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――Thank you MEJIBRAY for coming to the pia office
today. There might also be a lot of readers of “ure pia research”[1] who don’t
know MEJIBRAY yet so could you please explain quickly what kind of band you
are?
Tsuzuku “It’s
right in front of your eyes right. Speaking of ordinary people, everyone looks
the same, but if you see someone you’re not used to it makes an impact doesn’t
it. Like meto... and meto... and meto... ”
―― I think you have a relatively extravagant
appearance compared to recent so called “Visual Kei” bands. Is that intentional?
Meto “………………………………………………………”
Koichi He’s
saying: “I’m the same as my feelings... emotionally. Because just putting up
makeup doesn’t make you Visual Kei”.
Tsuzuku: “We
didn’t really think about it. We just did what we wanted to when we wanted to.”
――So what’s the theme of your outfits right now?
Tsuzuku: “It’s
perverted... sadist (While touching his whip).”
Koichi : “I... well I grew horns. These horns just sprun up
on their own. I used makeup
that felt like it fit with them [the horns].”
MiA “I
wanted to do a theme from the near future this time. “I kind of like Darth
Vader from ‘Star Wars’.”
――You’re planning to release your new single on October
4th, what will the theme for this work be?
Tsuzuku “It doesn’t really have a theme. I just make songs
from my own nice experiences. I just made it because I wanted to. We just had
great timing with releasing this song.”
MiA “It’s
really the timing. For example, it was decided to be released at this time, but
if we would’ve released at a different time wouldn’t there have been a
different decision again? So ‘EMILY’ fits this timing perfectly”
Tsuzuku: “We
think about the sales. If we’d be a selfish band just doing what we want
without thinking about selling, that would be the worst pattern.”
MiA “It can’t
be helped if we don’t sell. When we first started selling we were able to be a
bit more flexible in our views and in order to release a lot of works as
opposed to songs we raised the quality of our music too. To the fans ‘selling’=
catchy. So there are a lot of people with negative feelings about ‘selling’ and
I hope we don’t misunderstand each other on this. We’re not selling yet so we
don’t know yet but I think there are many great cycles.”[2]
――So then what is the objective of the band?
MiA: “Our
objective is huge! We’re obviously a Dome[3]-class band.”
Tsuzuku: “We
have unfathomable dreams huh”
――You’re taking the first step with your fist
oneman live in Shinjuku BLAZE which has been planned on November 11th, are you
excited?
Tsuzuku “It
wouldn’t be good if we were too excited, I wonder if I’d be like ‘it’s a bit big...’.”
MiA “We’ll
be doing our first oneman tour in October before that so we’d probably get some
experience from that.”
Koichi: “I’m
always preparing for war so if I’m told let’s do a live I don’t usually get
worked up”
Meto “…………………………………………………………”
Koichi: “He’s saying ‘I’ll eat more high class cotton, I don’t
want to get a cold’.”
――Cotton!?
Koichi: “Meto
only eats cotton. He’s a doll.”
Tsuzuku: “That damned cotton!”
――When looking at MEJIBRAY’s development, it’s
interesting how you use the internet. I
have the impression that usually Visual kei bands focus their net activity on
ameblo and such, but you do so especially. You really use the internet to reply
seriously on Twitter and to communicate to your fans don’t you?
MiA “We’re
not famous in the good or bad sense. We’re always taking risks by speaking, but
it’s good if people get interested from that. I guess fans will come in anyway
if our music is good.”
Tsuzuku “Ah,
when I published pictures, photo collages like Chef Kawagoe and Shouei[4] were
made by the fans, that was pretty shocking.”
MiA “Exactly.
When there’s a photo collage spreading among our fans of us holding washing
powder for whatever reason, it’s like, why on earth is that washing powder there
(haha)”
Tsuzuku “for
some reason there were also a lot of ‘jigoku no misawa[5]’ parody pictures
right”
MiA “We
simply like interesting things. When photo’s like that are being spread,
because the subject of the photo is cool, people who don’t know us might think ‘what
kind of cool band is this’ and get interested. In that way it creates new
promotion for us.”
――About your music, the hook in your latest single track
karma is really impressive, where you aiming at something like that?
MiA “The
melody of the hook uses the same word as the title, and when it’s repeated in
the melody, it’ll get stuck in people’s heads.
I really like the way Akimoto (Yasushi) and Tsunku[6] approach the music
market with their way of thinking and the strength of their producing. In the
feature I’d like to become like those people who had a great influence on
music. ”
Tsuzuku “MEJIBRAY
is kind of a lump of timing and strategy.”
MiA “For
example you don’t get several ten thousands like that just by advertising. I want to cut down from that section and put
it into the production of works. Besides
that, doing this sort of promotion, in reality the big showy advertisements
cost a lot of money and so the quality of the music... , I don’t think there’s
just a few cases of this example, so even if it’s only one band or only one artist
I wonder if they’re going to regret it. All the fans will want to return from
the rabbit to the horned bands with the good music.[7]”
――And lastly, please give a short comment.
Tsuzuku: “It’s
important that you listen to us, no matter in what way. Even though downloading
and such has been pretty bothersome lately”
MiA: “Lately
YouTube’s been there but it’s okay as long as you listen”
Meto: “…………………………………………………”
Koichi: “He said ‘I want to see Visuals. I want to convey things with visuals. You’ll be
able to enjoy MEJIBRAY with your eyes, ears and body’. I also think it’s fine either way so I just
want you to experience it at least one time.”
Translators notes:
[1] Name of
the feature.
[2] Ugh okay, long, long answer. Basically what he’s saying is “if we make a
lot of sales we can do more awesome shit and our music will become better”.
[3] Tokyo Dome, that big ass stadium obviously.
[4] These are two famous people... An Italian chef and a TV personality it
seems... I guess people like making photomanips of them? http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sh%C5%8Dei
[5] Some manga series.. Kyary appeared in it apparently at some point. It has a
pretty particular drawing style: http://jigokuno.com/
[6] Responsible for AKB48 and Morning musume respectively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasushi_Akimoto and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunku )
[7] He means it like, even though an artist might do awesome advertising and
quickly gain a lot of fans, they’ll only be popular for a short time like a
rabbit, and then the fans will turn back to the bands that actually make good
music like MEJI (which is what he’s referring to with “horns”)
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