at the beginning, aren’t they. A weak wimpy protagonist.. he slams into many different walls, he finds what’s precious to him, makes friends who he can entrust himself to, and challenges the ultimate last bass. Even at this age, I relearned how I want to value such sensations. I’m now able to believe that there’s moments when all the pain and struggles I feel through living, will be repaid. If I put that feeling into words it would be “I want to be amazing” I think. It might sound fluffy to you but, that truly is my everything.