2020.04.16 BARKS interview with Hazuki
Hazuki talks about the feelings behind the plan to support music venues; songs to record were decided as well
interview and text: You Masuda
original interview can be seen here
translation: kyotaku (if you see any mistakes or typos pls let me know(*' ')*, ,))
The frontman of lynch., Hazuki. He just wrote about his plan on twitter using a hashtag #savemusicvenues on March 30th. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 many music venues were pushed into the situation where they cannot operate and an unreasonable trend started that they started to be seen as evil places, thus the band have decided to write a new song and donate and divide the profits between music venues. Below is the summary of the message Hazuki sent on that day:
"Looking at current turmoil, I started to think if there's nothing I can do to help and decided to take action. First, I'm working on a song now. When that song is completed it will be sold right away. And the profits from that song will be donated and distributed between the live houses where lynch. played at! We are currently discussing how we will sell the song or how to distribute the profits with our office and the recording company. We will announce the details when things are decided. Of course we ask our fans, but not only them, even if you're not a fan, everyone saved by a live house, please lend us your strength. Let's save our precious spaces."
Three days after that, on April 2nd I talked to Hazuki. Conducting an interview would likely not be seen as 'leaving the house unnecessarily', but mindful of the situation we decided to do the interview over the phone. There were some changes even over that little time that passed until the day of the interview and I received the demo which seemed to be the very early stage recording. The song was crowned with the title 'DON'T GIVE UP' even though there's not even one word of lyrics yet. When the readers can see the interview a week will pass by then, but I'd like to convey Hazuki's feelings from that point of time. I'm sure he will update us about the situation with the song's progress through his twitter etc, but this the very first interview about the birth of the song.
#ライブハウスを守ろう・savemusicvenues
――Something I want to talk about first. It feels really weird to be interviewing you through the phone even as we both are in Japan.
葉月：Right? It feels like I'm a foreign celebrity (laughing).
――You have first made the announcement on twitter on March 30th. Obviously there had to be some chance to discuss [the situation] that led to that stage, right?
葉月：Yeah. I was meeting with two staff members on Friday afternoon (March 27th), and naturally talk like this came up 'COVID-19 is worse than anyone thought' 'I never expected it to get to this point', and that led to the 'should I start working on a song in a response to the virus?'. Saying that, at the moment basically I have a lot of free time (laughing).
――No way (laughing). But the truth is in this situation there's no way you can play any concerts.
葉月：Yeah. Gradually my schedule got more and more cancellations. I had nothing else to do, so I thought why not create a song that can only be made right now. Then we discussed if the profits could be used to support the medical system or to help distribute masks. Then, an idea came out if we wouldn't be able to do something for the closer to us music venues ('live houses'). Actually, the idea came from the staff. Then it just clicked and we decided to start this movement. It's not a lot of hard work to create and record one song, and it's not like I didn't have some song ideas.
――You have just released a new album 'ULTIMA' in March, but you mean that you you still had some song ideas?
葉月：Yeah. Next I'll make a song like this, had something like that in my mind. Then, [we were planning] if I give shape to this one and made all profit into donation like this... . But if it's only us doing one project like that it'll be hard (not enough), so I thought it would help if other artists were also aware 'ah, there's this way too'. For example, I'm tweeting now using a hashtag #ライブハウスを守ろう (#savemusicvenues), but it's not like this is the only way of using it.
――So you mean it'd be better to have more projects for the same purpose?
葉月：Yeah. I hope that things can move into the direction of helping music venues thanks to this, and of course, we are also actually helping ourselves. When the current situation is over and we are able to play shows again, what would we do if there are no more venues?
――That's true. For lynch., first your 3 shows planned for mid March were cancelled. And then the next tour was supposed to start from April 18th, but...
葉月：All events planned for April are gone. I'm also aware that it's very likely for May and onwards events to be cancelled. But we are still preparing for the tour, actually other members are doing a rehearsal right now. So we could resume activities anytime.
(kyotaku: most of their act5 tour dates until July 5th were indeed cancelled, which was announced on April 17th)
――So while you were doing tour preparations you decided to start this new project writing a song. , I'll be frank, I wonder if you got any criticism coming from making this decision. It's not something talked about a lot, but people will have different opinions on such activity. There are some people who will think that no matter what happens to wait silently doing nothing is the wisest option.
葉月：Probably. But I didn't want to be idle and just wait for the situation to settle down, and it seems so far we didn't get any fierce criticism or anything (laughing). Actually, I got thousands replies to that tweet but only about two were negative (laughing). I wouldn't be able to start anything if I was worried about things like that. I mean, sure we don't have like a shocking number of hardcore fans, but at the very least there's this small [music] world connected by the comradeship. But being able to get those people's approval immediately made me extremely happy, not worrying about criticism is nice, or actually I don't care (laughing). More practical side is to care that the final form of the release is still not fixed, but I wanted to announce that 'lynch. will be doing a project like this!'. I'd be glad if people can get even a bit of hope from that. And I thought that the process from now on would be more interesting by announcing it before the song is made. We could enjoy the process and get exicted together with updates like 'oh, the demo is ready!' or 'we're finally recording!'.
――I get it. So by the detailed updates about the process until the release people will be able to enjoy it like an ongoing documentary.
葉月：That's right. By doing that I wanted to get everyone involved so I wanted to make the announcement early. But even after the decision was made I had to wait for three days (laughing)
(kyotaku: this tweet omg😆)
――You must have been impatient these 3 days (laughing). Also, we just mentioned it earlier, but it's not only about lynch.'s action, I think it's important to see 'what can everyone do?'.
葉月：True. If it's only us the amount we will be able to donate will be very insignificant. I'd like to see the number of people who agree and try to do something increase.
――But you actually already got some requests/offers to join the project, right?
葉月：Yup. From engineers, photographers, recording studios and so on. Everyone was saying 'let me take part in it, I don't need payment!'. Bless them. I also got contacted by other artists. But this time we will be working on the song in Nagoya, so I'm still not sure what will come out of that.
――But nowadays people just send each other data using internet.
葉月：That's true. That way some people would be able to participate. But I can't say anything definite.
――Including these points, by the time we can listen to the finished song we will also get to know real time how it is evolving. And I got to listen to the demo as a perk of conducting this interview. As you said on twitter, 'it's not a ballad thats bringing everyone together', I'd say the song is the opposite!
葉月：Hahaha! Even as something like 'we are the world' would be better for this occasion (laughing). Usually it tends to be something like that, right? But we do what we do, we decided to go with something pure and feeling good but heavier.
――Demo had the title 'DON'T GIVE UP'. Will lyrics include this message?
葉月：Yeah. I haven't written lyrics yet, I guess it's time to start worry about that (laughing). In various ways many people are in a difficult situation right now, but this seemed like something common for all of them, like the best message to sent to everyone, it just came to me. It's quite unusual for lynch. as we had nothing to do with message-ness so far (laughing). Usually I'm not the type to have something to pass through lyrics.
――I guess it's a situation that makes you deliberately want to raise your voice. So, are you working on the song right now?
葉月：To be honest, we've done the demo for 'DON'T GIVE UP' yesterday, right now I'm working on another song. Actually, it won't be just one song, we will include two more songs. One of them will be 'A GLEAM IN EYE', now I'm processing the data for it.
――You're re-recording it, right? Will it change a lot?
葉月：Nah, I don't think so. But it's been recorded 10 years ago so listening to it now sound quality-wise it's a bit bleak. We're going to improve that side, there's no plan to rearrange it. Ever since it was released that song had an important role during our concerts as a 'strong light', I hope to deliver it to the heart of fans who lost the light in the current turmoil. As there are such feelings included we want to re-record it with as little changes as possible.
――So you will update the song to the 2020 version without changing it shape. And the other song will be an unreleased song?
葉月：Yeah. Originally, this song from Yusuke-kun was supposed to be included in ULTIMA, we decided to use it [in this project]. Initially, we were planning only one song, "DON'T GIVE UP", but Yusuke was worried that with only one song the price would have to be low and we wouldn't be able to raise much money so he suggested 'what about using my song?' and we agreed with him. And we decided to add that song and 'A GLEAM IN EYE'.
――So instead of only one song we can be excited like about an upcoming single. From now on I will be observing the process these 3 songs will go through until they're completed. By the way, when you adressed people on twitter you wrote 'everyone saved by live houses', do you also feel like you were saved by music venues?
葉月：Honestly I don't have a cool story like 'I could only be myself as a teenager at music venues' (laughing). It can't be argued that for us they are also our workplaces. Playing a concert is also a part of work. However, every and each band had the rough time in the beginning when their shows were not selling, in our case somehow we managed to get to this point [of being relatively successful], but the place where we spent all this long process were music venues. So our 'curent place' would be impossible without music venues, and of course we can't allow them to disappear. If there's something you can do you just have to do it. It's simple as that.
lynch.'s single to support music venues
A GLEAM IN EYE（re-recorded）
＊other information will be announced at later date
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