Please talk to us focusing on your period of boyhood. First of all, where were you born?
Shou: I was born near Hokkaido's Toyako. It was behind the place where the Toyako Summit was held, that's what my grandmother said, but because I was small I have no recollection at all.
Around how old were you when you moved?
Shou: It was around the time when I turned one year old. From that time on we moved straight to the centre of Tokyo, attending kindergarden was really fun. There were voluntary ski lessons being held so we went as a family, because my mother and my grandparents were born in the snow country, everyone is good at skiing. By grandfather was considerably strict, don't kids, before the enter junior school generally go sledding? Even so I wore proper skis and my grandfather took me to a mountain summit where you could see nothing but snow and all he said was "It's chilly~" (laughs). I thought that as I was, if I slid down the hill I would die, so I took my skis off and while holding them I kind of tumbled down to the half-way point, I had gone passed an ice-skating place and had gone to the middle of a steep slope, so I put my skis back on and slid the rest of the way down.
You've been skiing since you were that young?
Shou: That's right. Although I haven't used those skills since I became an adult (laughs)
In kindergarden did you make a lot of noise while playing with your friends?
Shou: I had a habit of meddling into things, even now I like poking fun at people, when I have the chance I think things like "Let's go bully Hiroto and such" (laughs), it seemed like I would go pulling down other boys' pants.
(laughs) Isn't that was bad kids do?
Shou: (laughs) Yeah. Although I think that I had lots of male friends, I have more memories of playing with girls.
What did you play?
Shou: We played house.
You were the role of the father?
Shou: I did.
Did the girls ask you to play house with them?
Shou: Yeah. Now when I think back, I feel that was the period when I was popular. They would play scissors, paper, rock to decide who would walk home with me.
Like they would compete to see who would go home with Shou-kun?
Shou: That's right. I was glad (laughs). When I think about it now, that was when I was the most popular.
After that, your popularity period?
Shou: Never came, unfortunately (laughs). Afer that I became aware of the things around me and I started doing things like brain training. I started with building blocks, I did intelligence tests, and when I became a junior school student I attended juku1, I was doing nothing but studying, just studying.
Was that your parents' way of saying "Please study"?
Shou: That's right. It was like when I was a child I wished to acquire an academic background. I also learned drawing, that was enjoyable, later it even became useful for writing lyrics.
I see. How many times did you do narai-goto2 in one week?
Shou: At the peak of it, I went to juku five times a week. Also, every week when it was Sunday, I would also take a test for a juku called "Yotsuya Otsuka3", if I had gotten a bad score I wouldn't want to go home.
You were a study addict.
Shou: Completely. At that juku I also received an honourable certificate for having my grades being ranked x nationally. The kids of where ranked in the top class were really bright, but they felt pain from studying too much.
How did they feel pain?
Shou: During class they were frantically taking down notes, but they were always biting on their nails so their fingers became all tattered.
That's stress. So does that mean when you became a junior school student you stopped playing with your friends?
Shou: That kind of living on the edge of my limit continued to about my fourth year in junior school ...... When I think about it, a fourth year junior school student who was on the edge is dreadful.
Did you come to start opposing against your family?
Shou: No, I came to ignore my responsibilities of attending juku. I pretended to go.
But the day would come when you would be found out, right?
Shou: They found out after one day. Because they contacted my family.
Heh. Even from skipping just one day?
Shou: That's right. At my juku when my grades dropped all they asked about was "What are you doing about your studies at home?", my dad was terribly angry with me.
Did your mother try to reason with you?
Shou: My mother was also strict. That's why I ran away to my grandmother's place, who also lived in the same building. I saw the door to the storage room rattling and shaking as I hear my parents' voices saying "Are you not coming out?".
Even though you were a child, you had to live with that sort of pressure.
Shou: That's right. That's why I was projected as being a different existence to my friends who were in the same class. Even though I saw them innocently playing, I didn't feel like joining in. It somehow ended up that way. I always felt there difference between our value and our senses. But when I started skipping juku, around when I was in my fifth year at junior school I came to be able to blend in with everyone, I was also able to make friends who I got along well with by playing basketball and other sports.
You didn't become friends with those kids who attended juku?
Shou: I feel like they were my rivals. So because I had become that way, my parents had given up on it and I attended a normal juku in my hometown. With a harmonious atmosphere like "Let's go study together", it was my first time experiencing such an atmosphere.
Did your childhood pass by as one with no future aspirations or no innocent thinking?
Shou: Yeah. There wasn't anything for me.
Did you also not want to go home?
Shou: Yeah. Even so, when I advanced to middle school my grandparents often let me use their place and a place where I could conceal myself. My life was in there. Although my family was in the same building, I was on a floor above them.
Did you occasionally go back home and such?
Shou: I generally didn't show my face there. So even though my younger brother and younger sister were there, from around middle school I didn't really see them, even now it's a bit awkward around them, it has a similar feeling of saying something like "It's been a while" to a friend.
It seems like there's a bit of a feeling of distance.
Shou: It was complicated. Because I wasn't earning my own money it doesn't mean that I was an independent, since middle school I began thinking about various things even when I was supposed to be sleeping, perhaps my independence mentally came sooner.
You were more comfortable alone.
Shou: It did put me at ease. Studying gave me this kind of personal experience, only facing the desk made me feel nauseous so I came to hate it, but because I had attended juku, even if I didn't study I was able to enter a private middle and high school, so my parents also understood me. However that school was unexpectedly strict, so if you had gotten below 40 for a test score three times in one year, you would have to drop out of school.
Is that so? So in terms of the environment you entered another strict school that was preparing you for further education.
Shou: That's true, but all the teachers were amazing and I was able to make friends with them.
Is there an unforgettable teacher?
Shou: There is. From the second year in middle school to my third year in high school I had the same homeroom teacher, he was a cool teacher in his late twenties, like the kind that was in the manga "GTO". They were born in Kagoshima so he was hot blooded. All the values I hold as a person is because of that teacher's influence.
What is something that he said that left an impression on you?
Shou: "Live as a person with pride". They said "Live as a man without being embarrassed about yourself".
I think that wouldn't the Shou-kun that we've heard about up until now heard that, even though you happened to meet that hot-blooded teacher, wouldn't become influenced by that because of a distrust of adults.
Shou: But that teacher was someone who substantiated their own words. when he found out that people were smoking in the toilets from the cigarette butts, he had taken the blame for his own class, he asked everyone "If you say that you didn't do it, then I'll believe you" and got into a serious fight with the teach who was in charge of our grade. The kids were able to understand that he wasn't just a person of words. On top of that he was good looking.
If it wasn't an all-boys school, he surely would have been popular.
Shou: It seems like when he went to an all-girls school for teaching practice he was really popular. I want to meet him again even now.
If that teacher wasn't around, then perhaps Shou-kun might have become more distorted.
Shou: That's right. Because he was teaching modern Japanese, only my grade for modern Japanese were really good. I think that even now that it is perhaps related to the lyrics I write.
So what awakened you to bands?
Shou: When I was in my latter half of middle school, I had taken a sidewards glance at my hometown friend who had started a band, I thought "I also wish to be in a band" ......I've always liked music. My strict mother also like music and had a gentle side to her where she would let me listen to Yu-Min, she also liked Mr. Children, and liked WANDS quite a great deal. I really liked the vocalist Uesugi-san, from then on I started listening to Kurt Cobain and such ...... Then one day as I was thinking that I wished to be in a band, on TV I saw footage of the live LUNA SEA did at Yokohama Stadium called "Mafuyu no Yagai". I thought that they were cool.
Did LUNA SEA directly make you have this feeling of "I want to be in a band!"?
Shou: There was nothing making me feel that, with the exception of LUNA SEA.
How did they reflect in the Shou-kun of that time?
Shou: Amongst thinking that nothing was ever interesting every day, it was like finding an amazingly shining thing. In middle school I joined the basketball club, but around August I retired because of a traffic accident, I became less well-acquainted with my hometown friends that I hung around.
It was a point where your life had changed.
Shou: It was. It was in the Winter of my third year of middle school or my first spring in high school, a hometown friend that I had gotten along with well passed away in a motorcycle accident. I was with him until the moment they laid down his ashes to rest, when I saw how little ashes there were, I thought that it was all over once you die. I think that I because intensely aware of the notion of "end".
You adolescence was abundant with sensitivities, so it was an unnecessary shock.
Shou: It was shocking. So because I was an existence that would end someday, I thought that I could only do the things I wanted to do. So I bought a guitar, but somehow within our school, I disliked the lack of excitement about starting a band, I thought that I wanted to a be in a band with people who showed that they were oriented towards become a professional in magazines and such.
Like if you were going to do it, you might as well do it seriously?
Shou: Right. I didn't really understand how I would become a professional, but generally, I didn't want to do things half-assed. That's why happening to come across LUNA SEA and my friend's passing was a turning point in my life.
So when you became a high school student you admired bands?
Shou: That's right. I was also into track and field so I did track and field activities and band activities together. I had track and field activities three to four times a week, on the remaining days I would be in the studio. I had planned to not use the 500yen my grandmother had given me a lunch money and instead used it to buy CDs or for the fee of entering the studio.
So that means that even when you became a high school student you still didn't go home?
Shou: The door to home wasn't generally open.
To Shou-kun, that door was surely heavy.
Shou: Well, since I had become a middle school student, my relationship with my parents couldn't become what it was like before all of that. The friends around me were also saying things like "Parents are annoying", although I think it was normal to say things about your parents like "Yeah, they're annoying", but saying that when you've become an adult is dreadful.
But the personal experience Shou-kun has had growing up are the case for many musicians.
Shou: Yeah. That's why after all of that I think "Visual Kei is the most suitable for the experiences I had as a child" (laughs)
It's like having the burden of trauma.
Shou: I didn't think of it as trauma. I can face a desk just fine now.
It was great that you were able to choose your own road for yourself.
Shou: Yeah. So after that, I went to a vocational school for music, but even though I also paid a little bit of the fee, even my parents paid my school fees, when I went to that school I had an interest in fashion, that is also related to how I am now, I show my parents gratitude now.
Your parents supported the fact that you wanted to do music.
Shou: That's right. In my third year at high school I had a thorough talk with my parents after a long time. At that time I wished to be an engineer rather than a musician, but they persuaded me otherwise. My dad liked music and was originally a drummer. That's why when I was listening to Mr. Children he had said that Pink Floyd was better (laughs).
(laughs) The truth is that your father also likes rock music. So what do you think the Shou-kun of back then, who before starting a band had a gloomy adolescence, would say if he saw the current Shou-kun?
Shou: Hm, yeah. Wouldn't he feel an unexpected feeling. We're not that successful for that Shou-kun to say "Thank gosh".
But you've flourished since your debut.
Shou: Our debut.
Does that mean you still haven't become a professional musician?
Shou: Yeah. Although this is in regards to the conversation about the teacher that I really like, I don't want to go and meet that teacher until I've done a live in Budoukan. At that time, the teacher probably thought I was a really shy kid, he was extremely glad that I appeared at the karaoke competition during the culture festival at school.
Like "Shou-kun can sing"?
Shou: I think that he was surprised like "He is able to come out in front of so many people!", rather than singing. That's why I wonder what the teacher will think when I stand up on stage at Budoukan.
I see.
Shou: That's the line that I'm drawing, because they were a person that I really depended on ...... I really loves the words debt of gratitude and humanity. I think that because of that teacher I am how I am now, one day I want to say "Thank you very much".
1 Coaching school
2 Supplementary classes OR extra-curricular classes
3 One of the top three jukus for middle school students
PS:
I really like the last lines where Shou talked about his teacher, where Shou said he can’t meet a teacher he truly respected till Alice Nine performs in Budoukan. And now Finally, His dream is coming true! Alice Nine is gonna take over the Nippon Budoukan! And Shou can tell his respectable teacher, that he's going to Budoukan, and say his gratitude for him.
I can never get tired of reading his interviews, Shou really is an amazing man! And his parents must be proud of him now! ♥
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