ACID interview

ACID interview (9/23/2005)

We took the bus from Shibuya to Shimoba in Seagaya, to the three-story building of the J-ROCK office. We climbed the narrow stairs and entered the reception room with the manager. The members of ACID soon came in and the interview started.

Could you introduce yourselves to foreign fans?
Kim: I’m Kim, guitarist of ACID.
Sei-ichiro: I’m Sei-ichiro, drummer.
Junpei: I’m Junpei, vocalist.
Yu-ta: I’m Yu-ta, bassist.
Daisuke: I’m Daisuke, guitarist of ACID.
Masamitsu: I’m Masamitsu, guitarist.

What kind of musical background do you have? For example: what were your reasons to start to play your instrument, were you influenced by your favorite musicians and why did you join ACID?
Yu-ta: Are you okay with so many men in here? (laughs) I lived close to HIDEKI’s home town and was HIDEKI’s junior by two years. The members of SIAM SHADE, the band which HIDEKI was a member of were 2 years senior to me in my junior high school.

Do you mean NATCHIN and DAITA!?
Yu-ta: Yes! (laughs) When I was a first grader, they were in the third grade. I have known NATCHIN for a long time, because we were in the same soccer team in our elementary high school. At that time there was a band boom with bands such as BOOWY and Buck-Tick and I played in a band since second grade junior high school. I met HIDEKI by chance in ‘HOT WAVE’ which was the bands competition for high school students. I was in the first grade then, Hideki was in the third grade.

So you happened to meet him in the same competition while you were members of different bands?
Yu-ta: And the older brother of the bassist of my band was the drummer of HIDEKI’s band. (laughs) We were living in the same locality, so we went to see each other’s lives.

Was there any talk of working in a band with him?
Yu-ta: Well, he was two years older than me. And I played punk music called ‘Merokoa’ then, doing lives in the pedestrian precinct of Harajuku (=Hokoten) and HIDEKI played hard-rock music. When we met in town, he talked to me and asked “Why don’t you play guitar in my band?”, but we didn’t play together. When HIDEKI ended SIAM SHADE and became a solo artist, I quit my job as a transporter. He called me and asked: “What are you doing? Do you want to play with me when I perform during my solo Since then I became a member of ACID. In my case, the story began with the relationship of a local senior and junior.
Daisuke: I met HIDEKI for the first time on the e.mu radio show (Daisuke’s former band).

Did it click between you two then?
Daisuke: No… not really (laughs). HIDEKI was a guest, so our meeting was like “Thank you very much for coming here today!”, but I wanted to meet him for a while.
After two months my band broke up, and HIDEKI called me: “Why don’t you play with me?”. I became a support member of ACID and then a full member.

Sei-ichiro, you have been a member of ACID since its early stages, haven’t you?
Yu-ta: Yes, it was about that same time that I joined
Sei-ichirou: I heard about the audition from an acquaintance of mine who asked me: “Will you try?” And I said: “I’ll do it!”. I had the audition, and here I am now.
Yu-ta: I was also present on that occasion. At first, HIDEKI was searching for members for his solo live, and he said “I’m looking for young members”. Sei-ichiro happened to be there and luckily he was the youngest amongst the people in the audition, so he was chosen because “He is the youngest and freshest!” HIDEKI said. (laughs)

Masamitsu, Junpei and Kim, did you become members around the same time?
Yu-ta: It was around the same time, but Junpei became a member a little bit earlier, I think. HIDEKI was looking for a vocalist saying “I will choose a young vocalist instead of me, then I’ll retire”. He couldn’t find one easily, because while he was looking for a vocalist he was also singing in ACID. There was this one guy who was HIDEKI’s junior in Junior high school (laughs) and he was the bassist of the band Junpei belonged to at that moment. He showed us a video saying “I want to introduce a good guitarist to you”. Junpei appeared in the video but HIDEKI said: “I don’t care about this guitarist, but I’m interested in the vocalist.” (laughs). HIDEKI called Junpei telling him: “Come to my house and sing songs, won’t you?” and then he went to HIDEKI’s house that day.

What did you sing there?
Junpei: I sang [Taiyou ni Te o nobashite] of HIDEKI’s 2nd solo album.

How did you feel? Were you able to sing it so quickly?
Junpei: I was pretty tensed up, but I knew the song.
Yu-ta: Masamitsu and Kim were chosen by audition. They sent their video to us.
Masamitsu: I sent the video, and then HIDEKI called me. (laughs) He asked: “Are there any others who are tall and good guys?” And I knew only Kim who played guitar, so I said “I know one guy”. I brought him, and he became a member (laughs).
Yu-ta: At first HIDEKI said Masamitsu was very good looking (laughs). Unfortunately I wasn’t there (laughs). HIDEKI said: “He’s good looking! If he could play guitar, he will pass immediately!”, but he couldn’t play the guitar at all! (bursts out in laughter). He played so poorly that I thought “I’m sure he won’t pass anyway”. But in the case of Suguru who used to be a guitarist of ACID, Suguru was young and developed really fast due to practice, even though he was half-baked, which meant young men grow fast. At first, we made the new comers our support members, helping at our lives and we made them practice our songs. Gradually we doubted about them being support members, because their eagerness was different from the original members and support members. Until then, Daisuke was a support member, and we thought Masamitsu and Kim would be support members too.
But their enthusiasm should be much better if they could be original members, so we decided to make the present ACID line-up of seven members including HIDEKI.

I saw your last live of ‘Meguro 7 days’ last year. The stage seemed small with seven members on stage.
Yu-ta: Yes, it was deadly small.(laughs) But we acted tame.

Do you feel like it’s hard to move around, as if you really want to rampage, but instead you hesitate?
Daisuke: I’m challenging how I can perform in the small space!(laugh)

What music were you influenced by?
Yu-ta: I was influenced by popular songs. When I was younger, there were TV programs like [The Best 10] or [Top 10] or [Yoru no Hit Studio], and popular music was given more primetime exposure, than band music. From my elementary school years, I usually listened to popular music, which formed my foundation, Japanese melodies were influencial also.

When did you start bass?
Yu-ta: To be honest, I started bass recently. About 2 years ago.

Until then, did you play guitar?
Yu-ta: I had been playing guitar for about 10 years, and before that I had played piano.

Oh, you played various instruments. So can you still play them?
Yu-ta: No…not really. I can’t play piano at all. Except [Neko Funjatta].(laugh)

What instrument do you use to write songs?
Yu-ta: I use guitar. Basically I compose a whole song in my head, and I play guitar and bass by myself, then use computers to make drum rhythm, and sing by myself.

I want to listen to the demo tape.
Yu-ta: No, no, no, no, no….!!! (burst out laughing) I can’t allow you to listen to my singing.(laugh) And also other sounds might be worse. If I could make demo tapes the same quality as Daisuke, I can let you listen then.
Daisuke: In my case, I was familiar to Japanese music. I used to listen to BOOWY and similar bands.

Daisuke, I heard you sang BOOWY’s songs on stage didn’t you?
Daisuke: Yes, I often sang those songs, and also songs by Kyosuke Himuro.

Why don’t you sing any more?
Daisuke: Well. I changed my character a bit, (laugh) I’m going another other way, I hope. (laugh)
Sei-ichiro: I was listening to various kinds of music, but nearly almost always Western music, especially American music.

Did you start playing drums from the beginning?
Sei-ichiro: Yes. I played drums from 1st grade of elementary school onwards. I was lucky to be surrounded by such an environment.
Junpei: I listen to anything, Western music, Japanese music, and popular songs. I was influenced by many artists. In my junior high school age, I used to sing Karaoke, but recently I haven’t been.
Masamitsu: I saw a ‘Luna Sea’ music video while I was of elementary school age, and it had a strong impact on me. It prompted me to start listening to Japanese music. I copied various songs at home.
Kim: I listened to Japanese music mostly.

Kim, when did you come to Japan?
Kim: About 3 years ago.

You speak Japanese well. Did you study Japanese in Korea?
Kim: Yes. I studied for about half year, and continued another 1 year in Japan.

In Korea, is Japanese music popular?
Kim: Yes. But not really openly, but many people search for it on the internet, and are then listening to it.

Japanese songs were prohibited in Korea before. Did the music still come to Korea even though there was this rule?
Kim: Yes, the music came from the internet behind-the-scenes.

Except music, what are your hobbies?
Yu-ta: I don’t have special hobby. I drive a car during our tour, but I don’t really like driving.

Yu-ta, Do you drive a car during your live tour?
Yu-ta: Yes, but our captain is Sei-ichiro!(laugh)
Sei-ichiro: My only hobby is cars and nothing else. I like driving and watching cars.

After your lives, do you feel very tired driving a car?
Sei-ichiro: No, driving is different. I’m rather tired sitting in the passenger seat. I care about others’ driving, so I feel easier driving by myself! I’m sorry for my disrespect.(laugh)

Amongst the band are you the best driver?
Sei-ichirou: I don’t think I’m good at driving.
Yu-ta: Nothing to do with being good or bad, I think he likes driving. He takes the initiative when driving a car. Once we went to Kyushu (=South part of Japan) on our tour driving 2 cars, Sei-ichirou kept driving 1 car through the tour, while Daisuke and I drove another car by taking turns to drive. It was legendary.(laugh)
Sei-ichiro: My mileage is NO.1! (laugh)

That’s amazing. Are you frustrated when other members are sleep when you are driving?(laugh)
Sei-ichiro: No, not at all! On the contrary, it’s easier for me to drive!(laugh)

Well, I guess you are sleepy after your lives.
Sei-ichiro: Yes. When I feel tired, I will park in a service area.
Yu-ta: I pinch my thigh.(laugh)

Daisuke, you are from Hokkaido (=North part of Japan), and used to do skiing there, didn’t you?
Daisuke: Yes. But I haven’t done skiing for a while. I was familiar with winter sports such as skiing and snow boarding.

You were the finalist in the National Athletic Meet, weren’t you?
Daisuke: I took part in the track events in my junior high school, but I was close to last in the final.

It’s great that you were the finalist of the National Athletic Meet! You are jumping around on the stage in your lives, aren’t you?
Daisuke: Yes. I have confidence only in my athletic ability!(laugh)

Junpei, You study in University and make music together. Most work you do as a musician is during night, then going to the University during the day and studying, is it hard for you?
Junpei: Recently, I’m not doing that so much. But before, I did recording all night and took a nap in a car then went to my classes sometimes.
Masamitsu: I have many hobbies.(laugh) I like making plastic models, and collecting little things and free gifts. And I like bikes! I ride a stylish bike, ‘tracker’ which Kimu-Taku(=a member of SMAP) rides too and a kind of off-road bike like motocross. We see ‘tracker’ in Harajuku often. I ride it constantly when I go to the studio.

Have you ever been a member of ‘Bousou-Zoku’(=a bike gang)?
Masamitsu: Once I wanted to be part of one.
ALL: It’s not worth it!(laugh)

You seem fond of remodeling. Do you go to see bike races?
Masamitsu: No, I don’t like watching the competitions.(laugh) I like customizing bikes.
Kim: I like games and playing baseball very much. My position is a pitcher. I don’t have time these days, so I only now watch baseball games.

There is a big difference of ages among ACID’s members. Is there any generation gap when you are talking?
Yu-ta: Not usually, we especially don’t talk about anime. Young members don’t know ‘Time Bokan series’, and only know rebroadcast of ‘Gundam’. I’m not persuasive about this kind of talk, because I’m eldest member.(laugh) Speak! Sei-ichiro!
Sei-ichiro: Well, I don’t know about old popular songs, that’s all.
Yu-ta: I’m a dozen years older than the young members.
Masamitsu: See! I’m 19 years old!(laugh)

What is the meaning of the band name ‘ACID’ ?
Yu-ta: Usually the word ‘ACID’ is not associated with a good meaning but bad things instead, such as ‘pollution’ and the drug name. But we hope it will be recognized with a positive meaning. Now the name ‘ACID’ does not have a good image, but we can change it to a good image. As for the meaning of ‘contamination’, we want our music will involve everyone in a better way. We named this to show hope in changing it to positive word.

Does each member write songs for ACID?
Yu-ta: Yes. When HIDEKI used to be a member, he mainly wrote the songs, and Daisuke and I supported him, but now all 6 members write songs and bring them to the band. Before, Sei-ichiro couldn’t play other instruments, but now he works hard playing guitar or making songs with his computer. Junpei plays guitar, and other members make songs respectively. All members bring songs to our meetings.

Did you play new songs at your live concert?
Yu-ta: Now we are playing 3 new songs.

Were the styles of new songs changed?
Yuta: There is not such a big change, before we dealt with the twin vocals of HIDEKI and Junpei. But now our main vocalist is Junpei, so we try to find the songs which show Junpei’s voice in our songs, which is something we want to do.
Daisuke: Well, they became more pop.

Does each member’s song have different styles?
Yu-ta: Totally different!(laugh) Speak simply, Masamitsu’s songs are punk, Junpei’s and Kim’s are mood, Sei-ichiro’s are pop, and Daisuke’s and mine are made up of various styles.

So we can expect more from now on. Various kinds of songs on your album?.
Yu-ta: Well, if it will become too miscellaneous like Makunouchi Bento (= a Japanese variety box lunch), we won’t know what we really want to do. It’s difficult to keep a consensus. That’s our subject and challenge. Stated quite simply, I hope we can make ACID’s music original.

Does everyone make songs with guitar?
Yu-ta: I play the melody on the keyboard, and other sounds by guitar.
Junpei: I play the piano a bit.

I think a rock band that includes 3 guitarists is rare.
All: There is ‘Iron Maiden’!(laugh)

That’s why ACID’s music has heavy sounds. Do you make good use of this formation to make music?
Daisuke: I made a demo to think about how to use 3 guitars in our music. Now we have performed many lives, and made use of 3 guitars for hard sounds, but I’m thinking about making gentle music and searching for other ways to use 3 guitars from now on.
Yu-ta: We have many guitars, so arranging is difficult.

Don’t you use acoustic guitar?
Daisuke: Well, I thought about it a bit, but if we use acoustic guitar now, lives won’t heat up enough. All the members want to play distorting guitar sounds, so I produce music using 3 distorting guitars.
Yu-ta: Well, actually we have 1 acoustic guitar song.

Junpei, Do you write lyrics?
Yu-ta: Junpei, Daisuke and I mainly write the lyrics, but now all the members write lyrics.

You have many members and a lot of ideas during the composition and arranging of songs. Is it difficult adjusting members’ opinions?
Yu-ta: If everyone agrees it’s good, we can adjust our opinions . When we can’t reach an agreement, it means it’s not good, I think. The songs which every member thinks are good and agree with we can do it right now, but the songs which we can’t agree on, we let them lie idle for a while.

Do you make music together? Or make complete demo tapes then reproduce them?
Yu-ta: Mostly, we each make demo tapes, then we arrange them afterwards using Daisuke’s PC .

Are there any reasons that your album [ACID 1.5] doesn’t include any ballads?
Yu-ta: There are no reasons.
Daisuke: Our lives contain mostly hard songs, and our theme is about providing a place for making a lot of noise, so we didn’t need ballads. There was no reason to calm down.

Concerning demo taping, have there been any ballads written since?
Yu-ta: We had some. But we didn’t make ballads when we recorded. We didn’t think there was a need to write or include or ballads. We wanted to play harder music and make noise with the audience.

It might change from now on.
Yu-ta: Yes. If we think we want to play ballads, we’ll do them. But now our lives are rather short, so we can’t make that logical development yet. During a 30-40 minute long concert, we do not have a need for ballads, rather we would rather keep heating up from the beginning to the end.

Do you hope to release your albums overseas?
Yu-ta: I hope so, if it’s possible. But it’s better to keep a steady attitude at the moment. If we can keep our originality and self-confidence for our next album, we will really want to release it overseas.
Daisuke: Our band has the sense which isn’t limited to Japan but beyond it’s borders, because we have Kim who is from outside of Japan. I hope we will be able to release our albums when the time is right.

ACID’s music is different from conventional Japanese music, and I feel that expansion and possibility beyond forms and limits will be noticed by people outside of Japan.
Yu-ta: Yes, I think we are an unheard-of band. We have many members, wide range of our ages and different races. It’s our originality to get over those walls by working together. That’s the meaning of the lyric of [GO] on our album. So we don’t have fixed idea, and we will do whatever we want without any limits. As long as we feel cool, we’ll try it! If we have a chance to perform overseas, we really want to be challenged!

Do you want to sing in Korean?
Kim: Of course, I do!(laugh)

I saw your live in ‘World Indies Festival’ of ‘Aichi Banpaku(=Aichi International Exhibition)’, you played 2 new songs. Your costumes changed colour from blue to black, which shows a change?
Yu-ta: Yes, it is in part, but we have another thing which we can’t talk about on now. We decided one thing among us and changed our colour to black. It’s more important that we don’t wear blue anymore than we put on black. After HIDEKI left, we turned a new leaf, which applies to our colour change.

During live performances, you move around the stage alot, and audience jump and raise their fists together. The sense of identity and solidarity between ACID and fans seems very strong. Do you realize these new responses during your live concerts?
Yu-ta: After HIDEKI left leaving us 6 members behind, we did not know what we could do. But we started writing songs, then we found we could do these things on our own with confidence. Fans waited for us and our work, they believed in us. We never want to lose this sense of belief in us or our identity with our audience, because we are very happy playing in front of them.
Daisuke: The six of us want to continue to keep our identity.
Yu-ta: Honestly speaking, we are trying various new ideas bit by bit now, not only music but also live performance ideas. We are trying new things and taking a trial and error approach to see if these things are good or bad. We learn a lot from our live performances as, “how we can shape our new ideas and change them to suit ACID”.

You often perform with other bands. Does anything good come out of this?
Yu-ta: I often think "Are we going too far!?" "we don't want to do this." (laugh) There are some negative things too, like "We can't do this. Are we going too far?" (laugh) We will be watching other bands that are different to us, so we can find both good points and bad points, that way we can learn a lot.

You are watched by other bands, aren’t you?
Yu-ta: Yes. So we get very worked up. We are sometimes pumped up too much for our live concerts making it difficult for some to keep up.(laugh)

Are you interested in performing live concerts overseas?
Yu-ta: Of course! We have a member Kim, so we want to perform concerts in Korea. And wherever and whenever we have a chance, we want to go.

Do you have something new you want to try from now on?
Yu-ta: We have various things we want to do in our live performances, and we want to start moving in that direction. We definitely know that we want to integrate images with our lives. We need people who are good at working with images, and it’s still difficult to realize this in the limited space of live houses. We are working on various ideas now.

I’m looking forward to see them. Now you are actively performing, you can see what you want to do, don’t you?
Yu-ta: Obviously we see from our perspective, and we need some more songs during lives, and that idea came from just doing lives. Now we mostly play concerts with other bands, and then our concerts are short, but when we do one-man live concerts, we need other kinds of songs.

Are there different audience reactions from each region, for example between Kansai(=West part of Japan such as Osaka) and Kanto (=East part of Japan such as Tokyo)?
Sei-ichiro: Yes, it’s different. Both are good, but I feel humanity in Osaka. The heat of audience is also different.

Do you enjoy your live tour, eating various foods in each region?
Sei-ichiro: No…..we don’t really enjoy it a lot.(burst out laughing) We don’t go out that much.(laugh) We all eat together, that’s all.
Yu-ta: Well, we might see fans near the live houses, so we leave the live houses quickly, so we often then go to eat in service areas of high-ways.(laugh) We prefer to see the videos of our concerts to see how we performed on the stage, as soon as possible afterwards. So we forget to eat and instead we get together in a room to see the video, and then talk which was good and bad in what we did and reflect on ourselves .

Is the self-examination quite serious?
Yu-ta: I don’t know about other bands, but we are serious about our music.

In HIDEKI’s blog, many plans were formed, for example, appearing on internet TV every week, for fans who live in regions and can’t go your lives in Tokyo often.
Yu-ta: Now we are working in Tokyo, but our fans are all over Japan, so we want to release our information and show our live images for fans, to say “We never forget you!”(laugh) Another reason is because it’s a good opportunity to tell lots of people about what we are doing. On the internet, people from all over the world and not only Japan can see what we are doing.

My friend is missing “There are only few photographs on ACID’s HP.”.(laugh) Having an English version would be better, but if there are more photographs on your HP, fans are happier even though they can’t read Japanese.
Yu-ta: I agree with you!

Are you going to release new album?
Yu-ta: In the far future! (laugh) we won’t release new albums in 2005. We’ll be active by performing live concerts as our foundation. (In 2006, they will release a new album [ACID 2.0~spiritual circus complete~].)

Finally please give your messages to foreign fans.
Junpei: We want to go lives overseas someday, so please wait for us!
Yu-ta: Remember that we have 3 guitarists the same as ‘Iron Maiden’!(burst out laughing)


Interviewer: KimKim and Non-Non


Special thanks to J-ROCK for arranging the interview and offering ACID’s photograph.