Interview with ACID

Thank you for taking time for this interview. Could you please introduce yourselves?

Daisuke: I’m the guitarist, Daisuke.
Yuta: I’m the bassist, Yuta.
Junpei: I’m the vocalist, Junpei.
Masamitsu: I’m the guitarist, Masamitsu.
Seiichirou: I’m the drummer, Seiichirou.

Your newest single, 0:00 A.M./Hanafubuki has been used for the anime Tokyo Majin Gakuen~Kenpu-cho. Did you watch the anime first and then write the song, or the other way around?

Daisuke: No. We had already written the song.

So did you choose songs which fit the image of the anime from your pre-existing songs?

Daisuke: Yes. The lyrics hadn't been determined yet, so after we consulted with the anime staff, I wrote the lyrics.

Daisuke, you wrote the lyrics of 0:00 A.M.. What does the time "0:00 A.M." mean to you?

Daisuke: Well, at midnight, people think about many things before they sleep. That's how it seems to me.

Junpei, you wrote the lyrics of Hanafubuki. Did you imagine cherry blossoms and the encounters and farewells of people that spring brings?

Junpei: Yes. At first, the image of Daisuke’s demo was ‘cherry blossoms’ and ‘hanafubuki (falling petals)’, so I wrote along that image. And I was graduating from college, so I also wrote thanks to many people.

Why did you start doing visual-kei when you started with an alternative look?

Yuta: I think people's impressions are based on what they see. We used to put on make-up, putting foundation on our faces. We met more and more people from the visual-kei scene, and thought we would be better in visual-kei. We don’t care if we are visual-kei artists or not, because it depends on how people classify us. We had a strong desire to show our messages and to make our stage appearances more visual, so we thought playing in the visual-kei scence was the best way to do this. Also, visual-kei artists often collaborate with anime, so their music can be spread all over the world to foreign fans, really widening the scene itself.

In visual-kei, there is pop, rock, punk and metal; various kinds music, so you can challenge many things.

Yuta: I agree with you. We don’t think “People who put on make up are visual-kei.” In the visual-kei scene, people are doing what they want to do. What we want to do is a kind of emo-rock, which we have been doing, and we want to try it in the visual-kei scene, which is interesting because such music isn’t in the visual-kei scene. We want to see the response.

Daisuke, since you played in visual-kei before, do you feel like you are returning to the scene?

Daisuke: Yes, I feel like I have to care about many things again (laughs). I think I care more than before (laughs).

Junpei, are you aware of your stage presence?

Junpei: Yes. There are many other attractive bands, not just in visual-kei, so I watch their lives, and try to take their good points in. And when I do my make-up, I change my feelings, so there is some change in how I show myself.

Masamitsu, did you have any worries about how to present yourself?

Masamitsu: Well, I changed a lot. But I don’t care about what the people around me think.

Do you feel the language barrier is a problem for foreign fans who want to experience your music completely?

Manager: Now foreign people listen to Japanese lyrics straightly. People used to say that singers should sing in English for foreign listeners, but now they could send their native Japanese feelings by singing in Japanese. There is a corner of visual-kei music in home electrical appliances shops in Akihabara. Before Japanese anime, games went overseas first, then Japanese fashion, and now Japanese music is in a boom. I feel the music environment, in which people listen to Japanese music properly, is becoming better.
Yuta: Actually, when we were very young, we started listening to music just because it was cool, even if we didn’t understand what they said. When I listened to METALLICA in junior high school for the first time, I thought “This is so cool!”, even though I couldn’t understand what they said. When foreign people listen our music, they judge our music on whether it’s cool or not by their own standards. I’m very happy that young people are able to make their own decisions based on what is important to them.

Could you tell me how you feel after finishing the live tour ACID TOUR 2007~Prologue~ which began in March 2007? Do you have a favorite place, or some impression?

Daisuke: I was very impressed by our tour final live in Daikanyama UNIT. Of course I like the lives before, but in this one-man live, staff and many people cooperated, and I felt like we made it all together. I hadn’t felt that for a long time, so I was really happy. I want to have a live like that again.
Yuta: Including good and bad points in my playing and my physical condition, I have many impressions of all the places we went to. A little unexpectedly, I remember the bad points more than good points. During our tour we played in a event, I was very bad, which really left an impression on me(laughs). I really reflect on what I do. And in Chiba! We played in Route14 for the second time. Before, the live in Chiba was great, and we said to ourselves that we are good at playing in Chiba (laughs), I don’t know why but whenever we play in Chiba, the lives are exciting and are really impressive. We aren’t from Chiba, but there's lots of Masa (Masamitsu) love there (laughs).
Junpei: I was most impressed by Daikanyama UNIT too, as Daisuke said, but also impressed by the live in Koufu. On the day of the live in Koufu, my college had the graduation ceremony.

So you weren't able to attend the ceremony?

Junpei: I was. I thought I wouldn't attend the ceremony, but the band said “You should go!” (laughs). I was busy that day, but I went to the graduation ceremony to say good-bye to my classmates, and played our live, which felt very good.

In your live, didn’t you have a special feeling in your mind?

Junpei: Yes. But I can’t express it in words well.

How about Masamitsu?

Masamitsu: Of course, Route14 in Chiba!

Why do you like Chiba?

Masamitsu: I went there often when I was a high school student.
Yuta: Masa rides a bike often, and he goes there by bike.
Masamitsu: Before, we played in Chiba LOOK, and every time when we have played in Chiba, the lives were good.

Before, I heard you did a street live. How was that?

Yuta: Yes, we did. At that time Junpei had suffered from pulmonary emphysema in our tour, and he couldn’t sing, so we did the live by ourselves.

Did you enjoy the street live?

Yuta: Um, I felt like I was playing away from our home ground (laughs). But it was a good experience because we had never done it before. I had experiences playing street lives in Hokoten in Harajuku before, but now we don’t play such lives, because we are not a band playing only with acoustic guitars, and our music style isn’t good for playing on streets. After we experienced that, I felt we need songs which we can send our messages by playing acoustic guitars. I learnt from that.

Seiichirou, what impressions do you have?

Seiichirou: I can’t choose easily, but maybe it’s Niigata. We went to Niigata for the first time, and I felt warm, and that fans really waited for us, which I was very impressed about.
Yuta: In Niigata, there were many people who weren’t our fans and who saw us for the first time. Usually in live house events, many people go home after they watch their favorite bands. In Niigata, our turn was last, but many people stayed to see and got really into it. It was not our usual atmosphere.
Manager: People are warm there. We felt really welcomed.

In the new album PRAY FOR THE FUTURE, what message are you trying to give us? Does it have anything to do with the recent wars going on in the world?

Yuta: Even in Japan, there are many tragic incidents around us. From global warming, to crimes, child abuse, bullying, and suicide, I think about all of them and feel bad these days. I don’t force it but our messages are ‘PRAY’, our hopes and wishes are in the lyrics. Each song has its own theme, but the consistent theme is ‘PRAY’. The word ‘PRAY’ has various meaning, such as “I want to be like this," “I hope like this," "I hope for some other person," and "Please help me, my God!" Everyone has these experiences, I think. We decided on a theme of ‘PRAY FOR THE FUTURE'.

When you made the album, did you have the concept of ‘PRAY’ from the beginning?

Yuta: When we wrote the music, we hadn't come up with the theme yet; it wasn't until we were writing the lyrics. I told the members that I decided on a keyword of ‘PRAY’ as the image of the album, and we made a consensus, then each member wrote lyrics respectively.

How did the process of writing and recording go? Did you each bring demo tapes, select and arrange the songs all together?

Yuta: Daisuke and I wrote songs this time. After we released the album ACID 2.0~SPIRITUAL CIRCUS COMPLETE~, during our live tour, we thought we needed new songs, so we made some. So in this new album, there are some songs which we already played in our lives, and we rewrote the lyrics of those songs. About writing songs, we accumulate our songs for the next album, but as we play them in lives, we change what we want to do. Of course we think about our style and genre. Sometimes we can’t use some songs which we don’t want to do anymore, a few songs are left out, and we have to make new songs. Honestly speaking, we almost couldn’t keep up this time, because we thought we wanted to do something totally different. So making songs took a lot of time and we barely made it in time. Regarding writing lyrics, each member wrote respectively.

About writing lyrics, what ‘PRAY’er did you put into your lyrics?

Daisuke: My theme is ‘tenderness’. I don’t say "Please be tender," and the content of my lyrics are different, but I wrote thinking you feel tender when you read my lyrics.
Yuta: I wrote two songs. In one song, I wrote a message directly, which is about suicide among young people. I understand what they think, because I was bullied when I was a child, so I wanted to send my message of “Please stay alive!” to such people. The song Prayer is a trigger of the album PRAY FOR THE FUTURE, and I wanted to send a wide meaning of ‘PRAY’ in this song. We wanted to send our messages more, while our music remains hard and melodious as we think. We didn’t want to let people think just “These are good songs” when they listen to our music, but we wanted to leave something in them. In a broad way, I think it’s good to give people some prompts to start thinking there are such things in the world.
Junpei: I didn’t write many lyrics this time. I wrote about common and popular things that everyone thinks they've experienced.
Masamitsu: I did only one song and I wrote about what I thought when I was a high school student.... it seems not far from now (laughs).
Seiichirou: I wrote lyrics for a song called Darling, which Yuta made. In a demo of this song there was a keyword ‘Darling’ in the main melodies, so I had only the image of ‘Darling’ since then. Generally speaking, females use ‘Darling’ to males in our images. But I learnt that the precious person for both males and females is called ‘Darling’ and it doesn’t need to be between lovers, which I found out for the first time. So I wrote about the weakness and pain of when a man falls in love, from my view as a man; like when a guy falls in love or finds his ‘Darling’, they will be like this. Your ‘Darling’ doesn’t need to be a lover, but maybe like family. You’ll see when you read my lyrics.

In what way will it be different from your previous albums?

Yuta: Songs will be simpler. As I said before, we are changing what we want to do, though we still want to make hard songs with good melodies like before. But now we don’t need to always be hard (laughs). I think that this realization is part of our evolution and I think that you can see that in our album. Of course we want to keep our originality, but now we are more flexible and know that we don’t have to always make songs in one set style.

Before, you said that you want to send your messages to the hearts of many people. There are people who like hard songs, those who don’t like them, those who like beautiful melodies, who like chords, and who like lyrics. As long as you have a strong will to want many people to listen to your music, I think your messages will reach them.

Yuta: Yes, there are people who don’t like hard sounds, while band men usually like it. We don’t aim to go either way, but our expression and our songs don’t have to be hard. You’ll see when you listen to all the songs of the album that they have more messages and melody than before.

After you release your new album, you’ll start the tour ACID TOUR 2007~Epilogue~Ver.2 ACID/rice coupling tour 「＆」from July 21st. How will you play in the lives?

Yuta: Before that, ACID TOUR 2007~Epilogue~Ver.1 will start from June. We planned to do a long tour. In our former tour, ACID TOUR 2007~Prologue~, the album hadn’t been released yet, so we wanted to link the tour to the next album like a prologue. This time, we finished the album, and now we want to link it to an epilogue, which is how we express what we think after we release the album and people listen to it. We want to show our live more visually than the last tour ACID TOUR 2007~Prologue~, and try various things. As we try new things, we also change, so we want to try more and more. Concerning the coupling tour with rice in Version 2, we haven’t done coupling tours yet, so it will be new for us. I think it’s interesting because rice is a different music type from us, and we just happened to meet them and came to do the tour together. I think we both will get something from this tour.

Can we expect more than just music, visuals too?

Yuta: Yes.... but can I say that so definitely? (laughs) If I say yes now, someone may say “You didn’t change at all!” later. (laughs)
Daisuke: I think we can say yes (laughs).
Yuta: Since Daisuke said yes, I’ll say yes too! (bursts out laughing)

You started in 2003, so you have been around for 4 years now. Can you tell us a little about how that was?

Yuta: I only see my future, never look back at my past!
Daisuke: I feel like "has it already been four years!?"
Manager: They seem to feel like they are just starting. They have confidence as ACID, and will start releasing music which they want to do. They are standing on the starting line now.
Yuta: Junpei just graduated from his college, Kim had to go back to Korea to be in the army, and we had various things that we had to do, but we got over them and became stronger mentally as a band and as people now. What I got from this band I want to make good use of in our music.

When we talk about ACID, members are of various ages. For young members, how do you want to do your music in the future?

Junpei: I want to make my own style in my songs and lyrics, and to grow as a musician. I want ACID to grow as well.

You graduated from your college, and you can concentrate on music. Is your life occupied by music now?

Junpei: Maybe so. At my college, there were many serious students around me. So sometimes, it felt difficult to keep concentrating on my music. Now I am free from them.
Masamitsu: I want to be ‘a man of presence’. Like “I don’t know why but I can’t help looking at him.”

Are you aware of that when you perform on stage? Do you try to do something strange or different?

Masamitsu: No, I just express what I feel in a straight forward and physical manner (laughs).
Yuta: Well, he is a man of emotion, (laughs) in both good times and bad.
Seiichirou: For our lives and CDs, fans pay thousands of yen, so I want to say thanks to them, make them enjoy our lives every time, and give them my energy. I’m very happy when I hear from fans things like “I was depressed but I got energy from you" or simply “I enjoyed it very much” after our lives. I want to do more lives and hear such words from the fans. As a drummer, I want to be able to give more stability. The drummer is a pillar, and if the pillar crumbles the band would also crumble, so I want to be steadier and more firm. I want to be a rather technical drummer, so I have to practice more and more.

Please give your message to JaME readers.

Daisuke: You, living against the gravity of the globe, rock!
Yuta: Please listen to our new album PRAY FOR THE FUTURE released on June 6th, and feel the difference from before, and our messages. If you like us, please invite us overseas!
Junpei: We have singles and albums, so please listen to both of them. If you like them, please come to Japan for sightseeing, and come to our lives. We are waiting for you!
Masamitsu: Those of you who like the music of Screamo, Emo, and Post Hardcore, please be my friends! I want to go many countries!
Seiichirou: Now the internet is really progressing, and you can link to anywhere in the world, so please check our HP, and listen to our music. If you like it, please come to see us and our country, Japan.