DIR EN GREY - [2018.11.27] Kyo talk event tweet translations
I fell off the Dir train but if there’s one thing I love it’s Kyo complaining about how much he hates going overseas so here’s a bunch of translated tweets.
"I'm definitely fond of eros, beauty and a decadent worldview, such things might've been reflected in sukekiyo since before."
There's no question that sukekiyo is formed with Kyo in its centre, it's a band with Kyo as its axis, but how come it's a band that distorted/perverted and that beautiful/pure..? Kyo, who said it all just happened naturally, what did he want to portray in SALUS, and in sukekiyo?
Text: Yukinobu Hasegawa
Translation: kyotaku (if you notice any mistakes, typos etc give me a shout!)
ROCK AND READ 098 is available on Amazon JP here!
profile & information
born February 16th. blood type B. vocalist of DIR EN GREY as well as of formed in 2013 sukekiyo.
-- Although the additional March show in 2020 from sukekiyo TOUR2020 DRIPPIN' got cancelled, songwriting continued as usual. DIR EN GREY is also busy with preproduction. When it got to the situation you couldn't play concerts, could you easily change your feelings towards creative activities?
京 You write a song/melody, or if you have a song/melody you can add song/singing. That's it. sukekiyo has now about 17 songs (in stock). I have interim singing for all of them. From there we had to decide which ones to release this time. With DIR EN GREY as well, now when songs came in I added interim singing. I was just doing what can be done, just that.
-- With sukekiyo, do you often start working on a new piece with a different theme etc, like once you've done one thing next you move in a different direction?
京 Instead of thinking of wanting to do something, it's more like wanting to upgrade. We don't talk to each other so much, each band member has their own different ideas, the themes/tasks themselves. Me myself, I'm not trying to give myself a huge 'power up'. This time we also didn't have a particular course/path we wanted to follow. There are still song we haven't done [to our best potential], there's still feeling like we haven't done enough in that path, so we haven't tried anything new.
-- When we talked last time for RR (087) I asked you what kind of music you tune your antenna to, you said you listen to a lot of old 80s songs.
京 Yeah, basically I like it. But recently I'm not listening to anything. Even if I'm not adding any new data, there's already a lot of stuff inside of me that I feel like I haven't digested/absorbed in yet. That's why it feels completely natural. But if I feel like I don't have any ideas or I'd like to add a bit of new data I will listen to and watch various things more.
-- So in order to create you didn't need to work on input?
京 That's right, in the end since the pandemic started I've been only buying toys and sneakers (laughing).
-- I see (laughing). About your new release (SALUS), I've just interviewed Takumi. It seems that he got some ideas from you and based on that he created the sound/music. What kind of ideas did you give him?
京 sukekiyo already has many Showa era pop style songs, from among them, how to say this... I wanted to try singing a sparkly Showa era pop style song that would have even more nostalgic elements. Could we use this or not, how would it turn out if we made it as sukekiyo and I tried singing. I've made a request to Takumi, would ya try making somethin like that for me? There was a lot of time. When I tried singing, it ended up as a pretty interesting song. We have 17 other songs, when we started discussing which song should end up next on the next release, we all kind of agreed this one had the biggest impact/kick, so we went with it. So it was quite experimental.
-- The term Showa era pop came up, which years do you listen to the most?
(*Showa era lasted between 1929-1989)
京 The truth is, I don't listen to it so much. Somehow you feel what that era was like, for example we somehow know, like 'this sound is very 90s'. That's about how much I listen to it.
-- In the past there were many music programs on TV and many shops were playing Showa era pop, even if we didn't pay attention to it, it's music we just ended up listening to.
京 Exactly, that's how.
-- You said that sukekiyo has a lot of chic Showa era pop songs, do you see it as one of the important roots of the band?
京 Yeah, the number of this kind of songs at concerts increased, many times they serve as an accent or a special point, so I kinda wanted to have more.
-- In sukekiyo shows, and this is completely my personal view, I think you give off all of Showa culture including front and back /pour out. Thinking that you had an underground butohdancing, you also sing Showa pop songs and sometimes you also have this (old small bit rundown but very homey bars in the outskirts) feel. And you also use the old style tv noise in your stage lighting effect. Also the sense of lighting, is definitely not a gaudy style. It feels like a Showa recital of for example Chiaki Naomi.
京 That's true. And plus that, we also have digital elements, gothic elements, and the mix of all that is the most sukekiyo-like. That's why the song released now is just well divided. Things that make me feel nostalgic or videos/images and commercials that feel like that, they really suit sukekiyo well. They would definitely not suit DIR EN GREY. That's why starting from earlier, before sukekiyo's performance we have played a parody of popular old commercials. We're a band that's really into that. We're not just an underground band, but I think we constantly want to poke this subtle line of is it a joke or is it serious. Like 'is it okay to laugh here...?'
-- As someone who remembers drinking not in Showa era's Kabukicho, but in Shinjuku Golden Gai (laughing), I always get those nostalgia stabs. (*when he sees those parody videos)
京 Aah, they played them there for sure. On the topic of Shinjuku, I'd really like homesexual men to listen to it. There are many homosexual men who love Nakamori Akina.
-- Ah, true. A bit before I've interviewed Kinashi Noritake. Mr. Kinashi has a song he's singing together with Matsuko Deluxe and Mitz Mangrove. When we were talking about the recording apparently Mrs Mitz said 'I will become Akina'.
(*Matsuko Deluxe is a drag queen and a popular TV persona; same as Mitz Mangrove, Kinashi is a comedian)
京 Ah, of course. Exactly, Nakamori Akina has many devoted fans.
-- I wonder why is that? In the old Truck Yarou (Truck Guys, 1975-79) series the truck decoration had either Kudo Shizuka or Nakamori Akina.
京 I also like Kudo Shizuka, but she has almost no fans among homosexual men. It's always Matsuda Seiko or Akina, for some reason.
-- The names of those two, Kinashi also said they were mentioned by the two queens.
京 I'm not surprised. I can understand Akina, she has that melancholic feel.
-- We can call it melancholy/grief, or she has this aura of an unhappy woman. It feels to me like a circumstances of a miserable woman.
京 Yup, you get hooked in. As an idol Matsuda Seiko doesn't have a dark side at all. I thought that was good. Kudo Shizuka has this bit of a yankee feel, I guess that's what makes the difference. But I do have a favourite era of songs. And also Yamaguchi Momoe, around the time close to her retirement, she was so cool to be able singing like that at her age. That also suits sukekiyo's worldview well.
-- The women of Showa era pop really left a strong impression.
京 Amazingly. But at that time there was no internet so we couldn't check anything. As an adult now when I search videos from that time on Youtube I found them so cool. When I go back and watch them I think they are very interesting.What convenient times we're in.
-- When having free time it would be fun to watch things like that, right?
京 Well, that's true. So we filmed the video for 'Candis', it is also styled like Showa era music tv programs. It came out quite interesting.
-- You made it as close to Showa era pop as you could.
京 Recently I'm watching some retro music videos. There are people who made their videos like this. But 'Candis' starts from the interview part. The previous artist's performance ends and there's announcement 'next is sukekiyo~!'. We start filming from there. Right now Mika is in the middle of editing so I hope you will look forward to it.
-- When talking to Takumi about the song idea did you already have the image of the lyrics?
京 I get an image as soon as I hear one chorus of the song. I wrote as it all came with an image of one woman. The part of the lyrics with 'naite naite naite (cry)' is the same as I roughly sang in the beginning. There was nothing else I liked more than that so I left it. I'm usually most into those first rough lyrics I sing as the first impression, so it feels really natural.
-- When we talked at the early era of sukekiyo, you said sukekiyo very often depicts woman's nature/destiny. With the fact that 'naite naite naite' came up as the first impression, you are thinking about many different things when you sing as sukekiyo.
京 Who knows.
-- Empathy is very important in singing. With sukekiyo are you just becoming a totally different Kyo to the usual one?
京 Naah, how to say it, it's really something that comes naturally. It's not divided.
-- People definitely can have several personalities and be multidimensional. Just because you're a guy doesn't mean your personality or way of thinking would be 100%/pure guy, that would be weird.
京 I don't have a, for men it would be like this, for women it would be like this, thing. I don't see a distinction. I don't know if there's any relation, but when I get a song and an image of a woman comes up naturally, I will write and sing the lyrics like that.
-- I read that Showa pop lyrics writers etc said when writing lyrics about woman's emotions,
you do something close to profiling thinking what kind of life the woman who would become the main heroine, would be leading.
京 I understand [this kind of approach]. It's easier to think in detail about things like settings and write. Like this woman would be riding in a car like this. But I don't do that either. But isn't it completely the opposite with DIR EN GREY, how the lyrics feel? Isn't the me who has those two different ways of thinking totally dangerous? Someone very effeminate and with great viciousness, someone with no in between will be dangerous, right? When talking about having ideas naturally. It might be close to a psychopath (laughing).
-- You have without realizing multiple personalities inhibiting you (laughing).
京 When you have a psychotic break various different personalities will come out, right? And then you say 'that wasn't me' (laughing).
-- (laughing) But there is a crying woman in the lyrics of Candis.
京 There is, right? By the way, the titles of songs like this all come from Drag Queen names. 'Valentina' is like that. 'dorothy' is [from the perspective of] a homosexual woman. I deliberately create titles from a place with no boundary between men and women.
-- When you're singing, I think for sure you must want the song to reach someone, for someone to get the message. How about with 'Candis'?
京 I'm most interested in the reaction of the homosexual men when they listen to the song. But I want many people to listen to it, naturally. Recently young people don't know Showa era pop, so I'd like them to listen. To see that even in this era things like that are being done. Although we're a band.
-- In 'Furesaseru' even more wretched/tragic thing happens than in 'Candis'.
京 Aah, yeah.
-- A woman who is selling her body is questioning herself about her existence and feelings, if she's right or wrong. But there's a reality you can't deny. With a title 'furesaseru・let someone touch' for such story, you definitely went far depicting it.
京 We also released it as a demo tape, but I recorded the singing again and music atmosphere also did a quite 180 turn. But the image of the lyrics didn't change so much, it wasn't possible to change the text. That was also natural. Somehow, the dark and gloomy feeling came out, atmosphere of spacing out in a hotel. What came naturally from that became this song.
-- I think everyone will react to the word 'room 304'.
京 I'm doing things like that now and then. Something that only people who get it will get. The part in 'Candis' of 'kizu wa kireina hana ni naru・a wound will become a beautiful flower' comes from the old DIR EN GREY lyrics that I wrote. People who hear it will go 'huh? He's referring to his own lyrics?' I'd be happy if they reacted to this with 🤭.
-- You're being playful. Although the lyrics content is very serious. When I listened to 'Furesaseru' after 'Candis' I could only see a figure of one woman who is falling (morally, becoming depraved).
京 That really matches well other sukekiyo songs, the before and after.
-- Do you think you're letting out the overflowing inside of you sorrow, darkness and conflicts of one woman?
京 I wonder. There's also that I like this kind of worldview. Aren't there lots of old movies and dramas that are pretty grimy? That's the strongest impression I have. It would really match perfectly if you for example watched old movies with Momoi Kaori. With love and madness being both mixed together or the image of a woman who looks good with a cigarette. I also love the series 'Gokudou no tsuma/onna tachi' (Yakuza Wifes/Ladies, 1986~). Rather than the usual yakuza movie with men, that series is so good. They are depicting women's nature, the fights between women or their ugly side. It seems that I like this kind of worldview. These kinds of things come out naturally. I'm not really watching normal ones with happy stories. Or rather, I'm not interested. Ah, and I love the old drama with Mikami Hiroshi ('Anata dake mienai' 1992) with a three split personalities theme. Because of that I asked Mr.Hiroshi to sing with me for a collaboration for VITIUM (focus Collaboration with Mikami Hiroshi included on disc 2 of the first edition). A guy who becomes a woman, the impact this drama made really stayed very vivid. And, there's the old erotic books that were thrown away at riversides*, isn't that oddly erotic? There's something so graphic/raw there. Recently, there's nothing with the same kind of feeling. It's not eroguro (erotic and grotesque), but it's tied. It matches sukekiyo really well.
(*erotic books discarded at the riverside are supposed to be Showa scenery that people have a nostalgic feeling about...)
-- Does it match sukekiyo, or is it your own desire or what you are?
京 No, I don't see this in a sexual way. I see it as an art. Like being drawn to it. A woman tied up in a Japanese room with tatami... there's something beautiful about it, I see it with the eyes like that. I'm definitely fond of eros, beauty and a decadent worldview. Such things might have been reflected in sukekiyo since before. The poledancers from that time or the signs in the neon town are also nice. I can feel the darkness with just that.
-- Creeper that will be only included on the limited edition is a song about woman obsessed with plastic surgery.
京 Something like that.
-- The struggle of wanting to become beautiful, feelings about deciding to have plastic surgery, and the fight with her true feelings if it's right or not. The way you portray it doesn't feel like a song.
京 I guess. The song itself was also the most crazy one, so we had to include the latest sounds giving strong scent of German-like atmosphere. I felt it was something for the hardcore fans only so it will be only included on the limited edition. I'm really into that song.
-- It's incredible how your voice changes colour. From the side of the doctor who performs the plastic surgery, to looking down at the society, to the patient who lost her feelings, the way you depict things changes with each scene.
京 That's also something natural for me. If I thought about it a bit more I could answer various questions, but as the years went by I stopped thinking about it. In the past, I had various things like the sound coming from the right here, rotate the position here or sing this way here. But as the years went by I let it all become natural.
-- Because, in the end, it is better?
京 I think it is. I don't mind if it's all perfect and polished, but if it's a half assed job it'd end up very immature. It's not like it was intentional like 'I really want you to listen to the lyrics here' or 'this part is really good' and so on. Things like this are also that, done in a more natural way. Singing effects are put in by band members in a way that matches the song, so I can't say anything on that. They always create something better than I imagined. Songs written by utA very often change their image to grotesque (グロっと?) in the final stage so I'm really looking forward to them every time.
-- After asking you about the lyrics, I cannot see an image of happy woman at all. By the way, the release title is 'SALUS'. Isn't it the exact opposite of the meaning?
京 Nope, I thought it would be interesting to attach a name like this to such desperate work (theme/message wise). But for the fans who will listen to it it shoud also be a relief/salvation.
-- SALUS is the female god of health, right?
京 There must be some fans who'd be like 'I've been waiting for this' even with such lyrics or songs, so I decided on [name] like that to help them even a little in these difficult times.
-- There might be some people who while listening will think 'I'm not this miserable' and cheer up?
京 There are many fans who seem to understand even if they can't trully sympathize. And even though I'm writing lyrics like that there are surprisingly many male fans, of sukekiyo. I don't understand why. They might like the music, or they might be guys who like the effeminate lyrics. But I'm glad we have many male fans.
-- There must be something, like one more feeling inside that drives me. With the lyrics that made us see the scene clearly, we can see crystal clear a woman's personality or even her view of life in a 4, 5 minute long song.
京 If you listen to the song while reading the lyrics it might be like that. This time it might be quite pronounced. Or it might be also that it's narrowed down to 3 songs. With an album it'd be a bit more spread out.
-- In December you will hold a tour 'tonari no hekiko (Hekiko/peculiar girl next to you) -shikkoku no gi-'.
京 Yup, in Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo.
-- Of course I have checked the venues and dates. But what's with this tour name? (laughing)
京 Nothing really, it's the worldview. I think many people who like this kind of worldview are distorted/twisted. Normal, when we say normal, once you say 'I like sukekiyo' you're not normal anymore. That's why I'm pointing at fans, the kid who stands next to you is the same as you. Everyone is the same race/kind. After all everyone is weird. And recently I heard there was a fan(s) who went to DIR EN GREY shows after getting into sukekiyo. I'm not sure about their reaction after seeing DIR EN GREY (laughing). But I'd like various people to listen to us. If those people could listen to me without making any distictions, not see me as DIR EN GREY's vocalist, that would make me happy.
Performance from the Hide Memorial Summit back in 2008. This was not part of the PPV broadcast, and as far as I’ve found this is the only recording of it that exists.
