Anime

X Japan at Otakon!

By AnimeEv 1 year, 6 months ago

Mesmerized.

I can’t cop to being a big X Japan fan. If anything, I’m almost wholly ignorant of their catalog, but I am well aware of their place in the pantheon of both Japanese rock music in general and visual kei in particular, and I wasn’t about to lose an eye if I didn’t report back to you rabid fans out there! So while covering the nigh-unending cosplay masquerade at Otakon, I made sure to stick around and catch the mini-set by Yoshiki and Sugizo, who respectively played the piano and violin for instrumental versions of “Forever You” and “Unending Rain.”

Be sure to check the photos after the jump

After their rapturous set, which left members of the audience in tears and reduced thousands of chatty Cathy fans to spell-bound silence, we were treated to a few brief moments with Yoshiki and Sugizo at the First Mariner arena in Baltimore. After one minute of photo ops (which included a man-to-man mirror check pass!), we got some PR love from X Japan.

Yoshiki and Sugizo were not only charismatic and kind, but very attentive to detail during the press conference and quite willing to give REAL, revelatory answers about the band. They will be playing Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 8th, and they’ve just announced the possibility of a Washington show, in addition to the already confirmed Nissan stadium shows in Tokyo.

Get out your hairspray, y’all!

Re-uniting with former bassist Taiji

With regard to rumor of Taiji Saidoh reconciling with the band, Yoshiki stated that they did not quite reconcile, but Toshi met Taiji recently for the first time in 10 years, and then suggested that Yoshiki meet Taiji again. There is a possibility that he may act as a guest musician in some capacity with X in the future.

When asked if they would play Taiji’s song upon collaborating, Yoshik stated “(It’s a) possibility. Nothing’s confirmed.”

Note: recent rumors suggest that Taiji might play with them in Tokyo at Nissan stadium.

With regard to their Lollapalooza show, they stated that their set “could be a combination of Japanese and English”, before asking us “What do you think?”

Yoshiki then spoke plaintively about his expectations for the show: “It’s gonna be a big day for us, since it’s our first performance except today… but anticipation… for sure we’re going to rock, and… I don’t know, what do you think? Rock out? Yeah? Think so.”

How Lollapalooza came about: “We thought about club tour, a small tour, but then some of my people who I work with said how about Coachella, how about Lollapalooza? I thought 'it’s very interesting, let me think about it.’”

“I hope it’s going to be some kind of historical moment. I don’t know…”

Gettin’ their nerd on.

When quizzed on their favorite manga or anime, Sugizo replied with “Ghost in the shell, Gundam,” while Yoshiki answered “Sailor moon.” After some laughter in the audience, he went on to say “I’m serious! Why not?”

Double up!

One press member asked why they re-did some videos, such as Rusty Nail. Yoshiki noted that “I rewrote the song in English so we did a music video.”

State of the Art

Yoshiki on the future of visual kei in America: “Somebody has to do it, somebody has to break into the market. I’m almost shocked. I moved to LA several years ago and I wasn’t listening to Japanese music for several years… things evolved and there were a lot of great bands doing a lot of great shows. It’s going to keep evolving, it won’t die, I think. The question of breaking the American market… that’s a whole new level.”

J-rock.. IN SPACE!

A reporter asked “What would you consider to be your ultimate project? If you could collaborate with anybody, whom would you work with?”

Sugizo replied “My dream, I really want to play on the moon or space station. I’m serious!”

Yoshiki jokingly replied that “It’s soon. We have to play the US FIRST.”

Sugizo: “Really?”

Yoshiki: “The Space station’s good, too.”

New Material

Yoshiki said the new album is “50 percent of the songs are like our old songs, Kurenai, or Rusty Nail, or Tears, some of X jAPAN’s old songs. 50 percent come from kind-of-new song… Ivy, Jade, Born to Be Free, which we did a video for and the songs I haven’t even named yet, but the record is done. It’s 50 percent.”

Yoshiki on film

I asked Yoshiki if he would like to work on more film projects. He replied “Sure. Working on a film project is very interesting because I’m not completely in charge. When I was working on the project Repo I got into a fight with the director, and I said '“you’re fired.”’

He went on to say that “In a music project I’m usually in charge, but working in a music project there’s somebody to stop me at the same time music is like a very… how do you say… when I’m composing I think of music and pictures and scenes in my head… it’s very inspiring.”

Seeing Things?

Yoshiki copped to having occasional bouts of synesthesia, a condition where you’d “see” sounds as colors, stating “Sure. More colors or scenes. Sometimes very specific, sometimes very ambiguous. If it’s color, I don’t see pink or something, I see something dark, red… bloody… I don’t know why. Something dark and ugly. I always have some kind of death involved, in a positive way, to see the moment, we are living in this moment.”

On Fashion and Music.

When quizzed about other bands that were obviously an influence on the band’s visual style, such as Kiss and Alice Cooper, Yoshiki said that “The fashion is very important, but we think the music is the same part. We’re pretty confident that our music is strong… we’re very different. It’s unique. Of course I respect the bands you mentioned.”

“What we are trying to do is just being ourselves.”

X’s Message.

Sugizo stated “I think my message is very simple: music has no border.”

Yoshiki proffered that “There have been invisible walls between east and west but hopefully we can put a hole into that wall and smash it. Differently.”

Stage Show

In terms of production values, Yoshiki said “Obviously we are just starting in the US. We’re gonna do whatever we can have. That doesn’t have to have huge production, we can play in club and everything. We can’t bring that huge production to the US until the day we can perform in a big arena.”

“We’re going to try as much as we can but at the same time we’re willing to perform anywhere, without even lighting.”

In Closing

Before leaving, Yoshiki and Sugizo let us know that they were very excited to perform in the US: “Because of the fans, we could reunite the band, so without you basically we are nothing. I would like you to say thank you so much for supporting us and we’ll do whatever we can to meet your expectations. We are ready to rock the world.”

Photography by Andrew Evans & Mike Prasad

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