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— The last time he appeared in this magazine was in summer 2008. Back then, he talked to us revealing his opinions about the situation he was in, in which there was a gap between his popularity and his skills. Now, it has been five and a half years since then. Right now they have become a strong rock band, but this time we’d like to draw out even more from him about the changes in his mental state and sound.
Tora: Please treat me well. But has it really been five and a half years?
— We talked about when you suffered from a neck hernia while you were on tour. After skipping a few lives, you soon revived. You said that when you couldn’t even move your left hand as an effect of the hernia, you thought, “It’s all over, being a guitarist as well as my life.”
Tora: I did. But I’m totally alright now. I was worried that I would get into relapse, but it’s completely fine right now. That has become the past. Things have changed, including my music. I’ve grown older as a human being, and so have my music.
— But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Tora: Well, I suppose so. Alice Nine is not the kind of band that has a strict ‘this is Alice Nine’ concept, and we’re also not the kind of band that keeps doing the same thing over and over again. We always want to do new stuff every single time, so I think we’re a band that continues while we go through a lot changes. That’s the way we are until today and will be so from now on.
— I see. But I think that you do have a certain stereotype as a band. I’m saying that because your new single [SHINING] is a bright, positive song that tells people to stand up and have a strong determination, but I really felt an Alice Nine-ish stereotype in it.
Tora: Of course. Perhaps we do have that stereotype. I think that what everyone considers as Alice Nine’s stereotype is the bright, sparkly part of our music, right? We have released a lot of singles and lead songs that gave bright impression, that’s why we are often thought to have this image. However, if you give a good listening to Alice nine, you might find that we are actually a band with a lot of heavy, hard and maniacal sound. But why doesn’t this kind of image ever stick to us? Sometimes I wonder about that too (lol).
— That’s for sure. There were even more tunes that sounded like that in the albums. It’s a mystery, huh.
Tora: Right. That’s because there’s also a side of us that is the ‘Album Band’ that performs lives after making albums. Doesn’t it feel like, in our singles, the parts that focused on being bright and cheerful were stripped off? When that is easily received by people as a substitute of Alice Nine’s introduction, it might be perceived as an entrance ((to our music)) that has a pleasant image. But I sometimes wonder if it isn’t slightly different, when you end up being caught up in this image. The reason is because we are truly a maniacal band in terms of the music that we do.
— I think so. Until the release of your second album, [Alpha] in November 2007, your appearance had also taken a bright, sparkly image, and I thought that maybe this image had gone ahead of your music. But then you also have a heavy tuned song like [Kowloon –NINE HEADS RODEO SHOW-] that you released as a single and also as one of the songs in your first album, [Zekkeishoku] that was on sale April 2006. This song has always been added in your lives even until now. It’s a rather famous song. It really is a wonder, isn’t it?
Tora: Yes, certainly. But when the band had just formed, we were quite a bright, sparkly band (lol). I think the band was seen in a “These guys, they’re not making music seriously, are they!” kind of perspective. Well, there was practically no time to make music seriously. But of course, it’s not as if Hiroto only joined the band from the start to decide when and where to eat, and it’s not like the rest of us were only there to have fun. We formed the band with the intention to make music wholeheartedly, but all of a sudden we joined our current company, and we became so busy. It was a situation where we hardly had any songs but we became busy nonetheless, and to do a live without having any song… If you’re asking me now what we had been so busy doing back then, well, we were doing photoshoots (lol). It’s because we thought we had to do photoshoots no matter what. We had such a shocking photoshoot schedule. I think there was a time when the schedule was so jam-packed, we showed up in 30 magazines in just one month. We were doing photoshoots every single day, nothing but photoshoots even though the tour was approaching. We didn’t even get to do rehearsal. We didn’t have time to rehearse. It felt like, when are we going to write songs!? Although, unexpectedly, it seems that lately there are many music magazines that went out of production, right? Well, of course we are grateful that those people from the magazines helped us and asked for us, but then we didn’t have any song, we couldn’t rehearse. However, we got the tour going, and then the storm of photoshoots that took place every day… And with that, the busy days continued. Being as busy as we were, we were gradually becoming more and more misunderstood.
— Did people ask, ‘Are you guys even selling!?’?
Tora: Right, right, right (lol). It was totally a delusion, so to say. All the busy days we went through, could those be just a delusion!? Something like that (lol). This situation continued until we released our second album which you just mentioned, [Alpha]. In fact, as our popularity began to emerge, everyone also started to misunderstand us for some reason. That’s how it seemed. But around that time our busy days were beginning to relatively ease up. The moment we were settled down, there were a lot of things that we used to do that vanished in an instant. We tried performing in a large live house, taking our chances without having the skills to back us up. I think the audience could tell as well. It made us realize and we came to the point where we thought, “Let’s do this more seriously.”
— The last time you appeared in this magazine, you also talked to us about your first experience performing at the International Forum Hall A, September 3rd 2007.
Tora: Yes. Despite thinking it would be a sold out live, it wasn’t. It changed everyone’s way of thinking in an instant. Or rather, it made us reconsider. It really felt like we began to re-evaluate everything. I think that it was from around that time that we started becoming a band in its true meaning.
— That maybe so. Shou-kun, too, often says that whenever he looks back to those days, he thinks you guys were “a band playing house”. However, you are certainly a band that prioritized on vigor. I think that you had a good start, because it’s important to run swiftly counting on that vigor.
Tora: But I think it’s completely unacceptable if all that was not accompanied with the adequate skills. If I attempt to look back now to our earlier lives, I think we did an awful job. We were very, very horrible. The reason was because, for those lives, we simply lined up the songs that we wrote during the spare time we could find in between our busy schedule. The Japanese-Western blend concept that we had back in our early days was just something we said because it was preferable that we had some kind of concept. Because of that, our earlier costumes had that kind of feeling as well. But those components in particular were no longer incorporated within our music, so there was no meaning in establishing that as our concept anymore. As we came to the phase where we noticed, “No, that’s not how it’s supposed to be,” we removed that concept.
— In June 2009, you guys changed the way you write your band’s name from [アリス九號．] to [Alice Nine]. What did you mean by that?
Tora: I suppose back then we felt that our expanse had narrowed, so we changed the writing to English. The kanji writing left a big impression. At that moment, the desire to widen our expanse was strong.
— I see. But back then Tora-kun said, “We don’t have a fixation for big venues.”
Tora: That hasn’t changed even until today. We love performing lives so the size of the venue is irrelevant. The best thing is to be able to perform a live with a sense of unity, so we’re not picky about the size of the venue.
— You also said, “We don’t have a certain goal like performing at Budoukan or someplace like that.”
Tora: I guess that has changed. Recently I think I would like to stand on Budoukan at least once. Now it feels like we have things we would like to show at Budoukan. Until today I get the feeling that I don’t really understand why things like that exist. Of course, back then we did want to perform a live that was fitting for a place like Budoukan, but we didn’t have a grasp on the harsh reality. We felt we weren’t suitable for it, or should I say, we weren’t worth it. But now we’ve gained the confidence that we can properly reveal to everyone. I’d like to try to stand there one more time with our present state. I think that, recently, we’ve come to the point where we can do a live in the sense of ‘creating a venue’. Even though we are playing the same songs, if as much as the song’s interval is different, the way people see it will drastically change. Until that day, all we thought was “let’s just play the songs”, so it would have been okay if we hadn’t performed in Budoukan. We hadn’t set our minds as to what we wanted to show even though we were performing in such a huge place. But now there are things we wish to reveal to our audience in terms of a show, so now we can consider performing in a large venue. Because there are things we think we’d like to do, we want to perform there. I think that’s how it is.
— Something that isn’t vague, right? Does it have anything to do with the changes you experienced upon your musicality?
Tora: I suppose it does, but I think there’s a bigger tendency that leans toward our awareness. Or should I say, the coordination between the members. When we’re doing a live, I think that if there is no unity between the members, it won’t become anything good. Even though each member is expressing themselves, it will never be a good live. That is not the only meaning of performing live. Once we’ve decided on the direction we want to go, if I don’t start from thinking things through together with my fellow bandmates on our way toward that direction, we won’t be able to perform a great live. Even if we are performing in a large venue, I don’t think we can get anything across to the audience. I think that, first of all, we have to start from arranging our own awareness, and then walk forward toward that place.
— I understand. Tora-kun is also someone who views a band like Alice Nine objectively. With that same perspective, how do you see the changes that occurred to other members?
Tora: The changes were big, I think. Since we performed for the first time in International Forum Hall, I believe everyone has gone through many changes. I suppose everyone else changed a lot more than I did. I think Saga-kun changed a lot. Shou-kun, too. Alice Nine has lost that much confidence to do things thoughtlessly. That is because, in a sense, we are a band that started from a condition where we had maximum confidence.
— Right now you’re speaking what you really think, aren’t you? In Tora-kun’s own way.
Tora: Yes (lol). But that’s honestly what I think. Ever since we formed the band, entered our current company, years have passed, and our confidence gradually diminished. However, around the time we first performed in International Forum Hall, when we reached the moment where we wanted to give up, when we thought, “There’s no use anymore,” everybody gathered and faced the same direction, and said, “Yosha! Let’s start again, this time with all we’ve got, let’s do our best from zero! Let’s do this seriously!” The moment we were able to think like that, it became some sort of a unique support. I suppose Alice Nine manages to continue because that moment existed. I think that maybe every band has this moment that acts as their turning point. But the number of bands that didn’t have a similar direction at the same time and ended up disbanding is not small either. That’s something Alice Nine stood up to and fixed.
— You’ve ‘become a band’ in its true meaning, right? I think Alice Nine has gone through an immense growth since that time.
Tora: Everyone has become adults, even the way we think. I think this is what a band is supposed to be, essentially. We weren’t ready at all for it in the past. Well, I believe there isn’t any band that understands to that extent when the members are in their twenties, but if they know how to understand it from the very beginning, they can be a really awesome band. I’m not judging or anything, but back then, the company we joined itself was also still very young, so I don’t think they had the means to give us, who were still green in the matter of music, any guidance. The company excelled at publicizing us in magazines, medias and such, but I think they were still on a growing level. We were still pretty much ignorant when we came in, so we were busy doing photoshoots more than making songs or doing lives, and when we were expected to have more skills, that expectation became a burden to us. Again, I’m not judging the company at all, seriously. I think the ones who had zero knowledge were ourselves. What I’m trying to say is, I feel that all of us, including the company, were growing together.
Translation credits: akinojou
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