Skream! Interview
Translator Comment
I translated the second half of the Skream! interview… The first half was a only a discussion of to wo’s Unknow Mother emotions, but the aiSOlate half had me much more fired up baby. I gotta follow my fire.
The most prominent out of the new sounding songs, are the two “Loveless” and “Namid[A]me”. They’ve become songs with a taste of club music in them, with an almost warmth they’re so danceable.
wowaka: You can tell that we tried to do something a little different, can’t you.
Yumao: For Loveless, to record it I had played and repeated the same beat nonstop for about an hour. That’s how much I worked to improve the accuracy.
Shinoda: You were really tired (laughing).
wowaka: To strengthen the strength of the ensemble, we did things like that.
You don’t usually do that, do you?
Shinoda: Well, no.
Yumao: It’s probably because this song has only one phrase, that we did.
wowaka: We have never made a song that has the same phrase going on for 100, 200 times. So I think we stepped through a process different than ever before.
ygarshy: Also, I remember there was the issue as to whether or not I should play bass in Loveless, at the beginning.
wowaka: That’s right that’s right.
ygarshy: The demo originally also had synth bass sort of sprung all over it. It didn’t really sound human. So the image of bass wasn’t really coming to me. When we began production, we thought about just leaving it as synth bass, but once we were in the recording stage, we decided that we’ll make something cooler with what a human can do.
Even the idea of synth bass would have been impossible for Hitorie’s songs before. Do you think that this song is still an approved Hitorie song?
wowaka: Definitely, as long as us four are all are playing, and I’m singing, I think we could do anything.
Shinoda: That’s how it is.
wowaka: If this was 2 years ago, I think I would have been all conscious that “This isn’t me” “This isn’t Hitorie”. Yet recently, I think that whatever is me, is just coming out on it’s own. When I fervently face things that seem interesting, personality just seems to be something that oozes out. So I think only recently I’ve become able to write this sort of song.
Shinoda: Also we’ve gotten sick of fast songs.
wowaka: Don’t say that, I mean there isShinoda: It was a joke but (laughing).
Shinoda: It was a joke but (laughing). As a player I also have fun using pick-ups and such I was never able to use before.
The song that I really could tell you were just using trial and error and playing around, is “Social Clock”.
Yumao: That was fun.
Shinoda: That was fucking fun.
Yumao: I was able to put in a gong in for the first time.
A real gong?
Yumao: Yep. One as big as ones they use in concert halls.
Shinoda: Who would have thought that would have came out.
wowaka: It was a pain to bring in (laughing).
Shinoda: Just rubbing it made a sound like that a monster was going to pop out.
While you were writing the song, did you feel that a gong was needed?
wowaka: Yeah (laughing). “This has got be a gong!” was what I thought. I just wanted it to be flashy. In the end we used the gong around 10 times in the song.
Yumao: It blends in surprising well.
Shinoda: What’s funny is that, with the gong there, the guitar also starts to sound like it.
wowaka: It has an oriental ring to it, doesn’t it.
Shinoda: Yeah, it’s strange isn’t it. With just one hit of the gong, it changes so much.
wowaka: This too, if it was 2 or 3 years ago, I’m sure I would have thought “A band using a gong is just weird”. Yet in listening to foreign music, there was times like “I never that realized that you can do interesting things like that!”. Then I had about a year to contemplate such within myself, and now I’ve become able to try such new things.
Lastly I want to ask about the lyrics. Like how we talked about the starting point of your band and the anger: “Absolute” and “NAI.” were written on just that basis, weren’t they.
wowaka: That’s right. I realized when I looked back, that I was angry, that I was pissed off, that I was sad back when I had stepped down from Vocaloid. So, when I dropped the amplitude of those emotions into my songs, I felt that maybe I could become more free. The feeling of anger is the strong one in this album.
-So you wanted to go for emotions that weren’t just on the positive side?
wowaka: That, is something that people who are capable of it, do from the second they are born. But for the past 29 years of my life, I’ve been someone who was never able to do it. “Happiness”, since last time, when I became able to head towards such a direction, since I learned of it, I wanted to try going the opposite way too.
Moreover, to not just end it with venting out all that anger, but to properly switch to a positive-looking perspective, it makes me feel that I can fight along with you just by listening to this mini album.
wowaka: Ah, that’s it. I want to fight, I do. I want to fight for love.
Yumao: That’s intense!
Shinoda: We’ve gotten somewhere crazy.
wowaka: I sing about this in “Loveless” too but, when I think about what I myself want to become, in the end, it’s not just about the shallow meaning about wanting to be liked by other people, but, all this time I’ve been saved by so many people’s love for me, and I want to become more able to feel it, to become someone who deserves to be given it. And for that sake, I have to be able to sing about anger as well.
ygarshy: This is the first time I’ve ever heard “I’m fighting for the sake of love” but, thinking about it, I’m starting to see that our jacket photo could also be a symbol of that.
What is the original meaning behind the jacket photo design?
wowaka: Should I say… I feel like it’s kind of cliché to put it into words, and I’m kind of afraid to say it but…. In kanji and kana, it’s supposed to spell out “一人へ” (hitori he).
Oh wow, it’s true. It’s definitely something you’re better off not saying, this is something you want people to notice themselves.
wowaka: Well, I’m worried that people probably won’t notice, so I’ll say it (laughing). In a sense, I hope for it to be taken as my battle flag.
I understand. I think that this mini album is a transition from IKI that will fire up the expectations of listeners, in a good way.
Yumao: Of course we ourselves did what we could but. I also feel like “Well, where should we go next?”
Shinoda: It’s fun that even we don’t have any idea as to where that is.