[449x437]
First off, may I hear the reason for using "RAINBOW" for the album's title?
A: A rainbow is something that everyone's seen at least once, so there's not gonna be anyone saying "huh? a rainbow? what's that?," it's something they'd immediately recognize. But you only see it for a moment, you can't gaze at it forever. And when you want to see one, you can't. And it's not a tangible thing, either... When I thought about that, I thought, I wonder if I really saw a rainbow? Is a rainbow really even there? People have the general notion of "a rainbow is a seven-color arc", sure, they know what a picture of a rainbow looks like, so when they see a rainbow, maybe they ascertain with their own knowledge that that's what they've seen... But what if that's not really what it is? For example, maybe it's only three colors...
And also, no one's ever sad when they see a rainbow. They say "Look! It's a rainbow!" and a part of them becomes happy. I thought I wanted to do that, I wanted to have that kind of existance. I can't be right next to you, but when everyone sees me, I'd like for it to feel nice, like times when you see a rainbow maybe. So I chose "RAINBOW" for the title.
I'd like to hear a little about the shooting of the jacket photo though. The shoot took quite a long time, didn't it?
A: It took forever! And the pose wasn't comfortable at all. But it would have been bad if I couldn't conceal everything... (bitter smile) And I was sitting on top of this pool, like a fish tank, but I'm a human so I wanted to move. (laughs) And then they'd have to change the water... and I'd have to wait for it to stop moving around.
The inside of the tank wasn't really cold water... was it??
A: Oh no, it was warm, it was warm! (laugh) But it would get me feeling cold after awhile. So they'd have to keep adding warm water to it over and over... but eventually it'd cool down again. Plus, I wasn't wearing anything, so.
Nothing at all??
A: That's right. So Leslie (Kee, the photographer) was the only man who was allowed to be there, the others were all tossed outside. (laughs)
By the way, starting with this album, you're using English lyrics, what was the thought behind that?
A: I went and did alot of things in Asia this year, and I think it was a big influence in the decision. I felt like the "language barrier" was a big deal at the time. It's meaningless if they can't understand me, and I wanted them to be able to know who I was. As such, I thought that studying English would be necessary, since the language the world uses to communicate to each other = English. For example, if you say "I love you" in English, everyone's more likely to understand than than if you say "(facing a lover) aishiteru."
That seems to be good for interviewers understanding you, but doesn't it make you uncomfortable to sing lyrics in English?
A: Very uncomfortable. How should I explain this... It's like, my "tone" is there, right? But I don't really know (bitter smile), what kind of accent have I been singing with all this time...? Now it's like I've been saying useless things all monotone (laughs). If I say things in Japanese and then suddenly change them to English, the emotions are left behind somewhere else because I don't understand anymore, right? It's kinda like that. When that happened, I thought, is it maybe a mistake to do lyrics in English? and I felt very blue about it, I felt really defeated (bitter smile).
How was it to write the lyrics? And was the singing afterwards difficult?
A: Now that I think about it, I did it pretty quickly. For example, in Japanese 1 kanji symbol for 1 word can take three syllables to say, like "watashi," and if I don't have that much room, that's no good, but in english the same word can be one syllable, "I," and that might be possible to say. And, if I only have two syllables available, I can still say "konya" for "tonight" if that's all I have room for in the phrase "let's be together tonight" or something.
Can you tell me a little bit about working on the album? Was it a really good experience this time?
A: Wasn't it the absolute best time ever? I think the staff around me were very impatient. Since I finished choosing the songs to put in, everyone was saying "Now that that's done, how many more days to you need?" Everyone was saying that stuff, and it was like they were challenging me. But I'm grateful for it. They have my thanks for focusing their efforts that much.
This album, RAINBOW, is in what kind of place inside of you? What kind of work is it?
A: A good example would be when I wrote the title track fro "I am...". "I've shown the real me, but what is it exactly?" "Okay, this is who I am, but what am I going to do about that?" I've always fought with such a "gap between myself and the world" type of thinking, but I started to think
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