Sick. is a hardcore visual kei band from Osaka who will turn one year old in November. JaME sat down with the members to talk about how the band formed, their music, their upcoming plans and more.
Because this is our first interview, please introduce the member next to you with an interesting fact.
Shiki: Fuki’s skin is white so his stubble always stands out. Fuki: Takeshi always wears some weird cat parka, which makes me go “wow!”, and then the next day he is wearing it again, and there are days like this every week. He probably has about 5 of the same items of clothing at home. Takeshi: We’re all Japanese, and Avel’s face looks like he’s a foreigner, but his nipples are dark. Avel: Tsukasa is an alien. Tsukasa: Shiki probably thinks that if it’s funny, anything is good. That’s our vocalist -Shiki!
Please tell us about the concept of Sick..
Shiki: There are things inside oneself that cannot be let out, and killing this self [is our theme]. Our concept is black and white; what’s on the surface and what’s hidden, darkness and light, we see this duality as important. Oh, and we also think about sexual stuff most of the time. (laughs)
What about the band name Sick., what are its origins?
Avel: Shiki wanted a band name that start with an “S”.
Is there a reason for that?
Shiki: The band I was previously in also started with “S”, and it ended without closure, so I wanted to make this a continuation of my way, and I wanted to have a band name that also starts with “S”. First, we were just thinking of the literal meaning of "sick", as in a sickness, and later we added a different meaning to it. (note: Sick. is now an acronym for “Screaming Inside Can Kill”)
The band was formed recently. Could you tell us a bit about how you met and formed Sick.?
Takeshi: I was in a metalcore band with Avel before, and we started thinking that we wanted to venture into visual kei. When we participated in an event with visual kei copy bands, it was already decided that our vocalist was going to quit the band. Shiki came to us and just talked for a minute straight, saying “Make a band with me!”, and that’s how the three of us came together. Then the guitarist and the pianist joined. Avel: (interviewing Fuki) Why did you join? Fuki: I was in a visual kei band before, but it split up. Shiki was also in a band during the same period, and his band went on hiatus earlier. I had been watching him making preparations for a new band, we started talking, and eventually he invited me and I joined. Tsukasa: From the past, I used to hang out at live houses a lot, and I used to do copy bands just for fun. When I wanted to make a serious band I couldn’t find anyone, and then Takeshi, who was my friend, said “Let’s do it together!”, and I thought they were cool so I wanted to join them.
It’s rare to see a pianist in a visual kei band, how did you end up doing visual kei?
Tsukasa: I wasn’t thinking specifically of visual kei, I just wanted to make a band, and there was Takeshi. But I never had a bias against visual kei either, for example I like DIR EN GREY. I’m not really fond of the poppy kind of visual kei, but obviously Sick. is different, so I thought it was perfect for me.
What kind of music or other things do you take inspiration from when making your songs?
Fuki: This changes from time to time, I have different periods, but recently I’m inspired by Periphery, Born of Osiris, or Bring Me The Horizon. Shiki: I like paintings or movies, like Tim Burton for example. I also like horror movies, and things related to space, UFOs; I like the occult atmosphere, and it gives me inspiration. Regarding music, I like movie music with orchestra. There’s not many bands like this in Japan, but I like Crown The Empire or Bring Me The Horizon, I listen to them and I think that I also want us to have this kind of view of the world. Avel: I like paintings, like Van Gogh or Picasso, and I express what I feel looking at them. Fuki: How do you express it? (laughs) Avel: Through sound, obviously! (laughs) Takeshi: Fuki already has ideas about drums when we write songs, and there are cuts which I have to adjust to, and I do put my own spin on them. What influences me when I write songs, as well as why I started drums in the first place, was seeing the drummer of the Japanese band Crossfaith. He is a performance drummer, his drums are the highlight of the band, and when I saw him as a member of the audience I thought he was really cool. So for me, more than the songs, I am thinking about how to show myself to the audience, how to look cool, so I headbang, or scream, and express myself with my face and body. I am pursuing expressing myself, as well as responding to our guitarist’s requests at the same time. The artists I like are Asking Alexandria, Miss May I, like “THE” recently popular metalcore. Fuki: (about Takeshi) He isn’t big, but he was doing martial arts so he has a lot of power. Takeshi: On a side note, Avel looks like a foreigner, but his house is really Japanese. The Japanese house (laughs). He smells like incense (laughs). Tsukasa: I like Yoshii Kazuya from THE YELLOW MONKEY, they have been on hiatus longer than they have been active, but when they came back they were able to fill big venues around the country. Of course the music is good, but more than that, the lives are very impactful on all the people who watch them, so I’ve always thought that he was really cool. My favourite drummer is Yoshiki from X JAPAN. He uses a transparent drum set and goes off into the audience, and I yearn to have this much personality, this much will to stand out.
You’ve talked a bit about the song creation process, how does it usually go? Do you have particular things you pay attention to in the process?
Fuki: It’s a very simple process if you put it into words. Myself and Shiki think of the songs, and pass it on to the other three members. Shiki: We do pay a lot of attention to transitions within the songs. For example, not having the same phrases in the first and second part, or having a different kind of mood after the second part. Fuki: We have some songs where we don’t have the same phrase twice within it. We like to have things constantly changing, and sometimes we have a song end with a strange transition. Shiki: Then we also think of whether the sound of the chords feels good or not. They say that you don’t know the feeling of a song until you have a melody, but I think if you have a really cool chord, you are bound to have a cool melody for it. So when we write songs, we pay attention to whether the chord progression in the chorus feels good.
Can you tell us a bit about the theme of your lyrics?
Shiki: The lyrics are frequently about conflicts or worries that I have inside, and it seems like they are written with a positive attitude, when they are actually done with a negative attitude. I may sound positive when I am with people, but when I’m alone I’m frequently thinking pessimistically. I used to hate finding words, but now I really like it; it’s a great thing about Japanese language, where there are words that sound the same, but have a different meaning, and I pay attention to using Japanese when I want to use such words, and I use English or Japanese interchangeably depending on the mood of the song. I make sure that even with English lyrics, when they are translated to Japanese, their meaning still makes sense.
I saw a Japanese free paper the other day where you had an interview entirely in English, I also see you using English on twitter and in lyrics, is there any special reason for it?
Shiki: To be honest, we were thinking that no one would look at our interview, so we had a pessimistic outlook about it, and we wanted to make an impact like, “What? It’s all in English!” Fuki: There was a band that had just a black page with a QR code in the middle of it in one of these papers, so it’s the same kind of approach. More than the actual content, we wanted to make an impact.
You’re bringing out your third mini-album Phantom in September. What can we expect from this release?
Shiki: We pay a lot of attention to details on it, first of all, we made sure to put everything that we thought was lacking in the already existing 10-something songs that we had. For example, we wrote songs thinking about how they will be played live, or by not just having completion within one song, but also including interesting transitions between songs. We pursued what it is being Sick. in this release, adding in strings and strengthening our performance, so we are doing difficult things, but we are getting over these difficulties with the power of our members. There are difficult songs, though there are some simpler ones too.
What do you think, Takeshi? Takeshi: The drums really don’t make sense. (laughs) In the first mini-album, I did what I wanted to do; the second one was more violent going into metalcore, the drums in the second one were already pretty difficult. I do like it, but anyway, it was fast and violent. For the third one, I was told that we were thinking more about how people would be moving to the songs in gigs, so I thought it should be fine, but the demo I got really made no sense. Like BPM 270 blast beat, or…. Fuki: That sounds like a good idea for shows! Takeshi: No, it doesn’t! Or BPM 135 16 beat triplets, so actually about BPM 205?
There were cymbal phrases like the ones that you would hear in Periphery songs. The drums for the third mini-album are really difficult. Shiki: I care a lot about the lyrics and making them be very like me, and all the songs in this mini-album are very Shiki-like. All the songs are very sad at the end. There is something that I want to convey with the lyrics, and I think about how I want the songs to be beforehand, so the songs take shape. It’s also like you have opened a box of toys: every song has its own personality. So I hope it can be enjoyed in a different way, as usual, and we will be pursuing being Sick.-like even more. Avel: Regarding the bass, I was playing with fingers up until now, but I changed my bass and started using a pick. We haven’t started mixing yet, so I don’t know what the final outcome will be like, but I expect there to be a very different sound, as I changed the bass and the way I play, so I hope you can look forward to that. Fuki: The guitar was unique in also being quite difficult. Like for me it’s doable, but other people around me may not be able to play it, so I gave it personality in that way. Shiki: What about the Periphery guitarist? Fuki: He’s a monster (laughs) Shiki: Fuki, you’re a goblin. (laughs) Tsukasa: What I do with the keyboard doesn’t change, but the shouting has increased a lot. Shiki: It has almost turned into twin vocals. We’ve decided to show it in the PV as well, to make it visible when one of us screams. We have decided to bring out the twin vocals in the video too. Avel: In shows, you can see when he screams, but in videos up until now it looked as if everything was sung by Shiki. So we are going to make it clear in the PV.
In the process of the recording, have there been any interesting episodes you can share?
Shiki: There’s one song that we had written before forming Sick., and we are putting it into the third mini-album. It was very difficult to write. It’s a very strange song and we were having difficulties with the transitions. The two of us (with Fuki) smoked god knows how many cigarettes, talking about it for like 8 hours, so when we were done, the feeling of achievement was awesome. Fuki: When we finished in the morning, the ashtray was overflowing. (laughs) Tsukasa: I really like that song, it’s a good song.
Can you talk about what is special about Sick., what you are sure you are better at than other bands, and why people should want to come to see your shows?
Shiki: I think the worldly atmosphere that we create in shows is top-notch. Avel: And the transitions we have in our shows are twisted. Some foreign bands that I have seen so far, to be honest, were boring. I love these bands and I get excited when I hear a song I like, but it’s frequently one song, then another song, then another song, and not a show as a whole. I think this is something you can enjoy at our shows, like the whole gig feels like one song.
Please let us know about your plans from now on.
Sick.: We will be releasing our third mini-album, titled PhAntom, on September 4th, and we are continuously touring around Japan. We should have more exciting news for you coming in the summer, so please keep an eye on our announcements.
Please give our readers a message.
Sick.: We were looking forward to touring Europe, but unfortunately we could not make it this time. We are very sorry for disappointing you. We definitely want to go overseas in the future, so please wait for us and support us!
JaME would like to thank Sick. for this interview opportunity.
Below, you can watch the music video for Pandemic., a track featured on PhAntom:
