#omg this magazine needed a goddamned proofreader the grammar is so god awful it hurts

[tatsie-kun]

Purple Sky: MUCC Interview

Meet MUCC, Japan's hardest working and hardest rocking band By Brian Stewart From Purple Sky, Fall '06 Transcription by Tatsie-kun

"Why do you play barefoot?" I asked them.

Miya, MUCC's guitarist and de facto leader, gave me a reply that made no sense at the time. "How to put it..., there's something different feeling about listening to our sound with our feet directly planted on the ground versus listening to our sound through one layer of shoe. Like actually being able to feel the vibration."

It wasn't until I saw them live that I realized what a stupid question it had been.

Like their barefoot performances, MUCC's sound is largely instinctual, letting its whims carry it breezily across genre and category.

Their latest CD, 6, a mini outtake collection that blossomed into a full length album, was released domestically on August 6th. Described by Miya as "something so quintessentially us, a large part of which was challenging ourselves in a new way; to let a MUCC CD happen organically," it comes as no surprise that, unlike their pop rock opus Houyoku, they "felt no special need for a producer".

It is these kinds of risks that have been the band's calling card since their early days on the burgeoning Visual-kei scene. Throughout an arduous, ten-year career MUCC has supplemented their explosive operatic rock sound with ska, nu-metal, punk and recently, pop. When asked to describe MUCC's music, Miya avoided labels. "Music that is true to our emotions," he stated flatly.

Not only true to their emotions but true to their influences as well. The almost-danceable grooves laid down by perpetually smiling bassist Yukke find their roots in an unusual place also.

"I guess (my sound)'d have to be from the '80s. I like the j-pop music of that era, when I'm making a song the influence of that music comes naturally into my melodies."

But that's only the first pat of the equation. "Since high school, and since I joined MUCC I would say that my sound, and ear for music came from more Western music." His love of Finnish industrial-pop/rock pin-ups The Rasmus provides us the solution and the key to understanding the roots of his sound.

Their drummer Satochi talked about the team spirit so important to a drummer and the band dynamic.

"I guess I'm most influenced by the songs the other members write, they motivate me." he says.

But what does he mean?

"The things I don't have, the other members do. I think to myself 'So that's how they're bringing it?' or they come up with all these new things one after another, so it's like I don't want to fall behind."

Miya pulls his inspiration from a variety of sources and constantly challenges his band mates to match him, "I listen to a lot of different music, and I guess what I listen to is constantly changing. It even changes depending on my mood so I think it's good if, as an artist, each new project reflects the music I'm listening to at the time."

Finally but perhaps most importantly, one needn't strain to hear vocalist Tatsurou's love of Sakura Atsushi (Buck-Tick) in his singing.

"As a vocalist, I love him. His vocals, what would you call it, the presence. It's not that he musically influences me, as far as musical influence I'm far more inspired by the disbanded The Blue Hearts." Though comparing the two bands may seem like comparing apples to hand-grenades on the surface, MUCC, despite the stigma of Visual-kei that hangs over them are far more likely spiritual successors to the working class, high-energy punk pop legends, than even some of the low-rent punk acts directly following in their footsteps. Like MUCC, even The Blue Hearts' fun, high octane songs spoke of a world of the inevitable; pain, betrayal, corruption, and at the root of it all, love and kindness.

Though Japan has yet to respond to MUCC with the fervor with which they embraced The Blue Hearts, there can be no doubt the band has earned a passionate and fanatical following. Miya remains humble in regard to his band's fame.

"I never equated being a professional musician with materialism. If anything, I'm more concerned about the concerts we have in Japan being successful. When you're in a band that plays from your own emotion, the performance changes depending on your mood and you gotta give a concert to satisfy those paying customers and yet there are times when your emotion gets the better of you. Since going major, it's really been about closing the gap, but that's been a hard issue we face," he says.

The quartet, straight from Japan's famous Ibaraki prefecture, seems like a pretty down-to-earth people off-stage. Dressed down but still working a rockstar chic, the guys awaited the start of our interview in the OFF position; causally complaining about forgotten toothbrushes, cold air conditioning and in the case of Tatsurou, ritualistically removing the label from his bottle of juice.

For MUCC, this week was going to be a string of firsts; first time in America, first time performing at Otakon in front of American fans, first time being interviewed by an American magazine. For Yukke the deepest impression was seeing America from a plane for the first time. "I looked at the map while I was on the plane flying over, on the eastern, no, western edge of the Americas and I couldn't help thinking how wide across it stretched. That is until we landed."

For Miya it was the food. "It was typically American. The way they cooked the meat. Kinda, in a funky style." Pressed further he laments, "You know, I ordered it well done but it came back burnt." A round of laughter from the band and management alike greeted the punchline.

The story behind what lead to their first American concert left little to mystery. Miya explains their reaction. "Well, we got the invite and we thought it would be really interesting." Knowing that MUCC has never had an anime tie-in, it's a little surprising that Otakon would invite them to perform, considering that 2004's guest L'Arc~en~Ciel had a handful of anime theme song hits to recall.

For their Otakon performance, Miya seems content to let their music speak for them. He says, "We have no plans to tailor our music for specific audiences." It's a strategy that has worked so far, leading to shows in Germany and France and garnering international attention.

Many fans notice that Houyoku's "Monster" was the first song of theirs to have an English title since their very first demo "No!!". While it may seem like a sign that the band is trying to appeal to foreigners, Tatsurou thinks otherwise.

"Uh, even though it's English, in Japanese that's called katakana-go. It's pretty much the same, so I said why not. 'Cause the English letters of the word are pretty well known anyway."

While the band seems prepared to make an all out musical assault on the west, planting the seeds of future record releases and hopefully, a full-scale nationwide tour, they don't seem quite ready to tackle English lyrics.

Tatsurou says of the possibility, "I can't write in English. If I were to, I think there's stuff in the Japanese that I just can't express in English." He pauses and looks around the room. "If there were someone who could properly translate 100% the depth of my lyrics down to the hidden meanings unique to the Japanese and it sounded good, I'd be interested."

As one of the two main lyric writers, Tatsurou has been responsible for some of MUCC's most beloved songs. He even mentioned an influence that struck me as singularly unexpected.

"I love Yoshii Kazuya (ex-The Yellow Monkey). The way he uses words and his sense," he says.

Meanwhile Miya, who is the other primary lyricist in the band, has delegated more of the writing to Tatsurou recently. He talked about expanding his outlook to include themes beyond his own narrow world-view. "There's some (lyrics) just about me, and some that aren't. In the past there were a lot of songs from my personal experience, but lately I'm writing from other perspectives."

Looking at the direction of the recent singles Ryuusei and Utagoe MUCC seems to be heading further away from the down-tuned guitars and sludgy production of their past to something much cleaner and with greater appeal to a mass market. Miya is not willing to admit that much however. "At this point the new album (dropping in December) is only 1/3 completed. I can't say for sure what it will be like... we'd like to go in a new direction."

Constantly changing directions has been the band's M.O. since their formation in 1997. One could even call it evolution, but no evolutionary step was bigger than their move from high school Visual-Kei wanna-bes to hard rock veterans.

The room fills with embarrassed laughter following mention of MUCC's demo tape era song "KAGAMI" (a hilariously generic mid-90's ballad that apes both early L'Arc and Shazna). It's akin to showing someone a photo of themselves from their freshman year in high school, which is not far off from where MUCC was when they wrote the song. As "KAGAMI" proves, the band's disparate influences took awhile to surface in their music.

Miya explains, "Hey man, 'KAGAMI' and those songs from our very first demo tapes, those are from, like, when we were in high school. We didn't have a clear idea of what kind of music we wanted to make back then. We had our hands full just 'being in a band'. Of course we wanted to make the best music we could, but we just didn't have that vision yet as to the kind of band, the kind of songs, and the kind of performance we wanted to put out there. So that shows in the songs and arrangements."

The band earned their wings by surviving those aimless early days and growing as musicians with each release. This year, their self-described "Devilish Year", has been like one long training session to see how well they hold together through endless touring, endless releases (they put out three original CDs this year) and endless promotion.

Unquestionably deserving of the spot, Miya has no reservations about taking his band to one of the biggest shows in Japan. The annual Kouhaku Uta Gassen (lit. Red/White Song Battle) broadcast every New Year's Eve is watched by over 80% of all Japanese homes. He said, "It's known by every nearly every Japanese. It's a show that showcases the best Japanese music has to offer. If we could I'd love to."

Tatsurou has only one thing he'd like to clear up before they do so, "I don't get it. How do they decide who wins (Kohaku) anyway? I've never really sat down and watched it before. Do the songs and performances decide who wins?" A lot of laughter accompanied several abortive attempts to explain the contest.

One thing is certain, however, for such fun-loving guys, they sure do write gloomy songs.

"Honestly we're just normal people," says Miya. "We just happen to have a gift to say what people normally wouldn't and that's what we do in our music." He adds matter-of-factly, "It stands to reason sometimes that's gonna turn out to be a gloomy song."

~~~

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Part I: Scary Things

Purple Sky (pS): What scares you most?

Yukke: Ghosts.

pS: Do you believe in ghosts?

Yukke: Yeah. I think Japanese ghosts are pretty scary.

pS: Is there really a difference between American ghosts and the Japanese variety?

Yukke: Well foreign ghosts... like for instance, say a ghost appeared in this very hotel, I don't think it would be that scary. If the setting were a Japanese hotel? Now that's scary.

Tatsurou: I think Japanese and American horror is fundamentally different. I think there's less of the spiritual here. Not that there isn't any but... in like, horror or splatter house films there's sort of incorporeal monsters. In the case of Japanese horror, it's like they posses you, and you like, never know where they're going to come out of. In Japanese horror there's very few tangible monsters. Like Freddy...

pS: Is there something you're afraid of?

Tatsurou: Afraid of... well ghosts for one, and like, UFOs. The unexplained. I'm afraid of things I can't quantify.

pS: Does it keep you up at night?

Tatsurou: Very seldom does it keep me up at night, but there are lots of things I'm just frightened of. Roller coasters. Haunted houses. Things I can't comprehend. Because I can't comprehend them they scare me. If I knew all about them I don't think I'd be scared.

pS: But actually, MUCC, you yourselves make scary faces and wear scary makeup and shoot scary videos.

Tatsurou: At first when we were in high school, all we wanted to do was stuff that was interesting and would make an impact unlike anybody else out there. And then we started to change. Somewhere along the way we started finding out who we were as a band and started singing about real stuff. Real stuff is what helped get out these painful emotions.

pS: Is what's real scarier than fantasy?

Tatsurou: I think the two are relative. It's scary because we're expressing something real but...

pS: Anyone else?

Miya: Scary things, eh? Personally, I've never seen a ghost.

pS: Anyone here seen one? (Yukke raises his hand high.)

Miya: It doesn't feel real to me. Cause I've never experienced it. I mean, if Yukke says he's seen one, I think that's spooky but I'm someone who hasn't. I'm just not attuned to that sort of stuff. What I think is scary are all the incidents in the news recently, of like the slaying of children. There's been so many recently. I think people, mankind scares me the most.

pS: That's a mature answer. Are you all fans of horror or splatter house? Do you watch those sort of movies?

Miya: I enjoy Japanese horror movies and Korean.

Tatsurou: Scary maybe, but not really horror.

pS: What kind of movies do you enjoy?

Tatsurou: It's not horror really, but as far as movies I enjoyed The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Otherwise, I really like action movies, but I like to watch movies that make me think too.

PART II: CANDY

pS: On Halloween we give out candy to little kids. Do you guys like candy?

Miya: I like sweet things.

pS: Really? I have this image of Japanese people not really liking sweet things.

Miya: (defensively) There's plenty of us, trust me.

Tatsurou: The quality of sweets suited to a Japanese taste and those suited to a Western palate is different. I think the sweets we eat as children are different.

pS: Do you prefer foreign candy or traditional Japanese sweets?

Tatsurou: I think if you were to ask the kids today, hardly anyone would say they love traditional Japanese sweets.

pS: So then do you often eat candy bars?

Miya: I love them.

pS: And you?

Yukke: Yes, I like them.

pS: What kind?

Yukke: Like sweets, right? I'm not really into chocolate.

pS: Well, Pocky is popular here at Otakon.

Yukke: Really? I've never bought one. I like this penny candy called "Dagashi". There's this one called "Sudako Santarou". It's not too sweet and they sell it for about ten yen. It's the kind of salty cheap one I like.

PART III: ANIME

MUCC, said to have taken their name from a furry red character from the children's variety program Ponkiki (similar to Sesame Street), and having been known to cover songs from the show, including "Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun," were sure to be anime dorks, right? Since we were at Otakon, I decided to find out!

pS: Do you guys like anime? Do you now watch much?

Miya: No, but I think all Japanese children are brought up watching anime so we all know it.

Tatsurou: The one I really got a kick out of recently was, I mean there's tons I like so it's hard to narrow it down to just one, but recently I really liked Samurai Champloo. I dug that one. And, uh, just before I was into HunterxHunter. I really liked Hagane no Renkinjyutsushi (Full Metal Alchemist) as an anime too. You know when they make an anime of an on-going manga series, there's a gap between the manga and the anime. A time difference. They have to wrap up the story of the anime so the story of the anime diverges quite a bit from that of the manga.

pS: Right, so the anime ends but the manga goes on.

Tatsurou: But, in the case of Hagaren (Full Metal Alchemist's Japanese nickname) I think the anime wrapped up the story neatly. It's different than the manga story but the finale puts the pieces together and offers closure.

pS: For you, there's closure on the story so you stopped reading the manga?

Tatsurou: In the case of Hagaren I think I like the end of the anime more than the way the manga is going.

~~~

EXTRA: TATTOO

pS: None of you have tattoos is that right?

Miya: Yes.

pS: Are you anti-tattoo?

Miya: No, not really.

Tatsurou: Satochi used to want to get one.

pS: What were you thinking about?

Satochi: There's this drummer I like...

pS: And you wanted to get a tattoo of his face?

Satochi: No, no. (laughing) There was this Buddha on his back.

Tatsurou: If I were to get a tattoo I'd want a Japanese style one. Not like tribal or something. A Japanese print. Japanese style tats have like, Japanese-like creatures and things in them. In those Japanese colors and with that style, I think it'd be cool to have non-Japanese animals. Most people would get like, a carp or a dragon but you never see like, a dolphin or like, Shamu the killer whale. They'd look cool in a Japanese style.

~~~

Message to America

Satochi: I want to make an impact with our concert, the type that makes fans of those watching. I want more Americans to become our fans.

Miya: I hope to do a performance that makes the people who come to see us say "They're better than I imagined," and allows us to periodically release our Japanese relases here.

Yukke: I think that most people in attendance today will be seeing MUCC for the first time. I hope that we get an invite to come back and do more concerts soon, and that when we do we'll get more fans and be able to put out a CD and do some more concerts.

Tatsurou: Rock is like, the rock coming out of Japan, is being sold on its roots; It's Japanese-ness. I hope that people listen to what Japan has to offer.