Интервью Йошики дома, в ЛА (2010.01)

[say-anything]

Это одна из 5ти частей интервью, которые сейчас переводит kazooms. Он решил перевести 5ую, как наиболее интересную. Продолжение следует.
За японский оригинал благодарности 女性人身 и Eri с Endless Dream.

Йошики рассуждает о новом альбоме X JAPAN, о приглашении X на рок-фестиваль в Чикаго и причинах того, что официальных объявлений от группы ещё нет, рассказывает о планах на будущее, подробностях съемок PV в ЛА и о главном своем сопернике.... - Йошикитти! ^_^

X JAPAN Hollywood MV filming REPORT (Part 5)

YOSHIKI X JAPAN Hollywood MV filming REPORT (Part 5)

On the 10th of January 2010, at his home, YOSHIKI talked about
(X JAPAN’s) advancement overseas which began on the previous day (January 9th), his thoughts about the performance, memories of his childhood friendship with TOSHI and the future of X JAPAN.

YOSHIKI helped the 6 members (of X JAPAN) achieve their longtime dream of making it overseas. On the day longtime childhood friend TOSHI was there, hide’s beloved guitar was on display, and YOSHIKI was lovingly supported by the members and fans.

YOSHIKI revealed to us what X JAPAN has in store for the future:
Future development: Thinking about the music scene itself

'We are considering the definition of an ‘album’ in the current music scene.'

YOSHIKI: We are making an album. Although this may sound strange, I started to think about the definition of what an album is in the current music scene. Let’s say we put out a 10 or 12 track album, would that fit with the trends of today? Let’s face it, in this day and age people download singles. So I got thinking that maybe releasing a few mini albums one after another is a better approach.

As you know X JAPAN doesn’t have a very high ‘birthrate’, right? (laughs). Think of us like a batter that rarely steps up to the plate, but when he does, he hits the ball (laughs). I know it sounds bad, but we have a great hit rate (laughs)!
So I got thinking about whether we should release a 10 or 12 track type album, in terms of standing in the batter's box. I began to really think about how the album should take shape.

In regard to albums, we have released quite a lot in Japan however this will be a first for the worldwide market. So I thought songs like 紅 (Kurenai) and Rusty Nail will all be considered new songs, right?

I spoke about this yesterday with the others and said why don’t we redo them?
Not with the feel of a BEST OF album, but rather with the feel of us going back to our origins. If that’s the direction then we should choose out of the songs we already have, and then think about what kind of album format to release.
For a moment I started to think we should release them all. I think if we were only thinking of Japan I think it would have just been a BEST OF album.

Basically we began thinking, why not go back to the beginning once more, broaden our base a little and then progress forward.

(When joking with YOSHIKI he revealed to us a deep philosophical side of himself, that he wants to profoundly change the entire music scene.)

YOSHIKI: Recording is progressing day by day. As for concerts, we are receiving a lot of offers. We want to do them and announce them, but yesterday I couldn’t decide.
We got an offer to perform on the main stage at an annual concert that attracts crowds of around 70,000 in Chicago called LOLLA PALOOZA. I was asked why don’t I announce it to the audience (in Hollywood). But, I didn’t want to be 'the boy who cried wolf again!' (laughs) So I decided to wait until everything has been decided and my body is ready. Some of the top American artists perform at this outdoor concert.
I guess you could call it the Summer Sonic (NB: Japanese Rock festival) of America.
So you know, we have all these new offers constantly, however the members health issues are a problem so….

This is wonderful news for all the fans!
X JAPAN will make an official announcement later this month regarding the America/ Chicago, large scale Music festival LOLLA PALOOZA to be held between the 6th August – 8th August 2010.

YOSHIKI shared his goals for the future with us

YOSHIKI: Long ago, before X JAPAN’s debut I thought up Visual Rock [Crime of Visual Shock]. Therefore, our videos, while not exaclty being the same as movies, somehow it just happened that Visual kei became popular around the world. So with that in mind, I want to make music freely without musical genre or categories. Yesterday’s filming was also meant to be free and movie-like however before I had a chance to realize, it already fell into a variety of categories.

When I started out there was no place for us. Because we were being told you can’t do this and you can’t do that. Then we decided to make our own place, and that’s the scene you know today. But it is accepted now. So I really want to make music freely from here on out as well.

A while back I was told by my American advisors and various people that I shouldn’t do it, but yesterday the same people came, and said ‘I guess there is a market for this’. I want to reach more people and do a variety of things encompassing film/video.

YOSHIKI called upon 4 major producers for the MV filming.
Among them, Hollywood MV producer DEAN KARR and RUSSELL THOMAS who came out from England.

YOSHIKI: The reason I got 4 producers was because we didn’t have enough time (laugh). Each person has things they need to prepare for each song, right? So with me calling the shots as head producer, I spread the work load between the other four. Of course each of them had there own preparations they needed to do aswell.
I’m the head producer, so having the 4 producers made each song take on a different theme which was actually really good for us.

And the song in which all X JAPAN members participated was Rusty Nail.


YOSHIKI arrives in his favorite Maserati
There’s even ascene in the MV where TOSHI arrives in YOSHIKI’s car!

YOSHIKI: Haha, yeh we didn’t make it with all the preparations in time so he used my car! While we were all talking and coming up with a futuristic concept and having a super car…the conversation went... ‘But it cant be a Lamborgini…Aah! we don’t have time to arrange a car now.. Oh! wait a minute there’s one there! Here’s a Maserati…What should we do?.... ‘Oh alright’, I said, ‘Just use it!’ (haha)


So it’s 4 songs with 4 different themes. Yesterday (January 9th) at the main filming of Endless Rain we decided to include the fans singing along. Yesterday’s theme was like ‘the first phase of our 'Overseas advancement’.

All the videos have a sort of gothic style to them..Mmm...I guess with the stage as well..X JAPAN is very diverse, on one hand we make ourselves really cool, and then on the other hand you’ll see Hello Kitty (laughs).

YOSHIKI’s number 1 rival…Yoshikitty?!

YOSHIKI: A little while back in a restaurant, this rather cute looking blonde haired girl came up to me and asked ‘Are you Kitty?’…‘You’re Yoshikitty, right?’..It turned out that she had seen Yoshikitty at the Hello Kitty exhibition but she had never heard of X JAPAN. It was kind of a weird feeling (aha..) So it looks like my number 1 rival is Yoshikitty. Yoshikitty is now my arch enemy (haha)!!! Yoshikitty has the cute looks..
'I might lose this one (haha),' YOSHIKI said with a playful smile.


Hollywood Sanrio shop fans complain ‘No Yoshikitty?!’
And at the Hollywood & Highland MV filming, the lack of a Sanrio shop causes overwhelming number of complaints from fans!

We are looking forward to seeing these YOSHIKI produced new X JAPAN videos as soon as we can!


YOSHIKI: There’s a chance that like with I.V. we'll add in hide’s guitar parts to the sound of these PV’s. Also there may be various mixes of the PVs. And I’ve even started to think (this is just my idea) about having 1 promotional video per song!
Before you know it, we might have 2 different PVs per song!
Artists that I personally like keep showing the same old PV’s over and over and you get tired of them after a while right? So I think it’d be ok to have a variety. I’ve always wanted to down break the walls (of what's considered normal)!

(end)
....YOSHIKI speaks passionately about continuing to break down the walls. Last month on January 27th 220,000 seller YOSHIKI/佳樹 was released in Taiwan, Hong Kong translated into Chinese. Releases are also planned for Korea, China and North America. 　

(с) X Wonderland