Starting from ZERO
ZERO – the bassist of D’espairsRay, a Japanese band who can say they were the vanguard that took the first step to bring Japanese music overseas. The reason he chose his stage name was so that he would never forget his “starting point”, when he took the instrument in his hands for the first time. Until then he had never done anything thoroughly, but playing bass made him realize that he wanted to master it, it was something he had to do. He pursued it from his starting point to the destination – D’espairsRay.
When I started playing bass, I realized for the first time that it was something I had to do all the way. I chose a stage name that would always remind me of that “starting point”.
Q: Before I ask you about your upbringing, I would like to ask the most basic question. Was there any special reason you chose ZERO as your stage name?
Z: No, not really. However, I have been using the name ZERO since I started playing bass. Ever since I was little, I have been a type who does everything to the extent that doesn’t require to go into any pains. On the other hand I have never been too interested in anything either and never investigated anything thoroughly.
Q: Do you mean that you are fickle?
Z: Yes (laughs). But when I started playing bass, I realized for the first time that it was something I had to do all the way. That’s why I chose a stage name that would always remind me of that “starting point”. When I am frustrated and want to give up, my name reminds me how I felt in the beginning.
Q: I asked the question with the simple intention of confirming things and suddenly I got to the heart of the matter (laughs). Have you been someone who does everything only to a certain degree ever since your early childhood?
Z: Yes. Ever since I was little, when it came to popular things like roller skates or skateboard or unicycle, it didn’t took me long to get better at them than other kids around me. When that happened, I always lost my interest and gave up and tried something new, something others could not easily do.
Q: Therefore, your friends could not follow you. Even though you started things so that you could enjoy playing together with your friends it turned into something you did alone. You must have been a little lonely.
Z: Yeah.
Q: Were you able to just as easily study and play sports in school?
Z: No, I could not study at all (replies immediately).
Q: You admitted it very easily (laughs).
Z: School studies were the only thing I couldn’t do at all (laughs). My parents told me: “Study! Study!” all the time, but basically I really hate it, when others force me to do anything.
Q: So you never wanted to do anything except what you discovered on your own?
Z: That’s right. Maybe I’d have studied more, if no one told me to. Well, it seems like an excuse now (laughs). Anyway since I was little I liked to play outside, as soon as I came back from school I went outside. Well, both of my parents worked so there was no reason to be at home at all and I didn’t want to either.
Q: Coming back home and being there on your own, it meant that you were a latchkey kid, something I do not hear a lot lately.
Z: Exactly (laughs). When I came back from school, I always put my knapsack down and immediately went to play outside, I didn’t come back home until it was dark. It happened everyday.
Q: I was a latchkey kid too. Maybe it is a little exaggerating, but I think kids who grow up in such environment are fast to develop independent spirits. It seems that they learn to decide what they want to do by themselves.
Z: Yeah, probably.
Q: At the same time those kids want to look perfect to the adults around them and do not want to worry anyone, their sense of responsibility grows strong.
Z: Unfortunately, that didn’t happen to me (laughs). I was into mischief all the time. When I was little, there were potato fields next to my house. If you dig potatoes out and throw them at a wall, then they’d stick to it, right? It was fun and we competed who got the biggest traces of potatoes stuck to the wall (laughs).
Q: It seems you had a talent for inventing new games (laughs).
Q: Yeah. Then sometimes I got a fishing string and wrapped it around a gate door of a neighbor’s house. If one just glances at the door, they wouldn’t notice the string, right? So I hid nearby and enjoyed watching people trying to get out of the house and being like: “Eh? Why the door is not opening?” (laughs) I caused quite a lot of trouble to the neighbors, actually they often got angry at me.
Q: When some mischief happened, did it happen that the neighbors immediately thought it was you?
Z: Yeah. That’s why my parents often went to our neighbors, gave them a box of cakes and apologized (laughs).
Q: There must have been times when you had no choice but to stay at home, for example, when the weather was bad. What did you do then? Did you just sit in front of a TV watching it?
Z: No, I never watched TV, when I was alone. During the first years of elementary school, I just played with my toys humming some weird song to myself.
Q: Ah, that’s something kids do a lot. They don’t just make sound effects, it’s like they sing a soundtrack (laughs).
Z: Exactly (laughs). Somehow rather than watching TV, I liked to play with toys and create stories in my head. It was a lot more fun than TV. But when my parents came back from work and we had dinner, it was the time when TV channels began to air a lot of anime. I went to eat my dinner in front of a TV and often got scolded again (laughs).
Q: When you hummed a song and played with your toys day-dreaming, wasn’t it a precious territory you didn’t want anyone to intrude upon?
Z: Yeah, my parents probably never saw me playing like that by myself. Of course, I probably didn’t consciously hide it from them, but at the same time I guess I was embarrassed and didn’t want my parents to see me.
Q: What kind of toys did you have and what kind of stories did you make?
Z: Well, a lot of different ones. Different toys, different stories. For example, I made two toys battle each other. I’d associate myself with one of them and that’s why it was not just “a thing against another thing”, one of them was me.
Q: Rather than empathy I guess it was like you possessed the toy.
Z: Yeah, I think it was closer to possession.
Q: It was as if you were dubbing your own movie (laughs). I agree it is something one does not want their parents to see and on the other hand if they did, they’d probably got worried (laughs).
Z: True. But I think I was a child, who had strong imagination or maybe was prone to day-dreaming. The moment I got out of the house, I’d stay outside and would not come back, but, when I was at home, I’d stay and play there. I was a child of such extremes. Or rather I guess even when I was little, I had relationship troubles with others and there were times, when I tended to hide at home.
Q: Do you mean your relationship with other kids in the neighborhood?
Z: Yeah. It wasn’t like I was bullied, but don’t little kids tease each other at the smallest opportunity without any ill intentions? If one does something weird, the others gang up and tease them. For the teasing side it is just a game and they don’t realize that they are doing something bad, but the ones who get teased really hate it, right? For example, in elementary school, how should I put it… For example, one goes chasing a girl around and other kids say: “You like that girl!” (laughs) It happens a lot, right? The older kids in the same elementary school already begin to feel it is something to be embarrassed about. That’s why even though I just had fun and chased a girl without any ulterior motives, the older kids said something like: “You are such an embarrassment!” and then it escalated into: “Don’t come near us!”
Q: It happens a lot when kids are of that age. At the time what did you want to be in the future?
Z: I liked soccer a lot. Well, I was influenced by “Captain Tsubasa”. That’s why when we had to write essays in school about what we wanted to be, I wrote: “I want to be a soccer player”. However, it does not mean that I really wanted to be a soccer player, I just didn’t have anything else to write, and that’s all. If I have to say, I think that was just it.
Q: Was “Captain Tsubasa” the only reason you had interest in soccer?
Z: Yeah. My father loves manga and we had a lot of manga books at home. When he showed me “Captain Tsubasa”, I thought that soccer seemed fun and that’s how it started (laughs). I simply thought that soccer seemed like a lot of fun.
Q: How did you feel about it once you tried playing it?
Z: How should I put it, I guess it is really difficult for me to work together with others, because I am the type who tends to get smug. That’s why though I did join a local soccer team, I quit it very soon. I didn’t last there at all.
Q: After that, when you were in elementary school, was there anything else you wanted to do in the future?
Z: Nothing at all. When I had to write essays about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I just simply wrote about things I had interest in. But there was not a single thing I wanted to get serious about.
Q: I see. Then please tell us about things you were interested in at the time even if it was very brief.
Z: Aside from soccer, I played basketball… I did quite a lot of things like abacus and calligraphy, but in the end it was all just something everyone else learned so I wanted to try too (laughs). The only thing that really stands out and which I continued for a long time is swimming. I went to a swimming school for about seven years.
Q: That’s quite a long time, it is almost a miracle for a boy who gave up on everything so easily.
I played with my toys humming some weird song to myself. I think I was a child who had strong imagination or maybe was prone to day-dreaming.
Z: However, I don’t remember going there because I liked it. Ever since I was little I had a relatively weak body and that’s why my parents made me go to the swimming school. But thanks to that I spent my elementary school years without catching cold too often, so I think it was a good thing that I went to the swimming school. If I keep thinking that way, I probably can go on.
Q: It often happens that things like learning abacus and calligraphy suddenly get popular for a brief moment.
Z: Yeah, but it was no fun and I didn’t think it could be of any use to me (laughs).
Q: Did you enjoy music lessons in elementary school?
Z: I loved them. First of all, I loved singing. Before I even went to elementary school, in kindergarten I liked singing and I always sang the loudest. I didn’t just like singing, I probably really wanted to stand out (laughs).
Q: You must have thought: “I am the one singing in front of everyone!”
Z: Yeah, and adults always praised me for being an energetic kid (laughs).
Q: But you never attended a music school or anything like that, didn’t you?
Z: No, I just liked singing, but only until I graduated from elementary school.
Q: Could it be that at the time you had a boy soprano voice?
Z: I wonder. I was often told that I had a high-pitched voice.
Q: Boys’ voices change in late years of elementary school, don’t they? I wonder if that was the reason you no longer liked singing.
Z: More like I hit puberty (laughs). It is the time, when boys start to see girls as girls, right? That’s why I started to hate singing in front of girls. But I liked playing harmonica, I was the best in the class.
Q: Do you mean that instead of being the fastest to run your fingers over strings of a guitar, you were the fastest to blow your harmonica? (laughs)
Z: Ahahaha! No, but when we participated in musical contests, I was the one who played solo parts. Other than that I liked drawing, I was probably influenced by my mother.
Q: Did your mother have a job that involved drawing?
Z: No, she simply likes drawing. Actually she is really good at it. It seems that ever since she was little she even received prizes for her drawings.
Q: In other words in elementary school you liked subjects that didn’t involve studying.
Z: That’s right. I liked physical education, music and arts. That’s all it seems (laughs). I really enjoyed those lessons.
Q: At the time were there songs you liked except the ones you learned at school, like those of singers you saw on TV and such?
Z: I guess it is quite common, but since I was little I liked “Gundam” and special effects like the ones in “Kamen Riders”, and we had a lot of records of the anime title songs at home. We also had recordings of the songs from anime like “Galaxy Express 999”. But it wasn’t that I got them because I wanted to, my parents liked them and bought a lot of them. I was influenced by my father in my liking of both “Gundam” and “Captain Tsubasa”. Of course, I think my parents probably bought those records to please me and make me happy.
Q: After that, when you hit puberty, not only you became conscious of the girls around you, but did you also awake to idols?
Z: Somehow around the time we hit puberty during the last years of elementary school all girls were making a lot of fuss about so called Johnnies idols. Since then I guess I became aware of “the way people are perceived” by others (laughs).
Q: Do you mean that you thought that, if you looked like those idols, girls would make fuss about you too?
Z: Yeah. Or maybe I wanted to be one of the Johnnies! (laughs)
Q: Did you aspire to be an idol?! (laughs) But those feeling must have changed, when you entered junior high school.
Z: Yeah. First of all, during the spring break right after I graduated from elementary school I had an earth-shattering encounter. I suddenly became aware of the bands like X and BUCK-TICK. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of visual kei and I didn’t understand at all why they put on make-up, I was simply captivated by their music and thought that it was really cool.
Q: How did you learn about those bands?
Z: My childhood friend’s father was a huge fan of the bands like BUCK-TICK and BOØWY and he taught me about them, when we met during the spring break. I felt they were really cool, nothing like what I had ever encountered on my own before. They were completely different from Gundam (laughs). I didn’t understand anything about it, but I thought BUCK-TICK’s [Aku no hana] was so cool! (laughs)
Q: Did you feel that you came in contact with something forbidden? As if you set a foot into the world of adults, the same as with smoking cigarettes?
Z: Yeah, I think I felt that way.
Q: After such a shocking junior high school “entrance ceremony” (laughs), did you exclusively go in that direction?
Z: No, I just simply liked music and it was not like I suddenly went to extremes. I listened to everything regardless of a genre, rock music or J-pop, and it was not like I listened to Western music only either. By the way the first Western music I chose to listen on my own were Van Hallen and Bauhaus.
Q: Those two bands are quite the extremes! (laughs) Why did you choose to listen to them?
Z: A public library in the neighborhood lent CDs and they had quite a lot of Western music that one usually does not come across easily. So I decided to try and listen to one record after another and the first two CDs that I chose were the ones of Van Hallen and Bauhaus.
Q: In other words it was so called “CD covers shopping” and you chose CDs by their covers, didn’t you?
Z: No, I first gave them a listen at the library. It was during the second year of junior high school. I thought that Van Hallen was cool, but Bauhaus made me think: “What the hell is this?!”
Q: Was it the beginning of your interest in rock music gradually deepening?
Z: Yes. After that I began to listen to a lot of Western music and during the last year of junior high I began to think that I’d like to learn to play guitar.
Q: So it was like an underground passage before you took the steps up to the moment you took an instrument in your hands. During junior high school years did you participate in any club activities?
Z: I played soccer. In the beginning I was a part of “going home” club (laughs), but somehow it turned out that I had to participate in extracurricular activities. Around the time I joined a soccer club, I began to grow up and gain weight and suddenly it turned out that I could play quite well. That’s why I started to have fun. I spent all my time playing soccer during three years of junior high school.
Q: To continue to play it for that long was quite an achievement next only to your swimming (laughs). Then what about your studies…?
Z: Around the time I entered junior high school I worked quite hard on my studies. I thought that if I could keep it up for three years, I would be able to get into a good high school. But I tended to spend more time playing soccer (laughs). We start to learn English in junior high, right? I looked forward to it, because just like everyone else I thought: “It’d be cool if I could speak English,” (laughs). That was the only reason really. Actually, when I entered junior high school, I did my best studying it and naturally I began to study other subjects more too. By the way no matter how much I studied English, when I listened to the records of people speaking it, I could not understand a thing. And when that happened, my interests moved on to the soccer club altogether. I thought that there was no way I could learn English and at the same time I stopped studying other subjects too… However, for some reason social studies were the only subjects I still liked. Those subjects were the only ones, in which I had outstanding grades. It is a weird thing to say, but if entrance exams consisted of social studies only, I’d have no problems getting into a good high school of my choice (laughs). I liked history and geography. I was not so good at world history, but I liked Japanese history and world geography.
Q: Maybe you were really good at subjects that required memorizing.
Z: Probably. But unless I understand the meaning I cannot remember a thing. That’s why I was really bad at studying science. I was completely annihilated during science lessons (laughs). I didn’t get what was interesting about science at all, and I didn’t understand the subjects.
Q: So in the end soccer is the only thing you remember doing your best at during junior high, right?
Z: Yes, only soccer. I liked music too and I listened to a lot of bands, but as I mentioned earlier, when I hit puberty, I began to hate singing in front of an audience and I lost interest in it.
Q: What about girls? Did your desire to be popular with girls bear fruit?
Z: No, not at all (laughs).
Q: Then what about switching over to Johnnies?
Z: No, I didn’t. In the end I just did things I enjoyed and during junior high school it was soccer.
Q: Did you find something you wanted to do in the future?
Z: No, nothing at all. However, there was a high school I wanted to get into and I had quite a few friends, who were going to enter that school too. Moreover, around the time we were to graduate junior high school my desire to learn to play guitar grew stronger. My friends were the same and we talked about forming a band together once we got into high school. We assumed beforehand that we all were going to the same high school. But… I was the only one who didn’t get accepted.
Q: If only social studies were enough to get in (laughs).
Z: No, my grades were fine, but I blew it during an interview (laughs). The thing is I tried to get accepted by recommendation and, when I failed it, because I didn’t want to study hard to pass exams I asked my parents if it was OK if I didn’t go to high school at all.
Q: But aren’t recommendation admissions decided very early? Usually even failing it, one still has a chance of getting into another school if they study hard, right?
Z: I didn’t want to do that. Anyway I didn’t want to study at all.
Q: So in the end you didn’t go to high school?
Z: I did. I went to a school about three ranks lower that the one I wanted to go to at first (laughs). I followed my plan of getting into a high school without studying for entrance exams (laughs).
Q: You parents must have objected, when you asked them if it was OK for you not to go to high school.
Z: They were really against it and, well, in the end we decided that I will go to a school closest to our house (laughs). It was within a walking distance, but it was a famous school for idiots in our neighborhood (laughs). By the way, when my little brother was about to go to high school, our parents told him: “Any school but that one!” (laughs). Well, I didn’t want to go to that school either, but at the same time I also thought that it’d be bad if I didn’t think of my parents and didn’t attend high school.
Q: That was an amazing compromise your family found (laughs). But it means that the band you wanted to form with your friends from junior high school was over before it even started.
Z: That’s right. But in the end I formed a band with new friends I met in high school.
Q: It is rude of me to say so, but a low-level school like that must have made their class assignments very easy in comparison to other schools. In such case, did it happen that your desire to study weakened considerably?
Z: Yeah, that’s why I don’t remember ever studying during high school years (laughs). I wonder if I graduated without studying at all. At the same time I got interested in playing basketball… I have a habit that, when I get interested in something, I want to connect it to music. That’s why when I started playing basketball, I began collecting a lot of CDs with rap music.
Q: In the end did your interest in basketball last?
Z: No, it didn’t (laughs).
Q: And that means that your devotion to rap music was…?
Z: Over right away (laughs).
Q: It seems in your case everything is always over in a blink of an eye (laughs). By the way was there any reason you decided to switch to basketball, even though playing soccer in junior high you finally managed to do something for a long period of time?
Z: I thought basketball was more interesting than soccer, at least I thought so at the time. The reason was simple like that. In the end before I reach level 10 in something I find it more interesting to try and learn many different things at level 5. I guess because day by day I can feel how I get better. At the time basketball happened to be what made me feel that way.
Q: By the way was it the same endless cycle that the moment you reached level 10 in something you got bored with it?
Z: Yes, that’s right.
The school rules were such that we had to have our hair black, but… for some reason teachers were very lenient when it came to me and my friends (laughs).
Q: Well then, was it back then that you got interested in playing guitar?
Z: Yeah, however, guitar was not the first instrument I took in my hands. In high school I reunited with my childhood friend I mentioned before, the one whose father was the fan of X and BUCK-TICK. At first we decided: “Let’s form a band even if only to fool around and pass time,” and my friend already played guitar back then and, moreover, we had decided on a drummer too. The only two options left were bass and vocals. I hesitated a lot deciding between the two, but there were still traces of my puberty years left after all (laughs). I still felt that I didn’t want to sing in front of an audience, so in the end I decided to play bass.
Q: That means that if you got over your puberty complexes back then you might have become a vocalist!
Z: Yeah, I guess it is in my nature that I want to stand in front of other people and I still had that desire back then (laughs). In the end another kid from our high school became the vocalist.
Q: When you finally started your band’s activities, did you only cover other bands’ music?
Z: Yeah, we played only covers and we never played live, we disbanded without ever playing in front of an audience (laughs). I don’t think our band lasted for more than ten months.
Q: By the way what was the name of your band?
Z: … I don’t remember (bitter laugh).
Q: But your face tells me that instead of not remembering you just don’t want to say it.
Z: No, I really don’t remember it (laughs). At the time we covered songs by BUCK-TICK and Luna Sea. We were more into dark music and we didn’t cover X.
Q: Did the number of your friends, who started to play in the bands, increase?
Z: Yes, in high school a lot of guys played in bands. There were so many bands around I guess it was a time of a rock bands boom back then, like there were a lot of Luna Sea and BOØWY cover bands, metal bands too.
Q: Did you form your next band while still a high school student?
Z: We formed a new band after the first one disbanded and we began to play live. We played together for about four years. The other band members were all my high school friends and we continued to play together even after we graduated. As I said earlier my house was very close to the school, so every day after classes were over we went back to my place to rehearse.
Q: As always you caused troubles to your neighbors. Did your parents have to go and apologize again...?
Z: No, for some reason everything was fine.
Q: Did you graduate from covering other bands’ songs and start to make your original music with the new band?
Z: Yes. I started to write music right after I turned seventeen and after that we played only our original music. Because we already had experience as a cover band, our interests were completely focused on making our own music.
Q: And what was that band’s name?
Z: That’s a secret (laughs).
Q: I understand (laughs). Speaking of the genres, what kind of music did you play?
Z: I wonder. At least it was a completely different type of music from what D’espairsRay play. Back then I still wrote music and all songs our band played were written by me. I guess I was the one who brought it up every time and the band existed for the sole purpose of us doing stuff I wanted to do. That’s why even when it came to drums and guitar I was the one who said: “Play like this” or “Drum like that”.
Q: So it was “The Me” kind of a band, wasn’t it?
Z: Yes, without a doubt.
Q: In such a case looks are usually more important than music, don’t you think? In that sense what kind of a band yours was?
Z: First of all, rules of our school were very strict about us having our hair black… but for some reason teachers around us were really lenient about it (laughs). Well, different teachers said different things, but there were those who were understanding. But it does not mean that we dyed our hair blond, we kept it within reason (laughs). We just dyed our hair brownish and kept it a little longer than normal. During high school it was obvious that we were indeed the band influenced by Luna Sea.
Q: What did you do about stage outfits?
Z: I got money from my parents to buy stage clothes (laughs).
Q: Your parents must have been quite understanding about your band.
Z: Yeah, they tolerated our band practices too. I guess rather than accepting it they simply thought I was going to get tired of it soon. After all it always happened that way (laughs). Well, I suppose they thought I would quit the band after I graduated from high school.
Q: Was desire to become popular with girls among the reasons you played in the band?
Z: No, though I did want to stand out. I loved music and I loved playing bass, and I just liked to perform in front of the audience and wanted to do something to stand out. On the opposite I don’t think I realized that the guys, who play in bands, are popular among girls.
The first time I took bass in my hands, I thought: “This is it!” Since then I have always been called ZERO. I have been doing ZERO for quite a long time (laughs).
Q: Even though at first you started playing bass for reasons others that liking it, did you come to love it as soon as you tried?
Z: I liked bass from the very beginning. But at first I didn’t understand the difference between guitar and bass.
Q: That’s something I hear a lot and in most cases the phrase that follows is: “I thought that, because bass has fewer strings than guitar, it was going to be easier to learn”. At the same time there are a lot of people, who get frustrated with bass once they realize it is a lot more difficult to play than they expected.
Z: In my case it was easy from the beginning. When I got a bass and reading a score learned to play songs starting with, for example, BOØWY, I could learn to play them relatively fast. That’s when I thought: “This is it!”
Q: Was that when you thought that it was something you must do?
Z: Yes. However, I also felt that just like everything else playing bass might turn out to be something I would not continue for a long time. That’s why like I said in the beginning I chose the name ZERO. Ever since I formed my first band, started to play bass and decided the band’s name…
Q: You mean you chose ZERO as your stage name at the same time as you chose the name of the band you already forgot? (laughs)
Z: Exactly (laughs). Ever since then I have been ZERO, so it means since I was fifteen- sixteen years old. I have been ZERO for quite a long time (laughs).
Q: How did you get your first bass?
Z: I had my parents buy it for me. My parents are very easy when it comes to money (laughs).
Q: In a way that’s quite a desirable environment to grow up in (laughs).
Z: Since junior high school I didn’t have a fixed allowance my parents gave me. When I needed money, like when I went out with my friends during weekends, I always just asked them: “Please give me money,” and I always got what I wanted. There were times when they even gave me as much as 10000 yen. They probably didn’t realize exactly how much money they gave me (laughs).
Q: So with no money problems you had no obstacles during your high school years to play in a band?
Z: Well, none except exams. Every year exams got more and more difficult to pass. Of course, that was simply because I didn’t study at all. That’s why the difference between levels of my knowledge at the time I entered high school and when I graduated was really big (laughs).
Q: Did you study just enough to proceed to the next grade without having to repeat a year and dedicate the rest of your time to the band?
Z: Yes. I rarely studied, even when I was at school, and sometimes I didn’t go to school at all and just hang out somewhere.
Q: You didn’t go even though the school was right next to your house?
Z: No. I was always late too. Actually isn’t being late an everyday offence committed by kids, who live really close to their schools? (laughs)
Q: That’s true, there is such a tendency.
Z: I attended high school properly only during the first year.
Q: Kids, who do not go to school, are often called delinquents (laughs). Were you aware that you were a delinquent?
Z: I didn’t think that I was being bad. It is true that I studied very rarely, but I didn’t cause trouble to anyone and, when I went to school, I didn’t do anything violent. The only school rule I broke was about my hair, so I was alright I think.
Q: In the end after you quit basketball did you quit all club activities at school altogether?
Z: Yes, I did. I fully concentrated on my band. At the same time the only other thing I had interest in was computers. In general I was interested in data processing (laughs). I wanted to try and do a lot of different things using a computer. However, it didn’t seem like I could get too far into it, buy different parts and put them together. No matter how easy my parents were with money I could not pester them to buy me something as expensive as a computer (laughs).
Q: In the mean time the years of high school centered on your band were finally over (laughs). Did you manage to pass final exams and graduate safely?
Z: Yeah. However, after that I just loitered around for a while (laughs).
Q: That’s quite a usual turn of events (laughs). What did you say during career consultations at school?
Z: Nothing in particular. Or rather while everyone divided into two groups, those who were going to work after graduation and those who wanted to go to a university, I did neither and went home (laughs).
Q: I see, you were a type of a student teachers find the most difficult to cheer on (laughs).
Z: Well, yeah. But by then I already told my teacher that I was going to make my living playing music.
Q: What did your teacher reply to you?
Z: He said: “There is only a handful of people in this world who can make their living playing music. Think of something that can be useful for your future.” Well, of course, he said that, my parents told me the same thing. But I seriously decided that I was going to make my living playing music.
Q: So after the graduation you kept playing in your high school band, right? While loitering around (laughs).
Z: Yeah, I continued to play in that band until a little before I turned twenty.
Q: Did you do nothing except playing in the band?
Z: No, of course, I could not do that. In the beginning I actually did nothing, but my parents have their own business and through it they got me a job at a factory of one of their regular customers. That’s why during the day I usually worked there and on my days off and in the evenings I played with my band.
I thought that I didn’t want to shoulder a burden all by myself anymore. Playing in D’espairsRay I learned the fun of doing something together with the other three band members.
Q: What was the reason you disbanded?
Z: I wonder what it was. Somehow, despite the fact that it was the band that did whatever I wanted to I gradually got bored with it. I, myself, was boring. However, it was difficult to change something I kept doing for several years. I worked hard to resolve the situation the best I could, but in the end I guess I reached my limits and playing music stopped being fun.
Q: It seems that though you wanted to keep writing songs and playing music based on your ideas, you began to realize your own limits.
Z: Yes, I felt that way. I began to work and earn my own money so now I could freely buy pretty much whatever CDs I wanted and I began to listen to a lot more music than before. But even though it made me think: “I want to try making music like this,” I could not do it on my own.
Q: So that’s why your band broke up.
Z: The truth is it was supposed to be only about me leaving the band. But if I think about it, it was not like they could continue without me.
Q: On the other hand you would probably regret leaving if the band continued to play successfully after that (laughs).
Z: Ahahahaha! Well, that’s true. But I don’t think I would feel like I lost (laughs).
Q: That happened right before your twentieth birthday. What did you do in the meantime before you began to play in D’espairsRay?
Z: I just loitered around (laughs). Sometimes I went to work, sometimes I didn’t…
Q: In what directions did your tastes in music continue to broaden?
Z: I listened to the bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains. If I think about it, I also tried listening to Enia. I am not sure if it a good thing or a bad thing, but I have never been particular about genres of the music I listen to. That’s why I listened to a lot of different music without being concerned with the context. But honestly after my band broke up I lost the sense of purpose I guess, my desire to play music professionally probably faded away. That’s why even listening to music I felt like it just dragged on and on and I never formed a new band. I never did anything more than just helping out my friends from other bands.
Q: Was D’espairsRay the next band you joined as a full member after the break-up of your band?
Z: Yes.
Q: How did it all begin?
Z: When I was still in my previous band, we played live together with Karyu’s band. The drummer of Karyu’s band used to play in a band we played together with in high school, so having known each other and since my home town is Kumagaya in Saitama prefecture, I invited them to play together with us there. We played together once. Then before long I quit my band… And while I loitered around again doing nothing Karyu’s band broke up too. After they disbanded the two of us began talking about playing together.
Q: What was your first impression of Karyu?
Z: To tell the truth among all members of his band Karyu was the one I didn’t get along at all (laughs). Or rather I just didn’t know him well. There were four members in that band and I knew contact information of the three of them, but I didn’t know Karyu’s phone number. But one day he suddenly called me (laughs).
Q: I suppose it means Karyu had feelings for you that you didn’t reciprocate (laughs).
Z: It happened that I felt there was a sense of distance between them and I just never exchanged phone numbers with him. We sat next to each other during after-parties a few times and Karyu was a fun drunk (laughs), he gradually began to fall apart. I had that impression of him and because I thought it was fun, I loved to make him drink a lot (laughs).
Q: At the time did you talk about what kind of a band you wanted to do together?
Z: Somehow, we talked about wanting to play dark music. Karyu’s previous band was quite pop, and my band was the same. I wanted to try and play aggressive music, but I could not write songs like that myself. So we both felt that we wanted to make aggressive and dark music, but it was nothing more than that, it was not like we had a clear concept. Then the two of us began to search for other band members, while loitering around (laughs).
Q: And then you met Hizumi and Tsukasa. What was your first impression of Hizumi?
Z: First of all I thought that he had a good voice. He had good looks too, so there were no problems at all. Somehow I felt that his voice had a potential. He also seemed like a guy we’d get along with.
Q: What about Tsukasa?
Z: The two of them played together before and in the beginning they sent us their demo tape. At first for some reason the only thing I paid attention to was Hizumi’s singing, but when we actually met and played together, I realized what a great drummer Tsukasa was. Moreover, it seemed that in their previous band Tsukasa was the one who mainly wrote songs. It appeared he also used to play in a brass band, and, how should I put it, it seemed he was really good at “constructing” things. His songs had good quality. That’s why we wanted to play together with them, but they felt very conflicted about it. Not about playing together with us, more like about whether or not they should move to Tokyo. Hizumi also said that he wouldn’t move without Tsukasa. That’s why I did everything I could to encourage the two of them to come to Tokyo (laughs). That’s how D’espairsRay began.
Q: It must have become a big turning point in your life.
Z: Well, yeah. But honestly right after we formed the band, I lost my motivation to play music. Because we reached the stage when I had to feel more motivated about it, my desire to make my living playing music weakened. I didn’t think that far in earnest. Rather the first time I thought playing in D’espairsRay was fun was when we recorded our first CD.
Q: Does it mean that your first proper recording gave you a sense of satisfaction?
Z: Yeah. But if I think about it now, it does not mean that until then I didn’t put all my strength into D’espairsRay. Already then I intended to do my utmost playing in D’espairsRay and as time passed the band came to mean a lot to me.
Q: In 2009 you celebrate D’espairsRay’s 10th anniversary, but speaking honestly, did you think in the beginning that you would continue to play music together for so long?
Z: I am not exactly a person, who leads our band, and, if I had to say, then I suppose, when things do not go well between us, I am in a position to step forward and turn the situation for the better. That’s why I think it happened that we continued to play together, because I thought that I’d like us to go on. Somehow I thought that even though I was not the one standing at the front, it was alright as long as I was a part of the band.
Q: Did you no longer think: “Me! Me!”?
Z: That’s right. First of all, I no longer wanted to shoulder a band on my own.
Q: Did you loose interest in being the one who sees the musical destination of the band?
Z: Yeah, I no longer thought it was fun. On the opposite, I think playing in D’espairsRay I learned the fun of doing something together with the other three band members.
I don’t think that I would want to continue playing music and being a member of a band. Not unless it is D’espairsRay.
Q: I see. Did something change in you, when D’espairsRay became such an important existence for you?
Z: I think there must have been some sort of change, maybe even something trivial. However, I guess I cannot explain it very well myself. For example, as our band gained popularity I began to care about things like clothes I wear, instead of being like: “Anything will do,” as I used to be in the past. I think there are a lot of other things too, a lot of changes even I myself do not notice.
Q: What do you think you would do now if you never played in D’espairsRay?
Z: I don’t know. I cannot imagine that, I am not sure if I’d even be alive now. I am not exaggerating, even if I try to imagine my life without D’espairsRay, I cannot do it. But on the other hand, if I think about conforming to a society and living an ordinary life, I don’t think I can live that way. Well, if I think realistically about it, I guess I’d go back to my parents’ place. Actually, I think if I didn’t meet Karyu and the others, my passion for music would probably cool down. However, it seems that my personality has not changed at all. With the exception of D’espairsRay, I always give up easily and never do anything for long. For example, I only clear video games half way and always quit before completing them (laughs).
Q: D’espairsRay is a very special case, considering that you continued to play in it even longer than you went to a swimming school as a child (laughs). Could it be that, when you started to play in D’espairsRay, your parents thought that you’d give up and come back home soon?
Z: Probably. For a long time they had been telling me: “When you turn twenty start to think seriously about your future,” and I pretty much ran away from home, when we formed D’espairsRay… Or rather, while continuing to say that, they still gave me allowance (laughs), and I could no longer stand to be fawned over like that. A few years after that my parents told me: “Maybe it is about time you come back home.” A little before that we got signed to our first label and after I told them that I finally became able to earn my living playing in the band, their way of thinking about it changed. Now, even though they keep saying that if anything happens I can go back home anytime, they support me. I am not a parent myself yet and I do not understand how they feel, but I am grateful to them.
Q: Maybe at the same time the existence of D’espairsRay is something to be grateful for too?
Z: Yes. If I ask myself a question: “If D’espairsRay is no longer a part of my life, then what is left?” I realize that nothing is left. If D’espairsRay disband, I will not know what to do the next day. I don’t think that I would want to continue playing music and being a member of a band. Not unless it is D’espairsRay.
credit to: notafanboy
