Interview with MIYAVI at Asia Star Festival

Days before the Asia Star Festival, a live event in São Paulo featuring acts from four Asian countries, JaME Brazil met "Samurai Guitarist" MIYAVI for a quick talk about his 20-year career and his best memories about Brazil.

Nice to meet you again! I was reading your first interview with JaME in 2006 and...

MIYAVI: Oh, 2006?!

Yes, 2006, a long time ago! You mentioned that visual kei inspired you to learn guitar and mentioned X JAPAN and LUNA SEA as your inspirations. Now, you're in THE LAST ROCKSTARS with YOSHIKI and SUGIZO. How do you view your career up to now?

MIYAVI: You know, it's been crazy, and it's been fun. I do respect everything I got inspired by. So, that's a reason why I keep improving and, you know, challenging new things. Even Hollywood films or fashion runways or humanitarian work as an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). You know, I've been performing at a lot of events like when the basketball team Golden State Warriors played at Saitama Super Arena, I did the halftime show. Or when the soccer team Paris Saint-Germain came to Japan and I performed at the National Stadium, and also at a baseball game. You know, collaborating with McLaren and Dell... Because I get inspired by them and also that's the way I can improve myself as an artist.

And then, as you mentioned, I'm in a band with YOSHIKI, SUGIZO, and HYDE... Such great artists, you know? They're Japanese rock stars. And then now we are, you know, reunited to chase our dream and to rock the whole world. It's really really exciting but at the same time, it's really an emotional project to me. They made a path and I got inspired, and then I made a path in a different way. But now we got together and just made another path together. It's fun, you know. As a solo artist I always...of course, I have my band, a drummer, a DJ, and backup singers but the band is different, it’s equal responsibility, equal...it's just a kind of teamwork. I do enjoy working with them, making music with them and I wish I can come back to Brazil as a band as well.


So, back then you talked about your musical inspirations from many artists and now you are the inspiration to new artists. How do you feel about that?

MIYAVI: It's cool, you know. It's great. That's also my role as an artist, to pass the experience and everything to the new and young generation. I do believe that education is really, really important. Even when I visit a refugee camp as an ambassador for UNHCR, the kids need the right education. If we don't guide them in the right way, they're gonna make a wrong future. You know, the same as a musician, I wanna show the younger generation not only the technical skills, but also the way of expression. It's really, really important because in the end, what's left in your mind after you see the concert isn't the technique, it's about the emotion and expression, the message. That's what I deliver and that's what I can pass onto the next generation.

You have been to Brazil for the SWU Festival before and now you are in the Asia Star Festival as a performer representing Japan. How does it feel to represent Japan to a young audience that may not be so familiar with your work?

MIYAVI: Actually, I didn't even know that I'm representing Japan for this event, but every single time I perform outside of Japan, I do feel a responsibility to represent Japan. And then, especially this event...are they all Korean or from many countries?

There are three Korean acts, one Thai, and one Chinese.

MIYAVI: Oh, that's great. I'm learning Chinese so I might be able to learn Chinese from them. But it's great to see a new audience because I'm always ready to rock a new audience. Not only my fans, but also the security guards, the bartenders, or merch sellers... Whoever experiences MIYAVI's music, I'm confident to rock them all. As a rock artist, that's my profession. So, I'm really looking forward to enjoying this celebration with my fans and also the people who have never seen a MIYAVI concert. We're going to have fun. We’re going to rock them all.

Your first concert in Brazil was in 2008 and...

MIYAVI: Right?! I still remember that it was in 2008!

Yes! When we announced your presence in the festival, some fans started to remind us about that moment. They still have their tickets.

MIYAVI: Oh!

As this is your sixth time in Brazil, what was your most memorable moment here?

MIYAVI: Actually, the first time. I still remember that people were kind of chasing my car to the hotel from the venue. The whole time they chased, and they made it. That's crazy. They never stopped running, even after a full concert. They went crazy, they kept running and chasing the car. That was crazy. And then again, how loud they are. I was with DJs and beatboxers and everybody... It's really, really important to hear the monitor but I couldn't hear the monitor at all because the audience was really, really loud. But I loved the energy of the audience, I always get blown away by that energy from my audience. That's the reason why I keep coming back to this country.

So, the last question. In your last performance here in Brazil, you spoke about the changes in the world and that we should take more responsibility for what is happening on the planet. This was shortly before the pandemic. After going through such challenging times, do you have any reflections on how society, in general, dealt with it and how you personally matured from it?

MIYAVI: So, I went back to Lebanon a couple of weeks ago. As the first country I visited as an ambassador for UNHCR, I wanted to kind of revisit and redefine the reason why I do this humanitarian work because during COVID I was suffering and having a hard time. When you are having a hard time, you can't even help other people. When your house is burning you can't go help other houses. You need to be sure that your house is fine. That's what I felt during COVID, because the whole world was having a hard time, in the hardship. There's no way, no opportunity or energy to help other people. I was not able to go to any other country. That's how I felt. But still, what we can do is the same. We contribute ourselves to society or the planet somehow. And then, again, the power of music hasn't changed at all. Even during COVID or before COVID, or after COVID. Even if people don't buy music anymore, still the power, the impact, and the message that we can deliver through music is the same. So, now with more technology like A.I. or other stuff, I think that there are more opportunities and possibilities to find a new way to accomplish our mission for society and for our own future.

JaME would like to thank MIYAVI and Highway Star for making this interview possible.

MIYAVI will be embarking a European tour in September. The Return of the Samurai Guitarist Tour will kick off in Warsaw, Poland on September 21st, taking him through Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, France and England before it wraps up in Milan, Italy on October 4th. Links to purchase tickets for each of the shows are available on his official website. On October 13th, MIYAVI will head out on a tour of China, although details on the vanues for those dates are not available just yet.

The lyric video for MIYAVI's cover of Ikimono-gakari's Blue Bird, which was featured on his November 2022 anison cover album MIYAVIVERSE -Anima-, can be viewed below.