I was on a roll so I managed to translate this first part of the new interview that was released today (it's pretty short). I'll do the rest too once they're out. If you speak Japanese and feel like I could've translated something better, feel free to let me know; and if you share pieces of the translation, please credit (either my tumblr or twitter, I don't mind)!
!Also! Aoi talks about depression at the end of this part, so please be mindful.
Part 1 • May 11th 2021
We haven’t heard anything at all from the GazettE ever since their 18th anniversary live 【18TH ANNIVERSARY DAY/6576】, scheduled for March 10th last year, had been cancelled due to the effects of the coronavirus. No doubt their January announcement of a new album release, 『MASS』, had many fans breathing a sigh of relief. We caught up with Aoi (Guitar), on the verge of releasing his new work, to talk to him about life during the corona crisis, the GazettE’s thoughts behind their silence in 2020, their new work 『MASS』 and more. (4 parts in total)
First of all, I would like to ask you about last year, when the corona crisis began. Starting from the end of February 2020, one after the other lives and events ended up being postponed or cancelled due to the effects of the crisis. the GazettE’s 【18TH ANNIVERSARY DAY/6576】 scheduled for March 10th was cancelled as well, how did you feel about that?
Well, I sort of felt that there was nothing to be done about it. Obviously we wanted to do the show but we understood that the circumstances didn't allow it. Our opinions, those of staff and the band members, regarding whether we should or shouldn’t do it weren’t really divided, and we all agreed that it was important to release information about whether it’d be cancelled or postponed as quickly as possible. At the time there were people saying “Won’t corona be gone by May?” So even though March was impossible, we thought maybe we’d be able to re-schedule for June and that’s why it was decided not to do it in March.
The cancellation happened right while you were already getting excited for the live, I wonder if that left you feeling disheartened.
It did. March 10th is such an important day for the GazettE, we all came together to create this concert and then it got cancelled right as we had reached that final stage [of preparations]. But even so we didn’t hesitate to cancel it. The beginning of March was a very delicate period of time, you know. The truth is that, while there were people who decided not to do shows, there were also those who did, despite the situation, and there were voices praising them for it. I, however, was wondering whether that was really something worth being praised for. Doing or not doing shows is something each artist has their own opinion on, you can’t really say which one is the better one, but I asked myself how people around me were saying “giving concerts in these circumstances is a resolute decision.” Because I thought that the important thing was to try and keep corona from spreading any further so although I felt disappointed that we couldn’t do the show, there was nothing I could do about it.
You were calmly watching the situation, right? After that, mid-March, the numbers of infected people began rising and on April 7th the first state of emergency was declared; the world entered the “STAY HOME” period. How did you spend your days at the time?
I was a NEET. Generally a NEET (laughs). [TN: ‘NEET’ describes a young person neither working full-time nor learning a job] I did get invitations but I declined them all and just shut myself inside. I was always at home, always playing the guitar. I’m taking lessons and those ended up being online so I continued those. And that way I spent a lot more time facing my guitars. I felt like, because we’re the kind of people who are being kept alive by all of you [the fans], I wanted to prepare properly for the next time we’d be able to have a show, not go out and have fun or anything like that. So I played the guitar, not do anything stupid. If I were to get covid, there’s no way it would stay a secret, it would be news, right? And if that happened, people would ask “But the GazettE aren’t working, so how did you…?” And that would be the biggest betrayal for our fans, I think.
We also cancelled the show because it would've been awful if we had gotten covid ourselves, so if I'd gotten it then people would've been like "how the hell are you getting covid doing nothing?" (laughs) I wouldn't have gotten away with my usual "Be careful." So I just holed up at home, playing guitar and waiting with all my heart for the day I could go outside normally again.
Refraining from going out and playing the guitar with the goal being to pick up your activities again shows your level of awareness. That is to say, during this time of self-restraint, were you drinking at home?
I was always drinking at home, I still do now. I’ve already become friends with big brother Kakuyasu (laughs). [TN: Kakuyasu is a liquor store] Because I have them bring beer over two, three times a month.
Eeh?! Uh, w-well, with doing that two, three times a month you’ve got quite the drinking capacity...
Not really, I only ever buy 1 case at a time which has 24 cans in it. I drink 2 cans a day, so they’re gone in around 10 days.
A-Ah, is that so? Can you buy only one case at a time at Kakuyasu?
No no no, you can get more. But I have a feeling it wouldn't be very good for me if I had that many beer cans lying around my house (laughs). So I try to only buy one case at a time (laughs).
You’re not drinking every evening like you’re bathing in it, are you? (laughs) Aoi-san, you like fishing though, have you fished at all?
I haven’t. I bought the equipment but I haven’t used it once so far.
From June on and after, I thought it wouldn’t be a problem to get in a car by yourself and go fishing, but you practiced self-restraint?
That… well. There was this one time around summer where corona calmed down, right? There I thought I could go fishing but then there had been… red fire ants? coming out of some containers at the pier. So then I refrained from going and then winter came around and corona was still going strong so it just didn't work out. I didn’t go fishing at all. I just rolled up my reel at home (laughs).
Ah… I see (laughs). I caught sight of a lot of artists who ended up falling into a “corona depression”, who pondered things and then decided to retire, but I am glad you weren’t hit by that yourself.
It was pretty tough, though. I did think “I want to be depressed” and that it would be much easier to just say “Hey, I’m depressed.” I felt quite bad mentally. Because I got this kind of sensation like I was being detached from society because I wasn’t working, and there were struggles on the financial side of things as well. But having said that, it wasn’t so bad that I would’ve worked at a cash register at a conbini or something. Because if that story had spread, that wouldn’t have been very funny (laughs). It was a sort of last-minute situation in that way. I do believe that all musicians felt like that at the time, but there weren’t any prospects for the future at all and it worried me. We’ve already been doing the GazettE for 19 years now but we’ve never once had a time where our schedule was this empty. I mean last year we were working on songs for the album so I didn’t entirely feel like we were being inactive, but I think it would’ve been really dangerous if I hadn’t had that.
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