Interview with YOSHIKI

With X JAPAN's European tour just around the corner, YOSHIKI kindly took some time off his incredibly busy schedule to hold a telephone interview with JaME, talking about the upcoming concerts as well as his proliferous songwriting, his many collaborations with other artists and his future as a cartoon superhero.

The band's long awaited new single Jade will be coming out on June 28th. A preview of the video can already be viewed at the bottom of this article. On the same day, they will start their world tour with the first show in London, UK.


First of all, thank you very much for taking your time to hold this interview. It has already been five years since we had our first interview with you in 2006. How do you feel about the spread of Japanese music all over the world since then?

YOSHIKI: Well, it is great, but hopefully it is still just the beginning. I live in America and I also travel a lot, and what I see is that it is still kind of underground. I would like it to spread.

Is there a difference between the audiences in Europe, America, Asia and Japan?

YOSHIKI: I don't think so. Our fans are so passionate and so supportive. We're so lucky to have such fans throughout the world.

How can a famous band like X JAPAN and an artist like yourself help in making Japanese music in general more popular overseas?

YOSHIKI: Well, when we started doing visual kei, we were like the black sheep of the family, playing heavy music and putting on crazy make-up and having crazy hairstyles. At that time, rock was not mainstream in the Japanese music scene, but we tried very hard to convince the audience otherwise. What we are doing now is that we keep on rocking, there is no shortcut. If we can help spread Japanese music throughout the world by this, we'd love to. We just have to keep doing it.

So, what is X JAPAN's next step to conquer the world?

YOSHIKI: Well, we just have to keep on rocking, keep on touring, keep on creating music. We have not yet released an album outside of Japan, but we're about to finish recording our worldwide debut album. Then the upcoming European tour and also the South American tour are going to be the next step.

You've been working with Western artists for years. For example, you had a collaboration with Roger Taylor from Queen for the song Foreign Sand. Do you remember how that came to happen?

YOSHIKI: Yes, I do. My friend, who is a record company executive, invited me to a dinner at his house and Roger Taylor was also at the same dinner. We started talking about music and everything and well, we just hit it off and decided to do something together. So that's how everything started.

Lately, we've seen several pictures of you hanging around with Marilyn Manson. Can we expect some new upcoming collaboration with him?

YOSHIKI: Actually, we've been talking about it. He lives in Los Angeles and so do I, so when I'm in L.A., I…well most of the time I'm in the studio. People think I party a lot, but in reality I have no life. I feel like I'm working ten days a week, 30 hours a day, I'm a workaholic. But I like to hang out with friends once in a while, and he is one of those really interesting special friends, so we hang out a lot, especially these days. And yeah, we've been talking about creating music together.

It seems your collaborations with all kind of artists have no limit. We recently read that Stan Lee and Todd McFarlane are working on a comic book about your life. Can you tell us more about this project?

YOSHIKI: Yes, it all started almost two years ago or something like that. I threw a party here, not so big, maybe a hundred guests, and Stan Lee was one of them. Then we had dinner together and we started talking about maybe doing something together. We became friends and started going to lunch and discuss various ideas about the project. I don't know how his mind works, he can think of like ten things at the same time, he has so many ideas. So he started throwing ideas at me, and now he's making me into a superhero. It's great, it's really an honour. Then Stan Lee brought Todd McFarlane in as well to draw up all those concept and narrative things, so we all started working together.

Well, to a lot of fans, you are a superhero already!

YOSHIKI: (laughs) Well, this upcoming superhero is really strong. On stage I'm powerful and I feel invincible but off stage I'm very fragile. I get sick a lot, I faint a lot… but this superhero is pretty strong. We're actually going to release the first comic book this July on San Diego Comic-Con. We will hold a press conference together there.

With all these projects, is there any chance to see you in a movie soon?

YOSHIKI: Me, acting? I'm very shy about that. I've been asked a couple of times, but I've felt like, I can do music but acting, I don't know. I'm too shy to be an actor.

Really?

YOSHIKI: Well, when you see me on stage I'm like a different person, but it comes naturally, I'm not really acting anything. It just comes from my heart. But acting…I don't know, I don't think I can do it.

Well, let's put it like this then; if you were to act in a movie, what kind of movie would you like to play in?

YOSHIKI: I'd like to die beautifully. I was obsessed with death, was always talking about death, writing about death. Then when it happened around me I kind of stopped talking about it, but if it comes to acting, the only thing I could act well might be how to die.

Let's move on and talk about your brand new single, JADE. When did you compose this song?

YOSHIKI: Well, it was after the reunion, after we held those three concerts in Tokyo Dome in 2008. A few months later, in May, we did a tribute concert to hide in Japan, and the day after that concert I went to see hide. Well, that sounds weird, but I mean I went to his grave. On the way back from the cemetery, I thought of writing a song and kind of started thinking of a melody. So well, I started writing the song on the day after that tribute concert.

Does this song include some guitar samples from hide like your previous single I.V. did?

YOSHIKI: No, actually, I didn't include his guitar samples or anything, but I included our love for him, his image or, I don't know, his heart. His spirit is in the song.

Are you planning to teach the lyrics of JADE to the audience like you did with I.V. in Tokyo Dome in 2008?

YOSHIKI: Ah, that's an interesting idea! I didn't even think about that, but maybe I should. It's a great idea, maybe I should start doing that on the European tour.

The promotional video for I.V. was shot on the rooftop of a building in Japan. The JADE one in America. Is there a chance that you do the same on some rooftop in Europe some day? Or maybe in South America?

YOSHIKI: (laughs) That's right, we like high places. OK, maybe we should do something in the Eiffel tower or somewhere like that for the next video, it would be great wouldn't it?

Should your fans be expecting any new songs in the upcoming concerts in Europe?

YOSHIKI: Well, we are going to play some new songs and some old hit songs, it's going to be a combination.

Are there some hidden and never released X JAPAN songs that you don't want to release, that you feel somehow unsatisfied with?

YOSHIKI: Oh, there are tons of songs. When I compose a song I write the music score, and I write a lot. If I'm in a creative mode I might write five or six of those in one night. But that's just the music scores, then when I have 10-20 of those I go to the studio and start programming and start recording by playing the piano or guitar. So I create 10 or even 20 demos. Then I get rid of 19 of them, just one song survives. I'm super picky about songs, so there are tons of X JAPAN songs that never get released. Some songs I even record with ToshI and we think they are OK, but songs that are just OK we never release. I feel we should release only the best songs. X JAPAN has not released that much, only a few albums in the past twenty years. But even if there are actually hundreds and hundreds of songs, I wouldn't feel comfortable with releasing every single song we compose.

Do you ever consider revisiting an old song that you felt unsatisfied with at the time and remake it into a new song?

YOSHIKI: Could be. I mean, I have tons of music scores I have written already. I don't know how many pages, something like 20 000 pages or even more. Maybe when I die people will go through all those scores and find a good song somewhere.

At last, is there something you wish to say to the fans who are now eagerly waiting for you in Europe?

YOSHIKI: I feel very excited about this, that we can finally play in Europe. We've been planning this for a long time, we've been dreaming about it for a long time and now finally it is happening. For a long time people from Europe, and not only Europe but from around the world, have been supporting us, and we really appreciate that. Finally we are able to go there and spread our love to our fans. So yes, I'm very excited!

Thank you for your time, please let us wish you the very best for your upcoming shows in Europe and South America.

YOSHIKI: Thank you very much!

JaME would like to thank YOSHIKI and Yaz Noya for making this interview possible.