Interview with Lost Color People at Japan Expo

After their show at the mega event Japan Expo in Paris, France, five bandmembers of Lost Color People took some time to answer our questions.


Hello.

Everyone together: Hello! (in French)

Could you please introduce yourselves for our readers who don't know you yet?

Norio Mochizuki: I'm Norio the guitarist.
Hideto Mukoyama: I'm Muko the bassist.
Hideaki Ono: I'm Ono, the singer.
Math: I'm Math, the VJ.
Shuichi Akiyama: I'm Shu, the drummer.

Could you tell us how you met and what motivated you to become musicians?

Norio: We all played in different bands with various styles when we were students. It was quite natural that we joined to form this band. It was destiny. We wanted to share our experiences.

Did you play in other professional bands before?

Ono: We didn't play in major bands strictly speaking, but the members of the bands we played with are now part of the major world.

Which bands have influenced you?

Norio: Hmm, it's hard to say. There are a lot of bands that influenced me. But I can tell that I'm strongly influenced by soul and funk. Especially the seventies' soul music I grew up with.

And what about the other members?

Ono: I also have several influences. Among the Japanese artists there is Kamayatsu from the band the Spider, for the French artists there is Serge Gainsbourg and then the New-Yorker Lou Reed (Editor's note: from the band Velvet Underground). But also a lot by hip-hop music.

What does your band's name, "Lost Color People", mean?

Norio: We love black music, we love white music and we are Japanese, so yellow in a way. But whatever your skin colour, music transcends differences. We love all styles beyond differences.

You sing both in English and Japanese. Do you write the English lyrics directly in English?

Ono: I was part of an acoustic band with American members and so I learned a lot with them. Lyrics are like a cry from the heart, it's a suggestion, a question cast to the audience. Be they in English or Japanese, I set down words on the public, words that speak of a feeling, of an intuition.

How do you compose your songs?

(Ono looks toward the bassist)
Norio: It's Muko, the bassist, who makes the music with Ono the singer. They also write the lyrics.
Ono: Muko does most of the work, but it's all together that we decide on the musical concept of our songs. Another member of the band who couldn't make it to France also gives his ideas for the composing.

You describe your musical concept with the words "cool groove". Could you tell us a bit more about this idea?

Norio: Actually that doesn't only apply to music. It's characteristic of everything and that allows me to use the word "cool" to speak of our music. It's a kind of search for refinement, for a sophisticated sound.

The band started nearly ten years ago, and yet you only released a few CDs. Is that because you prefer live performances? (Ono smiles)

Norio: Actually for eight years we worked together to create strong ties between us by having a lot of practise sessions together and by playing live. It's been only for the last two years that we had the desire to produce albums.

Our interview is already coming to an end, and to conclude I'd like to ask you one last question. During your concert at the Japan Expo, you introduced your song Connectors by dedicating it to Ingrid Betancourt. Why that?

Ono: We take a natural interest in world current events, like for example with the events in Tibet or the story of this woman, Suu Kiy, in Burma. When we arrived in France we heard the news and president Sarkozy's speech on the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt. We wanted to share this homage in our concert.


JaME would like to thank the members of Lost Color People, J-Music Live and Emiko for the translation.