Interview with Sugimoto Keiji
Published in the hide BIBLE (by Akemi Oshima) 2008
Note: Sugimoto Keiji is the managing director of Backstage Project, who have been involved in the concert production of X since their amateur days.
Note 2: For this interview I am falling back on the âsummaryâ format I have used for all the long interviews so far. Again, much of it is still a rather direct translation.
Note 3: I once again use names and honorifics or lack thereof as used by the people talking.
Sugimoto-san, what was the first meeting between you and HIDE-san?
Did he meet Saver Tiger or X first? Itâs been over 20 years, Sugimoto doesnât remember it all that well. But he probably worked with X when it was only TOSHI and YOSHIKI. Pretty long ago.
What was your impression of Saver Tiger?
He remembers them holding a concert together with Ba-Rra, the band KYO-chan [Note: vocalist, later joined Saver Tiger, best known through Dâerlanger] was in. A rockânâroll band. Todayâs visual-kei doesnât have a lot of rock elements in it, but Saver Tiger was a rock and visual band. So was X. V-Kei were originally hard rock bands that incorporated fashion in order to express themselves.
When did you see X for the first time?
At the live house Urawa Narciss, where they preformed in front of 4 or 5 people. TOSHI was breathing fire and set the ceiling on fire (laughs). Sugimoto had only just started the Backstage Project and wanted to promote artists, so he approached them as potential customers. There were other bands like Red Warriors, but Sugimoto was looking for a band he could work with from the start. Their performance was split into two parts. They got exhausted, took a break, came back. A strange band.
Itâs amazing that they could have two parts with only 4 or 5 people in the audience (laughs).
But it was a great concert. Sugimoto had never seen anything like that before. They didnât advertise it well, though, so he wasnât sure if it was a live show or a rehearsal.
Did you consider working with them?
At once. X were still amateurs, just like Backstage Project, but Sugimotoâs company canât be mentioned without bringing up X. There arenât many people who have worked with them from start to finish. Nor were there many bands Sugimoto was able to be involved with beginning to end.
What was your impression when you first met HIDE-san?
Sugimoto thinks that was when he saw X perform at Live Sation, Rokumeikan, or a live house in Yokohama. He thought HIDE was an amazingly expressive musician. At that time, all the members of X were strong characters, but among them HIDE stood out as fashionable, more like glam rock. YOSHIKI and TOSHI looked radical, but HIDE and TAIJI seemed influenced by bands like T-REX. TOSHIâs image was American, while that of HIDE and TAIJI was English. Add PATA to that and you get a band that gives the impression of 5 people of different influences gathering together.
Were you already doing your job at that time?
They were. They felt they had to do something for X eventually, and the first show they did with them was at Nakano Public Hall. They settled on a one-man show in a 900 seat cabaret hall that no longer exist and worked hard on promoting it. Since they didnât have staff at that time, Sugimoto and YOSHIKI went to two different magazine publishers for that.
Did YOSHIKI-san go there himself?
At that time, everyone did, because there was no staff for such things. Sugimoto dealt with everyone himself, together with YOSHIKI. That sounds bigger than it was, mostly it was just sorting out dates. This concert at Nakano Public Hall was still memorable, since someone from SONY came to see them and it led to a contract with them.
That was in â88, right?
20 years ago (laughs). After making the contract, X was managed by something called âStaff Room Thirdâ within SONY, but with them being a record company at its core, they didnât really have that much know-how on production. Sugimoto only had experience organizing amateur concerts. So their goal was to work together as a collection of newbies and make a concert that the audience would enjoy. So working on it was easy, but they were facing a bunch of hardships.
What kind of concert was the Nakano Public Hall show?
The audience did the X-jump for the first time, but it was only 4 people jumping (laughs). While the venue had reserved seating, the first 4 rows could be removed for a standing audience, leading to an amazing show. As they became more professional, an increasing number of crazy things they used to do during their indies days, like breathing fire, were not allowed anymore, and it was Sugimoto who had to tell them when they wouldnât be able to do something. They either listened to him or not. Fighting ensued. Great times. Probably wonât happen again.
Did they breathe fire in Nakano Public Hall?
They didnât. They used special effects withing the limits set by the fire department. The last time they breathed fire was at Kyoto Sports Valley in September 1988. It was outdoors, so they could do whatever they wanted. What X wanted to do⌠from smashing the guitars to having 2 people breathe fire into an X-shape, they could do it all there. It was a turning point. Here they had to decide whether they wanted to remain an indies band or go major. They chose the latter and made the Tokyo Dome their goal.
Did you discuss your future plans with YOSHIKI-san and HIDE-san when you decided to work with them?
He did, but it wasnât like business talk at a meeting table and more like bringing up that they wanted to do BudĂ´kan next at an after party. They made things up as they went along â X was a classic rock band in that sense. Neither they nor Sugimoto worried too much about the details, that came later. In the beginning, they let the momentum carry them forward. They use the word ârecklessâ a lot, but thatâs really what it was. The first 3 days of Tokyo Dome (5 â 7 January 1992) were decided in some hotel room in Hiroshima. They had done one day there in the previous summer and were now like, âAlright, letâs do three days next!â It was mostly like that.
What position did Backstage Project have at that time?
They were eventers, agents, responsible for stage production and bookings, everything.
When it comes to the concerts of X, you did everything, didnât you?
Thatâs right. Later, the stage got bigger and they asked for more help, but in the beginning, they did it all with a team of 3 people. In Nakano, they even painted and built the set on their own.
Eh, you did even that?
They had no money, so everyone did things by hand.
Itâs been said that at that time, even the costumes were handmade.
Probably true, since they were so broke. Thinking about it now, they were quite poor. They painted the drum set black the day before a show. Later, they had more people supporting them through their management, but until then, they did everything themselves.
What kind of impression did the HIDE-san of that time leave you with?
HIDE was an earnest, serious guy. He may have gone berserk when drunk at after parties, but Sugimoto has no memories of having a hard time with him. He was the one to shape a lot of Xâs activities. When YOSHIKI and TOSHI took action, he would step back and calmly observe them. His position was not unlike that of a producer. Simply put, he was a very sensitive and earnest man, a cool guy â not emotionally cold but an awesome super-guitarist. Also quiet. Didnât go outrageously over the top but could make a good performance out of what was there. Extremely creative, cool guy.
What were the directions regarding the stage?
There were plenty of directions once they started with the solo corners, but those were all in the later stages. Everyone came up with rough ideas, but hide was the one who gave them the details. For the first arena tour in 1991, they used the set with Mad Georgeâs face, which had also been hideâs idea. He said, âI want to make that,â and they managed to get it done, but the whole thing was so massive they couldnât fit it into the truck (laughs).
Moving that does seem difficult.
At that time, there was no other group doing arena tours of that scale. The stage crews were fumbling about because they couldnât calculate things well even though they were pros. Since they did everything for the first time, there were always pits to fall into in the beginning, it was terrible. They began their preparation 3 to 4 days before their first day in Niigata, X has always been peculiar about their stages even before. Sugimoto thinks that the design and the vibes of the drop curtain were mostly down to HIDEâs influence.
Who had the idea to use âWORLD ANTHEMâ as the SE all this time?
Sugimoto thinks that was HIDE as well. It was a Mahogany Rush song, and Sugimoto liked them as well. One day they were talking about Mahogany Rush and HIDE had the idea to introduce the song to the band members. The voice making the announcement was HIDEâs voice changed with a voice modulator.
They changed it to a womanâs voice in the process but continued to use it.
It was great. Just hearing it makes Sugimoto exited. HIDE also took care of all the tedious stuff like how to do the sound effects. He also came in early in the morning for rehearsals.
He wasnât late.
He really wasnât. Didnât sleep, that guy, always up early (laughs). Said he wanted to be on location by 7 a.m., probably needing that time for rehearsals, make-up and so on. So he took being on time seriously.
Surely there wasnât anyone at the venue at 7 a.m.?
People were working at the arena 24h. The most problematic thing was catering. When they started that early, there was no food. The restaurants were not open yet, so when there was a desire for tempura and soba one time, a local event planer boiled soba for them and one of the girls made tempura at home at 7 a.m. and brought it over (laughs).
Everyone was amazing.
When hide decided to go in at 7 a.m., heâd already calculated how long the preparations would take. He was the only musician to do that. So no one could complain that it was too early, since hide had taken everything into consideration, and he was right.
Where you there for that?
Sugimoto left it to the people on location as they got more used to it, but for the first arena tour, he had to be there as the person in charge and got very little sleep. He did the preparations, did the concert, followed by preparations, followed by concert⌠The preparations took so long he sometimes didnât know if they would make it on time back when they were still testing things out â and not just in regard to the 11-ton truck with HIDEâs solo-corner set. He was very nervous.
Was Backstage Project involved in a lot of big concerts with X?
They had the know-how for it. In the beginning, their mission was to make X bigger and bigger and they grew together with the band, since a promoter who can only handle venues like Rokumeikan canât handle the Toyko Dome. In that sense, Sugimoto is grateful to them.
What do you think is the secret to your success together?
The saw things the same way and had the same dream. When Sugimoto recently met YOSHIKI at an event in 2007, they talked about how visual-kei used to be called âstand-up hair bandsâ or âmake-up musicâ before the term was coined and was looked down upon along with the projects working in that genre, but now itâs basically the only music from Japan that can be exported. They used to be a minority and now itâs a big thing. They believed it would get better and persevered. They had an early break in Japan, now the world is giving them attention as well. For 20 years their dreams remained as unchanged as YOSHIKI and Sugimoto themselves, and they came true, for which he is grateful.
Tell us about hide-san at the beginning of his solo activities.
All the other X-members were doing solo activities then, and hide also had his own office by this point, and they often talked about whether he, too, should go solo. About the concept, what image to go for, who to work with. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to do and Sugimoto and the others helped realize it. It made sense for hide to focus on his solo activities. âX is YOSHIKIâs band, so Iâll support whatever YOSHIKI wants to do. But my solo activities are what I want to do, so Iâm asking you all to support that,â hide said.
There were a lot of different concepts, werenât there?
Out of everything they agreed on, there was one thing they couldnât do. Hide wanted to do an event with Marilyn Manson, but that didnât come to pass. It could have, if they had started planning it sooner, and that is something that Sugimoto regrets.
What about the solo stages?
Those were entirely hideâs ideas. They gradually turned what he wanted to do into reality. With hideâs solo position entirely divorced from his position in X, thatâs where his image was determined for good.
Werenât there any ideas that couldnât be realized?
Hide was pretty balanced regarding whether things could be realized, when it came to money, time, or the conditions of the venue. When a stage director told him something couldnât be done, he immediately replaced it with another idea. Thus, it felt like most of the things he wanted to do ended up getting done.
When it came to dashing out ideas, he probably kept them to himself to begin with if he already knew they couldnât be done.
He knew that very well, was aware of such things as both artist and producer and didnât request anything outlandish. His concert at Chiba Marina Stadium (September 1996) was probably the prototype for the kind of music festival that exist in Japan today. It was hide who came up with having 4 stages in the middle of the venue. He wanted to create a fun event that the audience would enjoy, and he had a lot of awesome ideas.
What about his music?
In X, they made rockânâroll â âWEEKENDâ, âCELEBRATIONâ etc. were all rock driven. Hideâs solo catalog also contained a lot of punk rock songs, you could really tell what he liked by listening to his music. He was a typical guitarist in so far as that he liked music that was popular with guitarists. One day that left an impression with Sugimoto was during the first solo tour, in Hokkaido, Sendai or Niigata, when hide proclaimed, âIâm going to play a song for Sugimoto today,â and then performed an acoustic version of âLight My Fireâ by The Doors. That was really moving. Sugimoto had mentioned liking The Doors once while eating at a teriyaki restaurant with hide â he did not know if hide just remembered that or if he liked The Doors himself anyway. The cover hadnât been in the concertâs program, so the performance came as a surprise. And it was really cool, hideâs voice being similar to The Doorâs vocalist Jim Morrison. When Sugimoto received the phone call informing him that hide had passed away, this performance, âLight My Fireâ, was the thing that immediately came to his mind. He thinks their tastes in music were very similar.
You know a lot about music.
Hide knew a lot about music, about new stuff, Japanese and international trends, and a lot of genres. He managed to make rock mainstream, which Sugimoto considers a historical achievement. Visual-kei is a purely Japanese product in origin, and itâs thanks to Xâs influence that it established itself in the history of rock. Sugimoto is proud to have been a part of that.
Did you ever have personal discussions?
A lot. In the dressing room before the red-and-white song battle after the breakup live, hide said that he didnât want it to end with this. He was someone who loved live performances so he would have preferred to finish with one. One time he didnât want to do something and asked Sugimoto to get him out of it while they were eating gyoza in Asagaya. There were many known incidents with X about something-or-other, and hide was always involved, so he would ask Sugimoto for rescue a lot and open up about his issues. They were very open and frank with each other and Sugimoto could end with a âIâll do my best, but I apologize if it doesnât work out.â hide was very direct with such things, and while there was probably a lot going on with him, he didnât let that influence his positive demeanor.
Where there things that were problematic?
It was problematic when hide flipped out completely at the hotel the night after the Hokkaido concert. He was spraying the contents of the fire extinguisher around, tearfully apologized when bodyguard Ito-san and Sugimoto stopped him and led him to his room, then went berserk again. The next morning he happily showed them some crabs he had bought as a souvenir, remembering nothing. He was surprised when Sugimoto told him he couldnât stay at this hotel anymore. And not to wander around buying crabs like nothing had happened. (laughs)
Only Sugimoto-san could do something like that.
There were always clear signs when hide was going to lose his temper. He would hold himself back at first, but after a few hours he would lose it. But inside, he didnât want to cause any trouble. He was a good guy, a very decent gentleman.
He was still a gentleman even if he went wild?
Indeed. There are people who can perform in front of thousands and then just come down from that at once, but hide was someone who needed to cool down with a drink first. That said, he was a heavy drinker. He would drink until 7 a.m., then suggest going to the next place. When Sugimoto told him that it was time for work already, heâd happily say, âI found a place thatâs open until 10.â Just how many hours could this guy drink?!
And you went along with everything?
Not at all! Sugimoto had to work in the morning, so that was impossible. Still, he drank a lot, which he could probably do because he was young. And it made it easy to work with hide, being able to speak openly with him and getting open replies.
Were you also in charge of his solo tours?
Not the one after hideâs death, but he did the two before that. Just when Sugimoto stated working on the schedule for the third tour, hide passed away and Sugimoto canceled everything. When they met in a yakitori restaurant in Shinjuku, hide got really excited about the Marilyn Manson event mentioned earlier and really wanted to do that. They met at a solo live of J one day and hide said, âLetâs have a meeting about this,â and that was the last time they ever spoke. If they had done such an event, Sugimoto imagines hide would have become a producer of sorts for a movement that combined music, fashion, and culture. He seemed like the type who could create such a thing.
Did you, as the person in charge of their events, ever receive complaints afterwards?
Yes, a lot. Hotels and restaurants that wouldnât let them hold after parties there anymore, and venues they were told not to come back to.
Did you apologize, in that function of yours?
Sugimoto complained to the band members about it, asking why they would do such a thing. And then X would apologize and think about what they had done.
They reflected on it?
Yeah, but maybe that was just lip service (laughs). Anyway, they understood that shit like that was bad for the band, so they at least thought about it. They were honest like that. And they were not the type to be deceitful or talk badly about people.
For sure.
They were accepting people. And always straightforward with their fans. Maybe thatâs how they got to work together for so long. LUNA SEA was also like that.
What was X to you?
The group changed Sugimotoâs life. If he hadnât met them, his life would have been very different. He was in his twenties when he made Backstage Project with a bunch of other ex-musicians who just wanted to work in rock music because it was fun, and he never thought he would do that for more than 20 years and meet so many interesting people. All that is thanks to X. Also, they changed the life of many a fan with their music, the way Sugimotoâs life was changed when he listed to the Rolling Stones for the first time.
How did you feel about hide-san as an individual?
Sugimoto used to be a guitarist as well, although he wasnât as good as hide and not successful. He always regretted that choice, even after he quit doing it, his regrets about his past following him around even while he was doing Backstage Project. But after meeting hide he was able to feel proud of having been a guitarist, and see that being one is a good thing, even if it didnât work out for him. So he said to hide, âI didnât succeed as a guitarist, but it was you who made me feel proud of having been one.â
What did hide-san say when you told him that?
He was embarrassed, going, âHow can you say something like that?â But Sugimoto thinks he was probably happy to hear it. They had this conversation while drinking in an issakaya somewhere, and its a fond memory for Sugimoto, because there arenât many musicians who invoke this kind of feelings in their staff. Without this, Sugimoto might not have become the kind of person to think of so many things at the same time and develop so many different projects.
He was also the president of a company.
They never talked about management or money, though, expect in the sense that certain things might make a stage set expensive. So to Sugimoto, while hide was the president of a company, he was a musician, producer â a creator first and foremost. Well, and a drunkard (laughs). He was a mysterious person.
Mysterious, how?
When getting close to a musician, most people usually try to find out as much as possible about the private person behind that persona, but Sugimoto always thought it best to keep that separate and just know hide at the level at which they met. And that worked well for hide as well. Keeping his private life secret made him feel more like a rock star. It was cool like that, just like him.
At Xâs reunion concert, TOSHI-san gave you a shout out (on the topic of people he was grateful for).
That made him happy, as Sugimoto was also grateful for X. It was great that that concert got to happen and that so many people who thought they would never get to see them again came for those 3 days.
What did you think when you saw that concert?
It was great. Sugimoto went to see it as just another person in the audience.
So you werenât involved backstage?
Not on the second and third day, but on the first he ran around backstage a lot as people recognized him. He didnât actually get to see much of the 1997 breakup live, since it had been decided suddenly and sold out at once, and it wasnât like they could just make that up to him at a later show. The girls in the ticket booths worked non-stop for days. It was very hard, probably the worst Sugimoto had ever seen, but everyone who had bought a ticket got in in the end, so that was good.
Is there anything you would like to say to hide-san now?
Sugimoto regrets not having been able to keep his promise. Heâs been to hideâs grave, saying, âIâm sorry the event with Marilyn Manson did not happen.â There are so many things that did happen. The fights and the rampages donât matter. What Sugimoto regrets is that hide never got to change not just Japanâs but Asiaâs music industry as he would have if he had lived. He would have become Asiaâs No. 1 super guitar hero. Even now there are requests from other countries for concerts, by people who do not yet know that hide has passed away. That is sad to think about, but at the same time, the fact that he still gets so much support both at home and abroad shows what a great guy hide has been.
