FEATURE 08

INTERVIEW WITH Mejiri

Why we do human being sing?

I've been taking picture as a job and also just for fun for years now, but I often ask myself "why do I photograph?" I think everybody who keeps doing one thing; music, painting, even just a normal job or whatever for a long time might be caught this foolish idea at least once- "What am I fuckin' doing?"

When I first saw Mejiri's live show, they just loughed away these negative feelings inside of myself. I felt that they just loved to play music, and being as what they were. They just seemed to know what they wanted. Of course it's not easy to keep doing one thing and being creative at the same time without any efforts and skills, but I would say it's more difficult not to forget that how much you love doing it for a long time. Someone who know the emotion deep inside themselves, listen to and go with it always impresses me. Mejiri is one of such an attractive group for me.

You will see in this interview that what moves them is giving love to people around them and to music itself. As Mr.Mizuki says, we need to think more about what we can't see or touch in this age that is saturated with material.

And I want to cause an opposite movement from Tokyo too! I don't think Hiroshima is a boring town. Everything depends on what YOU want to do here (or anywhere).
(Mr.Mizuki answered the interview as a representative.)

1.Please introduce all of the members in your band.
Tomohide Mizuki/Vocal & Guitar, Takao Hirose/Drum, Katsuhiko Minamizawa/Sax, Kenichi Sasaki/Bass, Tomoko Nakayama/Percussion, and Maiko Itoh/Keybord. We have now 6 members.

2.When you started activities as Mejiri?
In 1999, we started to play at live houses such as JACARA just for fun. We didn't practice a lot at that time, but it was just a good experience for us. In 3 years we have changed members several times and became 6 piece band that we are now.

3.What kind of artists influenced you most in your activities?
Every of one as the 6 members has different tastes and all of them are contents of Mejiri, but I, as a composer, was impressed by Organic Soul Music like Donny Hathaway etc. I love artists who have strong emotion and make me feel their soul from the works. I also get influenced from Tadao Ando (an architect), and Taro Okamoto.

4.Let me know about the single album you released recently.
It's been one year since the last one, and we had many new songs to put out. We made the last 2 albums with a professional engineer in a studio, but this time we bought a recording machine and did all the processing- recording, pressing, jacket making- by ourselves. Everything was a first experience for us and we had a hard time, but we helped each other to do the entire process. I want to give our thanks to the staff at Cover, and Sumatora-Tiger. (They worked with us!)
We are satisfied with the album, and want many people to listen to!

5.What is the title of the album? What does it mean?
"Rocka Ballade", the same title of the first song in the album. It has 4 songs and every of them　is about "LOVE". We didn't have any theme when we were recording, but now I would say it's the theme of this album.

6.How do you usually compose songs?
Now I compose almost every songs at first, bring it to the studio and others listen to it. We talk about each one's ideas, talk a lot, then begin to play toghether. While we play together we come to understand more about each others ideas. Our way to practicing is really creative!

7.What do you think about the scene in Hiroshima now?
If it's about music, the number of bands has been increasing and it's sad for me. I don't feel energy in the town recently, and people sometimes seem to be depressed. I want to say that we now need to pay attention to subcultuers (music, art, whatever) more and make our mind rich, not to only think about economical things. I also think the media in this town should pick up artists here to make an original scene in Hiroshima. I have many opinions about the scene here but it would be just a complaint, so I'll stop now. We think we're a part of the scene, so we'll just keep doing live shows, as many as we can. People tend to avoid real communication and use mechanical ways to communicate like TV or internet, but I believe we need to see each other, feel one's breath or body temperature to get understand each other. That's why we love having live shows.

8.Tell us about your future plans.
We are going have as many shows as we can not only in Hiroshima but also in other cities. And we want to call more people into this town from other cities! It's boring to have only one way movement- people always go UP to the big city and never pay attention to things happening in small towns. We want to cause an opposite movement!
We also want to work with other artists (not only musicans) in Hiroshima. We organize "poetry readings" sometimes. It would be good if we can make a big movement together.

9.What is your dream?
As a band, we want to keep a good relationship with music. We want to meet people and share their excitement. If it's about myself, I want to make my living as a musican.

10.Tell us about what the word PEACE means to you?
It means talking or discussing with, and understanding each other.

11.Say anything!
We are natural-born performer! Come to our shows!
(more info:http://www.mejiri.net)