TRICK Interview [日本語あり]

English | 日本語

†яi￠к is the personal project of of La’Cryma Christi bassist SHUSE and is fronted by Λucifer’s MAKOTO. Guitarists SIN and Taiji Fuijmoto, along with drummer TERO (ex. Vidoll) round out the powerful lineup. ROKKYUU picked up the band when they headlined Music Japan Plus’s third gig and sat down to learn a bit about their origins and unusual name and outlook.

69: Please introduce the member beside you and tell us a secret about him.
SHUSE: That’s Sin. Part? He’s the ho-a. [Joking way of saying aho which means idiot.]
[All laugh]

69: That’s a secret?
SHUSE: Ho-a is a way of saying Aho backwards. He’s the guitarist, though I don’t respect him as one. [laughs] If you called him a guitarist, it would be really rude to real guitarists.
[All laugh]
SHUSE: So instead, I’ll say he’s our ho-a.
SIN: This is Tero. He’s our drummer and a really great piano player. He’s strong. He’s got a lot of muscle.
TERO: This is our vocalist, Makoto. I think he has permanent residency in Thailand.
[All laugh]
MAKOTO: That’s the guitarist, Taiji. What secret can I say?
SHUSE: Wait, secret? Do I need to say something secret about SIN? Sorry, I didn’t get it.
MAKOTO: What kind of secret is okay? What’s safe that I can bring up?
SHUSE: He’s actually 60. That’s okay, right?
Taiji: I’m a vampire. Well, like one.
SHUSE: You’ve got a good sense of humor so go with that, whether it’s a lie or the truth.
MAKOTO: He’s actually 100.
[All laugh]
Taiji: That’s bassist, Shuse. He’s our leader. He’s a total masochist.
[All laugh]

69: I find that hard to believe!
SHUSE: It’s true, I’m a masochist. SIN’s secret is his parents are freemasons.
MAKOTO: That’s a real secret!

69: You all participate in different projects, so how did †яi￠к come about?
SHUSE: I wanted to have my own, permanent band. First, I looked for members, and asked Makoto. Then I began to write songs. The image of what I wanted to play and the members who would want to do it with me were coming together step by step, and we became this five-member band.

69: What was your first impression of all the members?
SHUSE: That would be 25 answers! Should we go around like before?

69: Okay.
SHUSE: My first impression of Sin. I thought he was a nice young man.
SIN: My first impression of Tero was that he looked like a really strong person. Really, really strong.
SHUSE: You’re just repeating yourself.
TERO: When I first met Makoto, I thought he was very handsome and a good singer.
MAKOTO: Thank you! Taiji, it seemed like there was something deep inside him.
[All laugh]
MAKOTO: He seemed very deep. I thought he had lots of deeper meaning.
SHUSE: It’s too early to reveal some things yet.
Taiji: Shuse is the member I’ve known the longest. More than 15 years?
SHUSE: Yeah, since around out debut.
Taiji: Almost 20 years. Since the La’cryma Christi debut.

69:  You’ve known each other for a long time.
Taiji: We were in the same record company, and we got along well in private first.

69: What is †яi￠к’s special point?
SHUSE: We aren’t made up of members of the same age group. We’re all of a different generation. Sin is still in his mid-twenties, but he was in his early twenties when he joined us. And Taiji is 100.
Taiji: [English:] “Father,” [Japanese:] and [English:] “It’s my son!” [Japanese:] He’s like my son.
SHUSE: I don’t think there’s another band with such a wide range of ages.

69: What made you decide to write your name in such a difficult way?
SHUSE: I thought of it. When the name ‘†яi￠к’ came out, I wanted to include a trick in the title. I felt like I wanted something that couldn’t be read easily.

69:What kind of music do you play in †яi￠к?
SHUSE: Well, our music is based on hard rock, but we absorb other genres, wait, Maybe not. Whatever, it’s visual kei.
[All laugh]

69: Who writes most of your music?
SHUSE: Currently, TERO and Taiji are the only ones who haven’t written any music. We don’t really have a main writer, everyone writes.

69: You released a single ‘Phenomena.’ Are you interested in the occult?
SHUSE: Oh, because of Phenomena. All of us like those kinds of things, I think. Horror movies and such.
TERO: The Exorcist.
MAKOTO: Omen.
Taiji: The Godfather!
MAKOTO: Suspiria [Deep Red], but The Godfather is the best!
SHUSE: That’s not occult!
[All laugh]

69: You went on tour at the beginning of last year. Were there any interesting incidents?
Taiji: [English] Too much fucking drunk. Every night.
[All laugh]
SHUSE: Our hotel had a curfew. Wasn’t it 2 a.m.?
MAKOTO and TERO: 1 a.m.!
SHUSE: You couldn’t get in after 1 a.m. But we arrived around 12:30 at night and since we only had thirty minutes we had to eat at the Yayoiken [cheap restaurant chain] across the street, even though we’d gone all the way to Osaka and wanted to eat the great food.

69: [To Sin and Taiji] Do you have any interesting things that happened?
SHUSE: Those two didn’t go.

69: They didn’t go？Was it just the three of you?
SHUSE: They didn’t go with us. We had decided the meeting point and met there.
TAIJI: I was late because I was [English:] drunk.

69: Ah, because of “drunk…” [laugh]
SHUSE: They came after on the shinkansen. What about you, TERO? Anything interesting?
TERO: Something interesting? Just the “Super Sento.” (Japanese-style public bath)
SHUSE: Oh yeah, we went.
TERO: To the bath.
SHUSE: It was like a health spa at the rest stop.

69: Rest stops have baths?
SHUSE: There was an onsen there. But not everyone, just the three of us.
TERO: We were all in the outdoor bath.

69: I watched the PV of Phenomena and it was very beautiful. Who thought of the concept?
SHUSE: First, I thought about it. Then I consulted with the director and found a location that
would work, so this song was the perfect choice. There was the image in my mind that
this song needed a church, along with the other songs. A church, but not a classical feel. It was the first time working with this director and I didn’t know what kind of video it would become.
Anyway, I told him that I wanted a gothic feel in the church.

69: What’s the goal of the band?
SHUSE: To take over the world!
MAKOTO: I was going to say that!
[All laugh]
MAKOTO: I was going to say “world domination.”

69:  Everyone’s the same.
MAKOTO: I’d like to do a live in Europe sometime.
SHUSE: MAKOTO just said it, but I’d like to do a show in Europe.

69: How much experience do you have abroad? MAKOTO just got back from Thailand, right?
SHUSE: I have almost no experience. We went to Thailand once as †яi￠к. I get a lot of comments and replies on twitter from countries I haven’t been to and I’m always surprised that they know about me. I want to go to a lot of countries.

69: How about you, SIN?
SIN: Well, I lived in New York when I was a teenager.

69: Please give a message to our readers.
Taiji: Rock and roll!
MAKOTO: We’ve got a new single coming out next month. Please look forward to our future activities.
TERO: We’ve got the single out in July and we want to go abroad, so I want everyone to look forward to that becoming reality.
SIN: Thank you. [English:] I want to see you as soon as possible. Thank you!
SHUSE: What should I say? A lot of foreign people like visual kei bands, and we’re really cool, so instead of those other crappy bands you should listen to us!
[All laugh]

69: Thank you!