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Special Interview: I.N.A (hide with Spread Beaver) - Translation

[Published in the book hide word FILE by Oshima Akemi, 2018]

I.N.A. is known as someone crucial for the production of hide’s music. As co-producer, he was involved in the production of all of hide’s songs, and was sure to appear on stage for hide’s live tours. As we look back on that very intense time, we will delve into hide’s humanity and the words he left behind ---

This is what hide always said about I.N.A., who created music with him as co-producer: For around 6 years, from ‘93 before he started his solo activities, until his sudden passing in ‘98, it was I.N.A. who was always there whenever he dealt with music. Whether it was in the 8-tatami-studio at home or on stage in front of an audience of ten-thousands, they always worked tirelessly towards their shared goal of making “cool music”.

I.N.A. first met hide in July ‘91. Having been called to the studio as X’s manipulator, I.N.A. was tasked, out of the blue, with recording the sound for hide’s solo corner.

“I don’t remember what the first words we exchanged had been, but I remember that on the day we first met, my job was to record the sounds for his live solo corner called “hide’s Room” in the studio. So, the first words he gave me probably weren’t words but shouts like “Wah!” and “Yah!” The request then had been, “When the keyboard is played on stage, I want a voice to come out,” so for starters we had to record hide-chan’s voice. But, having to record yells with an unknown co-worker he was meeting for the first time, he only did it two or three times before he got embarrassed and called it quits, saying, “That’s enough already.” (laughs) At that time, I had heard a lot of stories about X, so before I met them, I was nervously wondering, “What kind of people may they be…?”, but there was something cute about hide-chan when he stopped shouting because he got embarrassed. It left quite the impression.”

After that, I.N.A. joined X (X JAPAN from ‘92 onward) in the studio as a manipulator, and also on tour. Since he was a manipulator, they called him “Mani-san” at first, but after experiencing such a long tour together, the distance between him and hide inevitably disappeared.

“The first time I went drinking with hide-chan was when we went to a JT event held in Tohoku before the tour. The place was so isolated that there were no bars at all, so I got invited to the hotel bar. Since I didn’t understand visual rock at all at that time, I feel like I asked a lot of stupid questions, but instead of getting angry, he just answered them. I think after that, there were a lot of opportunities for us to drink together during the trip. Even though he had an army of people to go drinking with at that time and there were always dozens of others around, hide-chan always looked out for me. We had many chances to talk in those places, but that was 25 years ago… I don’t really remember the details of what we talked about.”

For the sake of advancing into the international market, X changed their name to X JAPAN, and the members stayed in LA for a long time to record the mini-album “ART OF LIFE”. I.N.A. stayed in LA with them, and when there was a break in the recording for X JAPAN, he helped hide out with his own projects. I.N.A. taught hide, who initially tried to do everything on his own, how to handle the computer, and ended up in charge of programming. While they were working on the two solo debut singles together, I.N.A. heard words from hide that he would never forget.

“He said to me, “I.N.A.-chan, I want you to use your talents only for me.” At first I was surprised, but when someone says something like that to you, you have no choice but to do it. Of course, it made me happy. I had always been a studio musician, going to different locations to make music with various people, and finding a way to express myself in that was difficult. But, when I started to record with hide-chan, I think we were able to build a relationship in which I could bring myself in. With those words being based on what I had done until then, they made me genuinely happy. That’s how I ended up in the world of performers. Those were the words that left the biggest impression on me. Because with them, everything changed. At that time, he also said to me, “Tell me if something is good, and tell me if it’s bad. Otherwise, there is no point in working together.” I think those words were the foundation for us to make music together.”

At that time, in the bar “Paranoia Café” produced by the one-and-only make-up artist MAD GEORGE, where friends often gathered, I.N.A. was send a passionate call from hide. Responding to those feelings, I.N.A. started collaborating with hide on his music as someone working exclusively for him. So they started their work with a trial-and-error process on the first album, spending their days secluded in a room for recording. The song “BLUE SKY COMPLEX”, recorded for the first album, tells about that time.

“It was during that time that I received the words from hide-chan that were the second-most important to me. It were the words, “It’s okay as long as it’s good to listen to.” The first album had an experimental feel to it and recording it took quite a long time. With us trying a lot of things, what he meant was that it ultimately didn’t matter if something improved the work, only if it sounded good. The works are incredibly fine and detailed, and in the end it doesn’t matter, because all that matters is whether or not the listeners think its good, which I found both pure and cool. Those were important words that left an impression on me and changed how I approached music making ever after.”

hide and I.N.A. collaborated in producing the artist hide, but their responsibilities were clearly separated. Writing lyrics was entirely hide’s territory. Musical matters were discussed and decided between the both of them, but when it came to lyrics, hide expressed his world in them on his own.

“That guy, right, he wouldn’t tell me the meaning of his lyrics at all (wry smile). He may have commented on them in interviews and such but I, for my part, got no explanation. So I only had my own interpretation. I may have made some musical adjustments, like keeping the number of words to a minimum, but the contents were entirely his world. When we were side by side in our 8-tatami-room, he was writing lyrics and I was programming next to him. Hide-chan was someone who read a lot and his home was full of difficult looking books. So, he knew a lot of words. Nowadays you can just look things up on the internet, but that time was different, so I was impressed and thought it was amazing.”

Manipulators give a strong impression of having been the staff members who held up the musicians at that time. Most of them operated their machines in the part of the stage that was out of the spotlight. I.N.A., too, did not have a stage name for the first album “HIDE YOUR FACE” and was credited under his real name Kazuhiko Inada. The one who dragged him out to the front stage as “Artist I.N.A.” was hide, obviously.

“He didn’t specifically discuss this or talk to me about it. Just a brief comment about how “I.N.A. -chan is also coming out.” He dragged me out a lot so I went out a lot. Why he invited me I do not know; I guess it would have been lonely doing it on his own. Because hide-chan loved being in a band, I think he also wanted to appear in public with the people he was making music with. Hide-chan was also the one who gave me the stage name I.N.A.. He also called me I.N.A.-chan off-stage; me and band member DIE had dots in tour names in the beginning, at first there were two dots, then it became three, it was all random. The hair style was also thought up by hide-chan. When it came to things like that, I did as I was told. He asked, “How about some dye?” and then me and DIE-chan got our hair dyed by hide-chan. In any case, I have no words for how amazing it is that he pulled someone like me, who had been an ordinary person until then, in front of ten-thousands of people. When zilch started, he said, “This time, we’ll make a band,” when it came to hide with Spread Beaver he said, “I.N.A.-chan, we have a name now. It’s hide with Spread Beaver,” like that.”

From ‘95 onward, hide started the production of his second album. Rushing through it in one go from the release of the first album till the beginning of the tour, once more going into production mode in LA. Starting January ‘95, they worked on the demo tape for about 10 months.

“It took a long time for us to get the second album started, but once we really got it going, it took about a month to complete. Hide-chan himself has been quoted talking about “making the densest, best work with the smallest number of people in in the shortest possible time”, and it really was like that. Anyway, having the process so condensed was terrible. There was no time to sleep. At first we were going with the flow from the first album, but grasp of the concept was quickly lost. Also, living in LA, we were exposed to all kinds of music and greedily tried to incorporate those sounds. That’s why there are different types of sound in the second album. The concept of the first album was “initial impulse”, “the impulsive spitting out of things that hide cultivated since childhood”, but with the second one, it was to take things we found interesting, put them through the filter of hide the artist, and put our own musical spin on them. So in the end, I think “a jumbled mess” is what the concept became.”

After the second album, hide named his own music “Psyborg Rock”. Music that fuses human groove with machines. Drawing a line between both digirock as it existed already, and club sound.

“The expression “Psyborg Rock” was an afterthought. A word that came from years of trying out different methods of creating a sound fusing man and machine. I suppose it started when hide-chan said on TV, “I guess you could call it psyborg rock.” Although the labels visual kei and visual rock also existed, those weren’t the right ones to express that music. He disliked lumping it all together and I don’t think he wanted one tied to the other. Because Psyborg Rock is a name for music. At that time, digirock also existed, but he often said, “I don’t like that.” He probably didn’t want to have his music categorized as such because that was something other people were making.”

Even though I.N.A. has spend a long time with hide, now that he has to recall words that stayed in his memory, they don’t come up easily. This may have been because they both had a shy side and were embarrassed to have deep conversations with each other. Or maybe they harmonized so much that over and over their conversations happened in silence where no words were necessary.

“Since I myself am fundamentally a jokster, I can’t hold a serious conversation. Actually making music is better than talking about it, too, so we didn’t talk about that a lot either. I didn’t have discussions about music and such with hide-chan. When we went out to eat, we also only had meaningless conversations. I don’t think we spoke about music or serious things a lot. I guess the words I heard most often from hide-chan were “Next, let’s go!” When we went drinking together, he usually didn’t let me go home. I think those were probably the words I heard most often. Didn’t hide-chan’s companions all say the same thing? When I read interviews with the members of Spread Beaver, they all were told a number of things by hide-chan. Stuff like, “With this, I’ll change the music scene.” But I, as the one who spend the most time with him, have no memory of hearing that. Did he deliberately not say it? What I remember of our conversations is that he liked to defeat me with, “No, wait, it’ll work if we do it like this,” when I said, “That’s impossible.” In the flow of conversation, that was sure to happen. If I said something positive, I would sometimes be told, “No, it doesn’t work like this. You can’t say that without me having convinced you first.” He wanted to explain things to me. I think he wanted to say, “It’s possible if we do it like this,” when I said something was not. He was smart, so I suppose he wanted to use his head for this part as well.”

When it comes to the relationship of the two, I.N.A. tilts his head at a loss, once again unable to quite put it into words. It was a strange relationship where they weren’t friends, not simply co-workers, nor family -----

“We were co-workers, but I don’t think you could call us friends. It felt weird. In any case, we really were together all the time, and I didn’t hate that at all. Working with him was so much fun. Whether to call us friends, or co-workers… if I had to put a name on it, it would be “partners”, I think. It was a strange relationship. I never had such a relationship with anyone but him, it’s beyond compare. Because hide-chan also said, “I’ll make a band with I.N.A.-chan.” So I think we both looked out for each other more than should be expected. He was so considerate with me that I wondered if it wasn’t too much. When I broke up with my girlfriend because he brought me along to to the US, he thought that was his fault and tried to introduce a new girlfriend to me (laughs). Even though that wasn’t necessary as I was capable of finding one myself, he invited girls to anything we did. With that kind of thing, I think he went above and beyond for me. On the other hand, with us doing all kinds of different things, during busy periods I took on everything I could, hoping that hide-chan would get some rest. Somehow we meshed with one another without any words.”

Even after hide had passed on, I.N.A. released a great number of his works. Honoring that sense of “partnership”, he made many people happy by breathing life into songs that had been in the middle of production when hide’s sudden death left his work unfinished. What would he says to him, today, now that hide has been gone for going on 20 years?

“The last time I saw him was the day before he died. We did a TV recording and then went drinking. Then, hide-chan got angry about something. We had plans to stay together at Lake Yamanaka for recording a few days later, so when I went home I asked him, “Is everything alright?”, and he rose to his full hight and nodded with his arms crossed. “Well, see you there,” I said, and that, I suppose, were the last words shared between us… If he were still alive and well, he would already be 53 now. I wonder what he would be doing. I often get asked this in interviews, but we worked together for a period of seven to eight years. In this time, he changed a lot and there was no way to predict his activities either, so I think he would be doing something that came as a surprise for everyone. If I could say something to him now… that’s difficult, not something I can put into one word. If I had to pick one thing, it would be “Thank you.” That goes for other people as well, I think, and I think that hide-chan lives on in each of them. People often tell me, “hide’s songs don’t get old,” and I think that’s because he created something completely original. If there are people imitating it, it’s going to become dated, but since he created something where people say, “That’s hide’s sound,” it doesn’t seem old even if you listen to it now. The one and only. Since that was what he wished for, I think it would make him happy to hear, “Your songs never get old.””

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