[part 1/4] DIR EN GREY WOWOW Interview & Document (2020)
“Of course, I have to face the other four members. I'm carrying their lives and my life is being carried by them as well. I did it with that determination.” — Kaoru
Notes before reading:
The whole interview is divided into 8 topics, and the translation is divided into 4 parts. This is the first part, which includes the previous 2 topics. The details of all topics and time markers are 👉 here.
I have added Chinese subtitles for this video in 2021. The whole interview was very meaningful, and I hope that with the English translation, more people can understand what they're talking about.
The five members were interviewed separately and then edited into a video, so the words spoken by each of them are not necessarily coherent.
Repost and share are welcome.🙌 I translated it all by my ears, so please feel free to correct me if you spot any mistake or any confusing parts.☺️
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01. Band Formation ~ Debut
►The Formation of DIR EN GREY
Shinya: All four of us were in the same band except for Toshiya on bass. Then the band broke up and we had to find a new member again.
Kyo: Each of us all wanted to be in a band. So after discussion, we decided to get rid of one person and get the four of us together.
(*Note: After La:Sadie's disbanded, the four of them decided to form a new band in addition to KISAKI.)
Die: We were friends with Toshiya at that time, so we thought about finding all the members and forming a band with him.
Toshiya: At that time, their band was gaining momentum. I would like to play with the four of them if it's possible and I happened to be invited. That's what happened.
►Origin of the Band Name
Kaoru: At that time, there was a band that communicated with us very closely. The band had a song called DIR EN GREY*, and that's where our band got its name. I always thought it was a good name, so I suggested it as the name of our band.
(*Note: It refers to a song called "Dir en Gray" by the band "LAREINE" (with Kamijo as vocalist), which was formed in 1994.)
Kyo: There were two alternative names at that time, the other one was proposed by me, but the final vote was 3:2 so I lost. (laughs) After I lost, the band name became DIR EN GREY.
(*Note: Another name is "如月" (きさらぎ, kisaragi ) → Dir en grey turns 25 today! )
►Looking Back at the time of Debut
Shinya: The three debut singles were produced by YOSHIKI-san. He also played the piano for our song after debut, I had no regrets at that time even if I died, that's how I felt.
Kaoru: At that time, we had only recorded once or twice in a decent studio, and we had also recorded in places like homes. YOSHIKI-san took us straight to a professional recording studio and said, "Let's make the debut single!" without giving us time to think.
. . .
02. Expression
►Awareness in the Creative Process
Die: After all, the band has been around for more than 20 years, therefore, we have to create something more exciting. It's not that I have to do anything, but I try to experiment with all kinds of things. So there are times when we can't be categorized as anything but DIR EN GREY.
Shinya: While it is changing over time, now I just want to make songs that I feel good about.
Toshiya: Every recording has to add the sound that you think is good, and you must like the songs you create, or you must love them.
Kaoru: The overall sense of balance and the feeling that the listener will have, and of course there are many other things. I would listen to the song several times to feel it, and repeat it over and over again. I can remember it by listening to it over and over again. After listening to it a few times, I will pay attention to interesting pieces, new discoveries, and so on, while I'm composing.
Kyo: Most people have a fixed style after 20 years, like "This is the way this person is," but I'm not like that. Of course it's cool to stick to your own unique style, although I can do that and feel like I can keep myself.
Kyo: I don't like to make people think that "This is how I am in the end" or something like that, it's not my style. I want to show the changes in each moment directly. When I can't express the music naturally, I may stop, and when I can't create freely, I will stop.
►Things want to Convey through Music
Toshiya: What I/we want to convey is simply "pain (痛み)". Living is a hard thing, and being able to create that power of anger, I think that's our music.
Kyo: I am very bad at expressing beautiful things, or is that not for me? It's... it's irritating. Maybe it's because I often feel that there is nothing good in the world, and I don't like things that look like fabrications.
Shinya: Those are supposed to be in the lyrics, and I don't particularly want to express the pain with the drums.
🤣🤣
Kaoru: I think that varies from person to person, and there is no right answer. For me, I also have a part of myself that I want to convey, so maybe I'm thinking about that while I'm creating. If I were to say that we all share the same idea, it would be that we can express what we think without hiding it.
Die: Being able to feel pain means you are alive, and hope is born from that. The first thing I/we want to convey is "to be alive".
(*Screen caption: Feeling pain = Being alive)
►The Motivation for Expression
Kyo: If there is something that I want to convey which will be the motivation, I am not. I'm just living.
Toshiya: It should be the anger and sadness in life, just the two. If I can express both, I feel I can be saved.
Shinya: There will be people who come to see the LIVE, and those fans are my motivation.
Kaoru: I think it's because I don't want to admit defeat. I don't want to admit defeat, it should be more like I don't like to admit defeat. I am a weak person, I will want to run away when things happen, and will want to give up when I can't do it. But on this point I still do not want to give in to defeat, I want to do it well.
Kaoru: Of course, I have to face the other four members. I'm carrying their lives and my life is being carried by them as well. I did it with that determination.
(*Oh, leader sama😳)
Die: I think it's LIVE. LIVE is the most direct place to convey ideas and resonate with people. I am moving forward with LIVE as my goal.
Ashley Johnson talks about filming THAT scene with Troy Baker
‘ And I know that a lot of people have a hard time with that scene and losing a character that we all love so much. Yeah, it’s hard… it fucking effects me a lot. ‘
Not a new interview, but relatively recent, Flake with "Der Standard" 2020-01 before an appearance of Flake in Vienna (author Stefan Weiss), don't think there's a translation on the website, so here's a shot..:
Rammstein keyboardist Flake: "The reunification was a mess"
Christian "Flake" Lorenz hits the keys not only as a keyboardist, but also as an author. A conversation about controversial views on the GDR, fireworks and climate protection
At Rammstein he is the "keyfucker" - GDR jargon for keyboard players. His real name is Christian Lorenz, but he has been calling himself "Flake", pronounced in German, of course, since his youth. For a quarter of a century, the native of East Berlin has been the alien in the German rock band, the thin freak among the strong musclemen. In the meantime, Flake also hits the keys as an author: In "An was ich mich so erinnern kann" (2015) he wrote down his GDR experiences, followed in 2017 with "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag", a literary autobiography about Rammstein. On March 26, Flake will come to Vienna's Globe Theater for a reading.
STANDARD: We are currently celebrating 30 years of 'Die Wende' *1). Your joy is limited, as one knows. How do you perceive the anniversary?
Flake: 'Die Wende' and reunification of Germany have to be separated. I experienced the change as a punk at the time. The ossified old concrete headframe of the GDR Politburo was also our enemy. We didn't want this idiotic regime anymore and we fought to loosen it up. When the wall came down, we didn't know what to do with the freedom we suddenly had. But then began an incredibly exciting time in which we tried to develop professionally, politically and musically in every direction.
STANDARD: And then came the reunification.
Flake: A lot went wrong from then on. We were annexed as a useless country, entire biographies were declared worthless, companies were closed so that the western companies could expand. We have been reset to such an extent that resentment and disappointment have built that have persisted until now. By and large, the reunification in this form was a mess.
STANDARD: If you look at Germany's east today, right-wing populism has recently had great political success there. A legacy of reunification?
Flake: Many people are disappointed because certain promises have not been fulfilled. But they already had the political left in their lives, now they are trying it with the right. Personally, I cannot understand how one can vote for the AfD *2). But those who do are doing it in large part in protest against the mainstream parties. It is clear that the AfD cannot meet expectations either. If the AfD were to rule, many people would notice very quickly that it is not getting better, but worse.
STANDARD: You grew up in the East Berlin punk scene. What are the differences between the East and West punks?
Flake: There was a fundamental difference: the Ostpunks didn't need any money because life was absurdly cheap, rent around 25 marks. The koney you made from one concert lasted over a month. So you could make the music you wanted to make and not just the music that sells well. Absurdly enough, it made us very free.
STANDARD: There were also IM Stasi informers among your band colleagues at the time (IM: unofficial employee, note). Aren't you angry with the repressive surveillance state of the GDR?
Flake: I'm not angry with IM informers in the bands. Because their IM status often made it possible for the bands to exist at all. The Stasi didn't lock up its own people. The best example of this is the GDR band 'Die Firma'. It was founded by IM informers. The gag was that 'Die Firma' ('The Company') was actually a synonym for "Stasi". Covered by the Stasi, they then sang anti-subversive texts. Almost brilliant really.
STANDARD: Do you understand when it is said that the GDR was an injustice state and that Stasi repression was a kind of terror?
Flake: I can understand it when people say that who have experienced it and suffered from it. But personally, I can't say that the whole state was bad. I don't want to know how many innocent people have been or are being imprisoned and monitored in the West. I do not find the generalization of the "unjust state" okay.
STANDARD: Would Rammstein have been conceivable in the GDR?
Flake: We wouldn't have founded a band like Rammstein within the GDR because it would have been the wrong answer to this system. We founded Rammstein because we noticed that our punk music wasn't getting anywhere in the West. It took harder stuff.
STANDARD: You have retained a kind of socialism within the band. Nevertheless, Rammstein is a millionaire company. Were there moments when you thought: The money could not only destroy our character but also the band?
Flake: Rammstein is a company where money fluctuates a lot. We have a lot of employees, we buy tons of pyrotechnics, we have a huge stage, costumes, our own electricity network, we shoot extremely complex videos. The money that remains private can actually hardly harm us, because it is so limited. We really have to make sure that the plus-minus calculation works out.
STANDARD: In your book "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag" you describe the 25 years of Rammstein as a long partnership: It has become calmer in bed, but you understand each other blindly. Is divorce even an option?
Flake: Divorce is definitely not an issue. It's like a very long marriage: You don't even think about divorce anymore.
STANDARD: In the midst of tough muscle men, you were always the figure that breaks everything, especially in the interaction with singer Til Lindemann, who sometimes roasts you on stage like a cockroach. It looks like the traditional comedian constellation white clown and stupid August, Laurel and Hardy with SM components. How important is that to the show?
Flake: We developed that more by accident. We never made it up: you are the strong one, I am the weak one. At our first concerts we always stood around very haphazardly, then we started pushing and provoking each other. When I watch a normal heavy metal band I get bored easily. We always have something going on.
STANDARD: Do you sometimes long for a role change at Rammstein? To be the strong one for once?
Flake: Nah, I have other worries. With those couple of concerts, I can handle my role well enough.
STANDARD: Can you even enjoy appearances or does that only come afterwards? After all, a Rammstein show is precision work.
Falke: What do you mean enjoy? I enjoy when everything runs smooth and everything works like a machine. There are good and bad concerts, at the good ones we take off like an airplane.
STANDARD: Rammstein mixes black romanticism with black humor. You yourself love the blues, which often sails in similar waters. Can you draw joy out of melancholy?
Flake: The blues is the best example of this. Sadness and comfort go hand in hand. All of popular music arose from a problem of the respective author. This is exactly what you want to hear when you are not feeling well yourself. During puberty you normally don't want to hear "Walking on Sunshine" either.
STANDARD: Traditionally, there is also joy in melancholy and morbidity in Vienna. Is that the Eastern European impact?
Flake: Slavic music is very melancholic, on the other hand the Goth culture comes from the west. So I wouldn't really pinpoint that to anything local.
STANDARD: It is said that Rammstein did more to preserve the German language than all the Goethe Institutes put together. Are you proud of that?
Flake: Yeah. But the interesting thing is that we are regarded more highly abroad than in our own country. In Germany there is a lot of ranting: We are dull and foolish about Germany - complete nonsense.
STANDARD: Rammstein has always been compared to the totalitarian parody band Laibach. They recently played in North Korea with the aim of appearing subversive. Is something like that conceivable for Rammstein?
Flake: We'd have to think very carefully about what we want and why we want it. If that were to help someone, okay - but only to be able to say, "We're subversive now," that's not an argument.
STANDARD: For reasons of climate protection, there is an increasing number of missile bans. A topic for Rammstein?
Flake: We played a concert in Chicago once. The local fire protection was so rigorous that we shouldn't even have lit a match. Complete ban on pyro. We went on stage and said: either we are leaving because we are not allowed to make a fire here, or we are playing without. The audience wanted the latter, of course. And it became one of our best shows. You have to weigh it up a bit: should you stop all things like a Rammstein show for climate reasons? But I totally understand that there shouldn't be any more bangs on New Year's Eve. I was in Vienna once at the turn of the year, and there was relatively little banging. I thought that was good. Berlin is one of the most terrifying cities on New Year's Eve. There it's pure aggression.
Notes:
*1) i kept 'Die Wende' as the term for the political transformation in east germany, not sure what the official english phrase is
*2) AfD, short for 'Alternative für Deutschland' or 'Alternative for Germany' is a right-wing populist political party, often characterized as far-right, known for its opposition to the European Union and immigration
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge make an interview with the BBC about mental health, the NHS, coronavirus pandemic and home schooling, at Anmer Hall in Norfolk, England -April 17th 2020.
I got a good nights sleep before my interview. I quickly got ready and reheated some leftovers to eat for breakfast. I printed my materials the night before so I could just focus on getting ready.
Touched up my hair, put a little tinted moisturizer and mascara on and got dressed.
Drove to my vanilla job and arrived there half an hour before my interview. My interview started about 20 mins late. One of my panel members dipped out before I could start which sucked because shes really supportive of me moving up and also was the only woman on my panel :/
Ex fwb's boss is kinda a jerk and after I gave my opening statement and presented my project, he jumped straight into trying to discredit it...implying that I didnt answer the prompt question when I did. Ex fwb interjected and I answered the question as best as I could. Even though I didnt have the exact number he wanted, I explained how I can access that data.
Most of the questions were fine...ex Feb asked one that touched a nerve but I got through it.
Finished the interview faster than I thought I would and I didnt ramble too much.
I chatted with a few coworkers before leaving work. I switched to sneakers in my car before driving off.
Earlier this year, Matthew Lewis sat down with Chris O'Connor and Leeds Rhinos’ Stevie Ward for a new episode of Mantality Magazine’s podcast.
In Episode #035, we were joined by actor Matt Lewis. Matt is most famous for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films. He is a true Yorkshire lad and rugby league fanatic, supporting Leeds Rhinos. We get deep with Matt on a range of topics such as his acting career, being famous from a young age, his mindset, his experience with therapy, and some anecdotes from stag do’s with the Leeds Rhinos players. This was a really interesting conversation and a chance to see another, more personal side to one of the familiar faces many of us have grown up with.
Mantality launched a clothing line December last year to promote mental health awareness and will be donating 25% of their profits to offer immediate psychological support to young people who need it. You can check out them here.
Matthew was previously interviewed by Stevie when Mantality first launched back in 2016. You may watch the two-part interview here if you’ve missed it.
