MEJIBRAY interview with PIA (English translation)

Please only repost with proper credit!

Original article: pia

Translation: Gizorz
Note: I did this translation pretty fast so there might be mistakes...
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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 4^th, 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”)