Ruki Personal Interview

2009 – 12 – Zy #50 Ruki Personal Interview

At the end of 2009, it is the Gazette who are completing their year with a Christmas concert at Tokyo Big Sight on December 24th. As the opening for 2010, their fan club tour will be starting, to which all the fans are probably looking forward to. It is astounding, that this is actually some activity for the band in a while. What will be next for this band? What are their feelings? After quite some time, we have been conducting a personal Interview with Ruki again and we’ve been carefully listening.

♫ This time we are looking towards the 50th issue of Zy magazing, but the first time the Gazette have ever been on the cover of it (in issue 27) came rather sudden an unexpected.

Ruki ♥ [That was during the release of [NIL]. Of course I remember! (laughs)]

♫ At that time, the band had already been playing at a big hall, and it had been in its full shape already, still, the path you have been following there after was a really fast one!

Ruki ♥ [First of all, ever since [NIL] 4 years have passed already. When thinking about that album, it feels so light and not as serious, when it comes to the mood (bitter laugh). Not as many copies have been sold of that album at that time either----That’s been the case until two years ago. Therefore, it does not seem a lot like a memory, but time has been flying ever since. So in proportion, the feelings concerning our activities have been built bit by bit.]

♫ Did you plan to be releasing a lot more CDs from that time?

Ruki ♥ [Not really. After all we have been going on a long tour [2007-2008] there after. Then we have been releasing [Guren] and [LEECH]. Actually, after that, we wanted to go into producing the album, however, we decided to release [DISTRESS AND COME], which had been a coupling song for [LEECH], originally, so the making of the album got postponed.]

♫ Well, that has been the case, but the album has become incredibly strong, and after all, this year [DIM] has been release without problems none the less and you have also been on a tour. … and this might just be my personal opinion, but it seems like you haven’t been on tour much this year, have you? (laughs)

Ruki ♥ [That’s certainly the case. In 2009 we really haven’t been on tour much, as we had said/planned before. After all we really wanted to go into song making, but somehow, we the process wasn’t very forthcoming until then. (laughs)]

♫ Huh? But that’s not very good, is it?! (laughs)

Ruki ♥ [Still, it’s not like we had a lot time to ourselves. (bitter laugh). We were always busy with something. However, lately we do have some free time, and it is good that we do have some time to think for ourselves.]

♫ Ok, since you do have some time now, are you able to get and have some input from here and there then?

Ruki ♥ [That’s certainly the case. And isn’t that the time to solidify your grounds? Everyone can make up their own mind, right now … Still, it can’t be said, that we are actually on vacation right now. However, we are able to get refreshed as a band, too, which seemed to be a good idea at that time.]

♫ So were you actually able to get refreshed?

Ruki ♥ [All of us got a little of our independence back, and that would strengthen the will to be working as a band again, wouldn’t it?]

♫ To get refreshed is certainly something we haven’t heard from you yet (laughs)

Ruki ♥ [Uruha suddenly started saying this. When he was meeting up with people from our sempai bands or other people…he felt like he needed to confirm, what music is to him… looking at our manager. (laughs)]

♫ Do you do that a lot?

Ruki ♥ [When everyone is meeting up … in the early days, we would meet often, but if we do it now a days, our staff would be influenced by that, wouldn’t they? Be it with the equipment or at the studio, there is so much involved. So, we’d just be disappearing unnoticed, maybe.]

♫ Leaving empty handed, with one last bang; I’d think that be really cool if you could do it now.

Ruki ♥ [Our guitarist can do it like that. I am more of the type, who likes to be in a certain mechanism. (laughs)]

♫ I see. (laughs) Then, when speaking of your work and duties and the input to it, how about watching movies and things like that. Especially for someone writing lyrics, it seems important to have these sorts of outside stimulations.

Ruki ♥ [When I am watching such things, it’s not like there is really anything. When there is a song, I am thinking about how I could do it best. However, if there is no song, I can’t write lyrics either. I don’t have much of an inspiration, then.]

♫ So are you working on new songs right now?

Ruki ♥ [I am simply playing around with making them right now. Like just into parts (bitter laugh). I really need to get this more structured, though.]

♫ Are you seeing these stubs of songs as what something from Gazette to be released in 2010? That would be certainly interesting.

Ruki ♥ [Hmmm………For example [DIM] is an album we wanted to make in the past, but we couldn’t accomplish that with what we were working on, so we didn’t have the intention to make anything completely new. Lately I am listening to the older songs of Gazette again and there are still the songs which I don’t like as much as there are songs, which I like. It seems that there is something more to those. Separating these parts from each other and adding new ones to them, I would somehow like to revive them…]

♫ Like reconfirming the inner most part of it?

Ruki ♥ [Yes, like that. Certainly, creating something completely new is difficult. More than inventing ourselves a new, it’s more like bringing out our strongest parts, which will still be like something new in to listen to. I think that is also a very important thing. Also, when it comes to myself, I am doing my best when being challenged.]

♫ Personally speaking. (laughs)

Ruki ♥ [There are certainly times, when I wish to be suddenly put up for a challenge. And I don’t mean in the sense that it comes to writing something that sells or not. It is about something within myself, that just needs to get out one way or the other!]

♫ Oh! If your work progresses like that, then I’d think it is rather depending of timing until you can make something out of it, isn’t it? But that’s not what it’s like either, is it?

Ruki ♥ [Yes. It must be like that. I think the fluctuations between [Guren] and [Before I Decay] have been pretty strong. And we have been doing this by being aware of these circumstances. Challenging that, we haven’t really done anything heavy of that sort. And while there have been songs, which we could certainly think of as good songs, there were also those where we would have liked to do it differently. Keeping this in mind, I listen to our older songs and realize what the things I like are.]

♫ So…you don’t just like songs in general?

Ruki ♥ [No. For example, among the songs we made ourselves I really hate [Cassis]…I hadn’t been planning on making a ballad like that, but in the end it was our own doing, which made the song turn out like that. There after we made [Filth in the Beauty], we made [Guren]…and with that, I / we came to see what it was really like.]

♫ Even if you say this, there are probably a lot of fans, who really like [Cassis].

Ruki ♥ [I understand that much (bitter laugh). Therefore, distancing ourselves from something we have done and performing something live are different things with different feelings to it.]

♫ That’s a lot of twisting and turning, isn’t it?

Ruki ♥ [I’m giving my best. (laughs) This is exactly the reason why I think that time to think about these things is so important. Moreover, for me there are still albums, which I just cannot surpass just yet.]

♫ Oh! Now that’s interesting!

Ruki ♥ [Its would be the music of zilch [a unite which was formed by hide with a couple of musicians from overseas.] Even as I listen to it now, I still think it’s awesome. Als SADS’ album [The Rose God Gave Me]. For me, this is something new inside myself. You can’t really put this under any kind of classification. I think there are very few people, who can make music like this. This is the reason, why I don’t want to think about genres…and make music like that, but that’s difficult.]

♫ So you are talking about music, which is not bound to genres. I think the difficult part is probably not the making itself but rather thinking of it like that.

Ruki ♥ [Yes, it is. Therefore, once I start to think, I really come to dislike my/our earlier self just a bit. (bitter laugh) That’s also the reason, why I look at the time of Gazette until now as sort of the “First Season” within myself. It’s ok to take a break therefore. (laughs)]

♫ Although it is a rather short break, isn’t it?

Ruki ♥ [Even if it is short, it is really important, this time.]

♫ So will 2010 be the start of the Gazette Season 2 then? After all you have been announcing your FC only live tour.

Ruki ♥ [We’ve always said, let’s make a fan club tour, but we weren’t really able o do it then. But we would like out fan club to be a good thing. And I really want to play at the smaller venues again. That’s like samurai training. It’s been about a year and a half since the last FC tour, and I would just like to start over again. To get out of the producing mode again.]

♫ After all a standing live tour is really a bare challenge you would have to face.

Ruki ♥ [Yes it is. Therefore, I will go back to the feeling of the old days again and would like to show, that we still have our fangs!]

[The End]credit >> kiniro-ageha @ LJ