Their first encounter was on a platform at Shinjuku Station...
Are you acquaintances?
Ryoga: BORN's guitarist, K, and Hiroto are classmates, so we occasionally see each other. There was also a time when you were both in the same band, right?
Hiroto: Yeah.
Ryoga: So ever since Alice Nine have been active, K has always been going to Alice Nine's lives. He would bring me along. Do you remember?
Hiroto: I do. You guys came to see us quite often. I think the first time we actually met was probably five years ago, right?
Ryoga: Yes. It was around five years ago.
You knew each other since that long ago?
Hiroto: If I remember correctly, we met on a station on the central railway line's platform.
Ryoga: Right. It was on a station platform at Shinjuku. I only greeted him. I was really, really nervous. Since I knew of Alice Nine. I used to think that they were the definition of a Visual Kei band. When I first heard their songs, I got the feeling that they were a band with rocking guitar sounds. When I first heard their "Namae wa Imada Nai" CD, I remember being shocked, thinking "So they're a really emo band!". But regardless of that sound, because they looked really glamorous, the venues that Alice Nine played at started getting bigger and bigger. I thought "Oh, so that kind of thing is also popular in the Visual Kei scene". Well, I don't mean "popular", but rather, I think that it was Alice Nine who made that concept work well. I thought they were a band with many sides to them.
Hiroto: Was the first live that you came to the Zepp Tokyo show or the Shibuya Kokaido show?
Ryoga: Nope. The first live I went to was at SHIBUYA AX.
Hiroto: Huh? You've been coming to our lives since that show?
Ryoga: Yes. I wasn't able to greet you, though (laughs)
Hiroto: I see (laughs). K told me that after we released "FANTASY", you complimented it.
Ryoga: That's right. When they released "FANTASY", it had a real J-POP feel to it, since it was melodious, but it still retained what's good about Visual Kei in it. When I listened to "Zekkeishoku", I remember being moved by it since there was a wide range of sounds. There were so many elements from various genres in their songs, to the point I thought that maybe their complex was to not do music that sounded too Visual Kei. I wonder if they were trying to avoid doing music like that.
Hiroto: Yeah. At first, we did our best to avoid it.
Ryoga: So what I thought was right.
Hiroto: When Alice Nine first started, there were plenty of bands that did the so-called "Visual Kei-like" music, so we said we should do something different. That's why at first, we said we should give up on doing the industry standard music.
Ryoga: When they first started, the impression I had of them was that they were unfriendly. But that attitude really conveyed this feeling of "The stance they're going to take is to have people listen to their music first".
Hiroto: But when Alice Nine did their first live, I actually wasn't really "acting" out anything (laughs)
Ryoga: No, that's one of your strong points! That's what I fell for! I've known about Hiroto since his previous band.
Hiroto: Huh?
Ryoga: The band you were in before Alice Nine. Before you were in a band with that person, you were in a band called "Sildra", right? I was the original vocalist for Sildra.
Hiroto: What?! Really?
Ryoga: Yes. I was around 15 or 16 at that time.
Hiroto: The other members were much older than you, right?
Ryoga: Right. A new vocalist joined after I left. Then, when I heard that that vocalist had left to start a new band, I first saw your photo. So when I saw you in Alice Nine, I thought "Oh! It's this guy!". So we have that kind of distant connection.
Hiroto: Oh really?! I didn't know that. But now, speaking in terms of the PS Company hierarchy, BORN are my juniors. Even though we're the same age. But speaking in terms of years in the Visual Kei scene, Ryoga has been in it much longer than I have.
Ryoga: Yeah, because I started when I was 15 or 16. From then, I became a roadie, and from when I was about 18 to when I was 20, I didn't really do anything for a while and moved away from the band scene for a while. When I returned to the band scene, I met K. And Hiroto was K's acquaintance. That's why Hiroto said to me "We're the same age, so let's use casual speech". And before I knew it, I returned to using formal speech with him (laughs)
Hiroto: That's right (laughs)
Do you see each other often outside of work?
Hiroto: Lately, we've been going out often to eat with RUKI and K. About once a month.
Ryoga: It's usually the four of us. Sometimes we invite someone else. We meet in the evening and always end up staying together until 5 in the morning.
Hiroto: Yeah (laughs). But you know, excluding my seniors, the person I'm interested in the most right now, is without a doubt, Ryoga. That's why I said I wanted to this talk with him.
Ryoga: That makes me happy.
Ryoga gets that a lot.
Hiroto: Even though we're the same age, Alice Nine has been around for around 8 years, but up until now, I haven't really met anyone around the same age as me who made me think "This person is cool". There were so few people like that to the point where I could count them all, but amongst that, Ryoga was a person who caught my interest. I even went to one of his lives before he joined PS Company.
Ryoga: Ah~, I had the honour of Hiroto attending one of my lives. It was for the band I was in before BORN. The member line-up was the exact same, but we were in the band "RENNY AMY". Saga and Nao also came along.
Hiroto: Yeah. At that time, it had been a while since I had seen K on stage. To be honest, I didn't think so at the time, but I never really looked at anyone else besides K then. So when I saw their performance as BORN, I thought "Who is this guy?!", and become interested in Ryoga. It was like some sort of burst of interest. It was because I had never really seen a person the same age as me stand on the stage with such ease as him. I was really interested in that. I mean, I'm also the type of person who is different from normal when I'm on stage. I guess you could say we have the same scent (laughs)
Ryoga: I get what you mean.
Hiroto:I would call it understanding.
That's what you felt.
Hiroto: Yeah.That's what I felt (laughs)
Ryoga: Ah! I've actually seen one of Hiroto's lives before the one at AX! I saw the Takadanobaba AREA live. It was before Alice Nine joined PS Company.
Hiroto: Eh? That was our first live!
Ryoga: Yeah. At that live, rather than just playing the guitar, Hiroto was always riling up the audience. The audience got fired up, just seeing him holding a mic. Since Alice Nine look really glamorous, and I got the feeling that they were a band who focused on the sounds of the guitar, even more so than now, I wondered what their lives would be like, but it turned out to be Hiroto firing up the audience. He gave off this really strong feeling of "I can't control my passion!". I would say that at that time, I learnt that there are no rules at lives. Like things would be alright as long as it was cool. At that time, what surprised me even more than the songs and guitar playing was how Hiroto was firing up the crowd. And Shou, being tall, was standing in the middle of the stage, looking glamorous. Isn't it quite loud, when Shou shouts? I had no idea what kind of band they were, so I was dumbfounded.
Hiroto: Like "What's with these people?" (laughs)?
Ryoga: No, no, no. I thought that you guys were just plain cool.
Hiroto: At that time, it had only been about a year since I was in a proper Visual Kei band. I'm also the youngest in the band, so I think that kind of "I can't lose to them" feeling was a reaction to that fact. I get the feeling that in the minor genres, there were a lot of bands who were only just going crazy on stage. But that's not all they do, I get the feeling that they make sure their personality shows. I get that feeling from Ryo. I wonder if it's just that they go into crazy mode at lives, or if it's a conscious thing they do.
Ryoga: I think about it. I do various practice lives. Like "This is what I want to show" or "This is what I want to do". But once I get on stage, all those thoughts get blown away (laughs)
Hiroto: Same (laughs)
Ryoga: Ahahaha. I've got about 10 images of what I want to do at lives, but at lives, I might or might not do just one of those. The rest of the live is just me recklessly doing things with my instincts.
Hiroto: I get you! You think about quite a lot of things before going on stage, right? (laughs)
Ryoga: I do. I think quite a lot about it, but when I get on stage, how I do the live changes depending on what the audience is like. Once I make eye-contact with my fellow members, my movements become completely unpredictable. Of course, I don't want to do uncool things, but I think that it's also a part of a my reckless style. That's what I thought when I first saw Hiroto's live.
Hiroto: Thanks.
Umm, you guys mentioned that you two, RUKI and K stay up until morning earlier, right? So why are you guys talking about the kinds of things you usually talk about when you first meet someone?
Ryoga: When the four of us talking, rather than going into details like we are now, we usually share various bits of information.
Hiroto: Yeah (laughs). About 80% of what we talk about is stupid, but it's when we're about to go home, we talk about the kinds of things we're talking about now.
Ryoga: Yeah (laughs). It's like "So now we're talking about serious things?!"
Hiroto: And then the store has to close (laughs)
Ryoga: And then RUKI says "We'll talk about it next time". But the next time we meet, most of the conversation is about silly things (laughs)
Silly things like what?
Ryoga: Ah, well, who knows. We talk about plenty of stupid things that we can't mention here. Really (laughs), it's like the kind of things middle school students get excited talking about at a family restaurant or something.
Hiroto: It's usually like that. It's kind of like what students talk about when they're at Denny's or Jonathon's.
Ryoga: We spend over an hour talking about stuff, and the last trains for the day have already departed. But we're like "I don't wanna go home yet. Let's go somewhere else!"
Hiroto: But at that point, there aren't any places open so we go home (laughs)
So if a store was open 24/7, you guys would stay there 24/7?
Ryoga: That's right. We don't really go home. Doesn't it not end until someone says that they're going home? But it's so fun that no one wants to go home.
Hiroto: I've been seeing Ryo lately, but I've never spoken to him one on one like this. There are plenty of times when you see Ryo playful, when he's in front of others, but because I think he's pure at heart and a straight-forward person, I wanted to talk to him.
Ryoga: Thank you very much.
You wanted to have a proper chat with him. I see. Meaning RUKI gets in the way of you two having a proper chat (laughs)
Hiroto & Ryoga: No, no, no! That's not what we mean!
Hiroto: I didn't think you'd put two of RUKI's juniors, who are directly under him, on the spot and say something that's difficult to respond to (laughs)!
Oh, so he is getting in the way (laughs)?
Hiroto: He's not getting in the way! I love RUKI. As a person, he's a really great guy. And as an artist too, he's someone who I can really respect.
Ryoga: I look up to him. Really. I can really respect him as a person, as a man, and of course, as a musician. Actually, when the four of us are together and I suddenly start talking about serious things, RUKI picks up on that and teases me, saying "Why are you getting so serious all of a sudden? (laughs)". That's still fun, though. So while we talk about plenty of stupid things, he always takes care of us. If I had to say, when the four of us are together, I might be the one who asks serious questions. Because rather than talking about myself, I have plenty of things I want to ask about.
Even though the two of you play different roles in your respsective bands, there are still plenty of things you want to ask each other about.
Hiroto: Yeah, heaps.
Ryoga: I get the feeling that both Hiroto and I are this way because we only have the pure love for music. I think that even though our roles are different, our love for music is the same. We're simply both lovers of music. That's why when I had the honour of him coming to our live before we became BORN, Hiroto was in the staff area listening to us. I was really glad!
Hiroto: Because it was fun.
Ryoga: Thank you very much (laughs)!
Hiroto: That's all it was. Actually, Ryoga has been coming to Alice Nine lives before I went to go see BORN's lives. I saw Ryoga getting into our music. As expected, I want to go crazy at lives, so the live itself, and not just the listening part, is fun. That's what I naturally come to think whenever I go and see someone who I think is cool's live. To think that way yet hold back is weirder. Even if our roles are different, we're from the same generation. We probably watched and listened to the same things. I think that when people first start thinking about wanting to be in a band, they either want to be the vocalist or guitarist. It's just that I wanted to be a guitarist, and Ryoga's a vocalist, but I'm sure that our roots are practically the same. That's what I feel, watching him on stage.
Hiroto, you look up to hide, but have you ever thought about singing?
Hiroto: I used to never think about it. I used to never think about doing stuff in addition to being in Alice Nine, like for example, do a solo project or be the frontman and sing. But lately, I've come to like singing in itself. It just so happened that at one of the fan events, I had the chance to sing, so I practiced a little. I thought "As expected, songs form the most basic part of me". But of course, I don't want to sing without any accompaniment. It's just that lately, I've found singing to be fun.
Ryoga: I'm the opposite. I like the guitar, so I've started playing it lately. Since I love music, I thought that not being able to play a single instrument would work to my disadvantage. There's a lot of enjoyment to be found in the guitar. Also, when I'm approaching music from various viewpoints, when I think things like "This guitar phrase is cool", or "The guitar in this song should have this kind of tone", I get annoyed at myself because I can't play anything. I think it would be more enjoyable if I could play. So I'm struggling along the way, but I'm practicing.
Hiroto: The day where you can see him playing on stage is coming close.
Ryoga: Right, I'm practicing so that that day will come.
Hiroto: Oh, I'm looking forward to that! Let's talk about this again sometimes soon.
Sometime soon without RUKI (laughs)?
Hiroto & Ryoga: Ahahaha. Definitely with him (laughs)
Hiroto: I'm not trying to suck-up, but if it weren't for RUKI, the four of us would never have our monthly meet-up, and we definitely wouldn't stay together until morning.
Ryoga: That's true.
And there's also the possibility that you two would never have talked to each other. I know that RUKI treats you two well. He really is a down-to-earth guy.
Hiroto: He is. I also want to be like him; someone everyone looks up to.
Ryoga: Same. I'm really grateful to RUKI. I'll do my best so that I can be a senior like him! And thank you very much for today, Hiroto!
Hiroto: No, no, the pleasure is all mine. It was really fun. Thanks.
Credits: aliceinrainbows
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