How long have you had your own studio in Nagano?
We came back to
Nagano around the time of homely like I mentioned earlier, so it’s been about 11 years now. We make
demos and practice here, and then do the album recording at Peace Music Studio
in Tokyo.
Does all of
the band live in Nagano?
Our drummer Katsuura lives in Tokyo, but the rest of us all live here in
Nagano, yeah. The three of us are all kind of spread throughout the prefecture,
though, and live in different areas.
Your music
has both that raw energy unique to bands and the texture of electronic music
tracks, so I’d be really curious to hear your approach. How do you make music as
a band?
Basically both Mabuchi and I will make our own demos, and
then we’ll combine these and use them as a base
for us all to play to once we’re together in the
studio. We then tweak the arrangements depending on how things go during
practice or while working in the studio.
How set in
stone are the details of your songs once you start recording?
Some songs are pretty much set in stone like you said, but
we also have cases where almost nothing is finalized and we just put it
together as we record. It really varies song to song.
Even if it’s just for the demo, the fact
that you’re putting together all the instrumental parts
on your own means that, if it really came down to it, you do everything by
yourself, right? Why do you choose to work with a band despite this?
Part of it is that
the other guys in the band will come up with ideas that I would never think of.
But another thing is that the simple act of playing the digital parts I did for
the demo on actual instruments brings about subtle swings in the rhythm and
changes to the texture or intensity of each sound, and all this can drastically
alter the entire feel of the song. So I feel like these things produce better
results than what I could make on my own.
Do you ever try to imagine what people will be
thinking as they listen to your songs while you make them?
It’s less “what other people will
think” than “what I will think” that’s at the forefront
of my mind when I’m making music. Once a song is
finished, I’ll start to want to hear other people’s thoughts on it, but until that point it’s
not really something I worry about. Sometimes we’ll
discuss our image for a track as a band while we work but I wouldn’t really call it great communication by any means, more just saying
stuff like, “Hey this sounds like a tanuki slapping its belly as it
dances around, so let’s change it up.”
Is how you’ll play a song live ever a
consideration while you’re making it?
For the past few
years we’ve
been trying to keep playing live out of our minds while we record, probably
because if we do make a song with playing it live as the premise then it can
limit the arrangement. Instead we try to keep the live aspect out of mind and
focus more on putting in all kinds of ideas. Then we’ll
start thinking about how to arrange a song and perform it right before we need
to play it live.
Do you view recording and live concerts as
completely different forms of expression?
Well, it’s not like what we’re actually doing is completely different, but in terms of the
experience for those of us doing it, things are definitely not the same. With
recording there is no audience, of course, and it’s a
simple process of just plugging along steadily without knowing how people will
receive your efforts later. But with live shows you have the audience right
there in front of you to react to the sounds you’re
making on the spot, so there’s a kind of thrill or satisfaction
that’s much easier to grasp. At present I feel like it’s a good thing for me to have these two different forms of
expression.