Translation: Heterodoxy Pamphlet. Music Writers Reflect on 20 Years of the GazettE, Part 1/6 (2002-2004)
Hello friends! As promised long long ago, I'm starting the Heterodoxy series where music writers reflect on their work with the band in the last 20 years. This might take some time since not all the texts are ready just yet, but I will do my best to finish them as quickly as I can. This is Part 1/6, hope you enjoy it!
scan credit: @rad-is-more
Text by Hiroko Yamamoto [1]
the GazettE was born in March 2002. The band was formed by Uruha and Reita, who were dear friends from elementary school, Ruki, who they crossed in the previous band (back when he was a drummer) and who later changed to vocals, and their first drummer, Yune, who also invited his buddy from a previous band, Aoi. Two months later, they played their first show at Meguro Rokumeikan, a live venue that can be described as a gateway to success for visual kei bands. Their first maxi single "Wakaremichi" has a melancholic, catchy melody and an impressive fast-paced sound. During the encore of their 20th anniversary live at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in March this year, Ruki looked back on the beginning of the band: "We are the GazettE, and 20 years ago we got together thinking this would be the last band of our lifetimes”. It was during those young days when the band was standing on the stage with recklessness and foolhardiness when such strong headbanging songs as “Kantou Dogeza Kumiai” and “Waifu” were created, yet they continue to stay popular to this day. The band's forward momentum is best represented by the time when they had to play “Kantou Dogeza Kumiai” over and over again because they didn’t have many original songs yet. While they were firing the audience up with their so-called "violent songs", they also had an amazing ability to write emotionally rich compositions with Showa-inspired melodies, such as "Juunanasai" (later included in the pamphlet with CD for their first Nippon Budokan concert). Everything in the GazettE of those early days, up to their make-up and costumes, was elusive and funny in a good way, as conveyed by "Sentimental na Onigokko", a song about bullying, which presents the listeners with a droll world view of a locked room.
The band’s first turning point came the following year. In 2003, when their first drummer left the band, Kai, with whom they had played together in session shows, quickly took his place. This made the current five members, and the band moved to a new office. It was Ruki who made a last-minute call to Kai, and the drummer had to join in right from the next day's show. From this point on the band’s rapid progress officially began. the GazettE of those times actively participated in organized taiban [2] events. They were even nicknamed “taiban killers”, as their heat-packed shows helped them steal away fans who had come to see other bands. In the next three months they released three consecutive four-track mini-albums, "COCKAYNE SOUP", "Akuyuukai" and "Spermargarita", which increased the number of their fans in geometrical progression. Incidentally, at the time they called themselves "Dai Nippon Itan Geisha Gazetto" [3]. The name derived from the thought of what the word “Visual Kei” would sound like if it was a Japanese word [4]. On their 15th anniversary in 2017, the band held a concept show at the Yoyogi National Stadium. On that stage today's the GazettE performed songs from the Dainippon Itan Geisha era, so hopefully fans who didn’t know their early days got to know them. The sense of unity between band and fans that rose steam from the live house, the "Jump to us!" screams, and the band's stage presence all developed during that exact period. Back in September of 2003, the band sold out a two-day one-man show at Takadanobaba AREA, and only four months later, in January 2004, their one-man show "JUDGMENT DAY" at SHIBUYA-AX was sold out. On the day of the show, the venue was overflowing with fans, and the venue’s doors were barely closing. The band was not informed that the tickets had been sold out until the day of the show, and how they were surprised by the scenery in front of them and the crowd’s enthusiasm almost seems funny today.
Particular about every aspect of their performances, videos, sets, playing their music live, even coming up with their own ideas for photoshoots and never stopping the work until they are satisfied – this is the GazettE. When I was covering them in a magazine for the first time, I felt that a band of an entirely new generation that took over from the royalty of Visual Kei (although there was no such term back in the day) had entered the scene. I remembered their down-to-earth attitude, in which the live show and the fans who attend it are the most important thing. I also remembered that young the GazettE had a simple goal of keeping the band going, rather than becoming a band that was listened to by a certain number of people. Come to think of it, that hasn’t changed a bit. Truly an ironclad band.
[1] Hiroko Yamamoto / Born in Tokyo. Impacted by glam and punk rock as well as blues in her college days, she started a band and spent her life immersed in music. After working for an entertainment editorial production, she became a freelance writer. She covered the GazettE for the free papers and visual-kei specific magazines like Neo Genesis. She was particularly impressed by the band’s stance with its emphasis on live performances and believing in their music and their fans without being influenced by trends or critical opinions. Currently writes columns on music, as well as films and doramas. (From the pamphlet’s credits)
[2] 対バン (taiban) - A live with several bands performing. Usually those are beginner bands that split the venue and equipment rent as well as other costs.
[3] 大日本異端芸者 (Dai Nippon Itan Geisha) can be translated as “Heretic people of art (professional performers) of the Great Japan”. We know Ruki never chooses names for anything without putting a lot of meaning into it, and I’d say there are many layers to this title as well.
大日本 (Dai Nippon) initially referrs to the Japanese Empire (大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku, 1868–1947), which embraced the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa eras in Japanese history, though nowadays it is considered a nationalistic way of referring to Japan. Dai Nippon expressed the overall aesthetics that the GazettE (then - Gazetto) was working with at the time: Japanese flags on the Wakaremichi cover, the silhouettes of children wearing Imperial Japan school uniforms on the COCKAYNE SOUP cover, lyrics (Oni no men) and the use of traditional melodies (Back Drop Junkie [Nancy]), their iconic indie photoshoots with lots of elements clearly inspired by Japanese culture and so on.
異端 (itan) means heresy. This word is also clearly important for the GazettE’s vision and positioning since we see it literally everywhere: in the fanclub name, 20th anniversary live name, merch etc. If we look up the meaning of the word “heresy”, we’ll see the following: “an opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted”. Not only “being profoundly different” is a key principle of Visual Kei, it is also one of the grounds the GazettE exists and continues to work on.
Finally, 芸者 (geisha, “a person of art”) is a pretty well-known word internationally. While most people associate geisha with professional female performers, the Japanese word itself doesn’t have any gender markers, and the first geisha, which appeared around the first half of the 18th century, were actually male. At the same time, it might refer to the androgynous nature of Visual Kei.
[4] “Visual Kei” is partially a gairaigo — a word that came from a foreign language. The question they asked themselves was “if the concept of v-kei had to be translated through the prism of Japanese culture and values, what would a Japanese word describing it sound like?” And the answer is, apparently, “heretic people of art”.