Last updated: December 1, 2009

Translation by: Adrienne Weber
Edited by: Cynthia

Original Japanese text property of PSC.

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The Interview

At the turning point of your life you have a chance the take a dispassionate look at yourself. The answer you find there will give you hope for the future. Here’s the origins of the way of life known as ‘miyavi’.

The theme of this interview is ‘turning points’. I want to look back on Miyavi’s history and find in it the answers to why he’s here now, and where he’s headed to. The one thing that becomes clear through his words is his “strength”. The strength to find the will to complete the tasks he must do, the strength to calmly face his own weakness and weak points, the open-mindedness to aggressively accept the good. It is because he has all of that that he is who he is now. But for him, the place he’s at now is nothing more than a few feet from the starting line. His gaze is already fixed on the future.

Interview by Makoto Hasegawa.

The frustration of his dream to be a soccer player.

Giving up my dream to play soccer was a huge thing. That hadn’t fallen through, I don’t think I would have taken up the guitar. Back then, soccer meant as much to me as music does now. That’s how central it was to who I was.

When did you give up your dream to be a soccer player?

In my second year of middle school. I was playing on a Youth Team, but I was injured and had to give it up. After I quit soccer, I didn’t know what to do. Soccer made up about 90% of my life. I was captain of the local team throughout elementary school, and then in middle school I was in the Osaka City Youth Team. Every day after school I would run to the train station, and change into my uniform on the train, play soccer and then go home on the last train of the night. That’s what I did every single day. I even lost friends over it. Thinking back on it now, that was the first time in my life that I was that solitary. I wasn’t dating anyone, didn’t even have a girl I liked. Everything was zero.

What is it that drew you to soccer?

The freedom. It’s the same with music, but soccer had that same fascination of ‘creating something’. It’s a question of whether you can find freedom in that. So, I was injured and I took some time off, and then when I returned to the team, there was a new coach, and the direction of the team had completely changed. It was like, ‘What the hell was it that we were doing all that time?’ (LOL) I lost that freedom, and I couldn’t keep up with it anymore.

Did you feel that it was a setback?

I really, really did. It became a kind of trauma. When you say setback, it sounds cool, but really I just ran away. In the end, I couldn’t get over my injury. That’s all it came down to. And that’s why I never want that to happen again. The question is how to put that setback to good use.

The reason I gave my setback in soccer as a turning point isn’t so much because of how it relates to music but because that was the moment I learned what failure was. I think it’s very important to know the taste of defeat. I think that it’s the experience of that bitterness that gives you the strength to stand up to anything that may come your way.

Coming to Tokyo to become a professional musician

How long after you quit soccer was it that you decided to do music?

Quite soon. When you don’t have anything to do, people often go down the wrong path, you know? (LOL) But just fooling around is so meaningless. I’ve always been the type who needed a goal of some sort, even when I was younger. It’s the only way of life I know.

So that was why you went with music?

But there wasn’t this big impetus. I just got friendly with some guys at school, and we decided to start a band. But to tell you the truth, the second I picked up the guitar for the first time and plucked out the scales, I could picture myself playing on stage. Then I started playing guitar every single day. Even if friends came over, I would ignore them to play guitar.

And what drew you to the guitar?

It’s that fascination of ‘creating something’ again. I think if I’d just copied other people’s songs, I would have quit. The reason I kept it up was that I realized that I could create my own songs. Not a month after I first started playing, I started to write my own songs, and learned how much fun it is to create. Then I bought multi-track recorder and recorded everything piece by piece.

How long after that did you move to Tokyo?

About two years later.

What made you decide to move to Tokyo?

An upperclassman who I really respected passed away. I’d never had a really close experience with death before that, and it really hit me hard. he had also be a guitarist, and he had been the one who taught me the basics of music. I went to Tokyo the day after he died.

Did you want to carry on his legacy after his death?

Of course that wasn’t the only reason, but he had wanted to go beyond, and I wanted to show him what it was like. I didn’t know if he was really watching, but I wanted to do it, not just for myself, but for him s well. So I decided to go to Tokyo. The night bus from Osaka to Tokyo was full, so I went to Kyoto and got on the night bus there. I called my mom on the way and said, “I’m going to Tokyo.” She was surprised, but she couldn’t do anything to stop me.

You didn’t make any preparations?

I had no preparations and no plans. I was wearing the clothes I’d been wearing at my part time job, and all I had with me was my wallet, my cigarettes, and my PHS. I didn’t even have my phone charger. (LOL) I figured I’d see if I could stay with my ex-girlfriend. We met up at the station, and she had become a total ganguro (NOTE: the most extreme form of kogal, who tan very dark, bleach their hair and wear panda style makeup) and not only that but she refused, because she said her boyfriend was coming over! (LOL) So I slept outside and stuff. My bloodtype is AB, which means I’m the type of person who can always find a way to live, as long as we have the motivation.. I started going to clubs to see shows, and I was scouted to be a model, or been in bands, and that’s how I met the members from my old band.

Joining Du’ele Quartz

Where did you meet them?

At a club. As a joke, I said something like “If I was playing in Osaka, I could get 200 or 300 people to come.” and they were really surprised, like “Wow, you’re that amazing?” (LOL) Their guitarist had just quit the band, so they were looking for a new one. I was 17 at the time, and the guys in the band were five years old than I was, but they heard my bluffing and they decided that I had to be their new guitarist. (LOL) I was going home and about to get in a taxi, and the members came over and were like ‘We’re so glad we’ve met you.’ I felt kind of guilty. (LOL)

Did you join the band right away?

No, I decided to go back to Osaka. Everyone around me seemed so shady. I guess, in reality I was the most shady of all. (LOL) On the day I was going to go home, the members contacted me, so I met with them again, and they were such great guys, so warm, that I knew I could trust them. From that day on I started staying at their places.

So you were attracted to them as people, rather than as musicians, and that’s why you joined the band?

I think that part is most important, after all. Our first show was at Meguro Live Station, and everything I had, from my guitar to the outfit I was wearing, were all borrowed. (LOL) The audience was made up of about 20 people. At the time, just having 20 fans, who were all yelling the member’s names before the curtain rose, was so amazing to me. The thing that freaked me out the most was that there were one or two fans yelling my name. (LOL) I hadn’t done any promotion, and there was no reason they should know my name, so I was really mystified as to why I had fans.

It is mystifying.

Apparently they’d become fans after seeing me at another bands after-party. I didn’t get why they would become fans when they’d never heard me play guitar or heard any of my music. I didn’t think I was that talented, I was just one of hundreds…but watching other bands, I realized that this could work. (LOL) And then the audience started growing, the way it does with a band who succeeds: 20 people became 40 people, 40 people became 80 people, 80 people became 160 people, 160 people became 320 people, 320 people became 640 people… And we ended up officially part of a company.

What was the turning point after you’d joined the band?

Going to Okinawa. I can say this now, but because I hadn’t joined the band because of the music, the difference between the place that the other members were looking to, what they were aiming for, and what I was became really huge. Some of the members were satisfied with our current situation. It was really hard for me to watch the members who thought ‘This is enough.’ There was this gap between what I wanted to do and what I was actually doing, and eventually I stopped speaking because of it.

What do you mean you stopped speaking?

Like it was some sort of condition or sickness. I didn’t go to the hospital, but I was really depressed. It’s funny to think about it now, but sometimes I thought, ‘I can’t live my life like this, so maybe I should just die.’ I couldn’t compose songs, I couldn’t write lyrics, I couldn’t speak at interviews. I had things I wanted to say, but they wouldn’t come out. I wanted to die, but I was afraid to die. But I didn’t want to live. It became this constant cycle, and I was like, this is not good. So I canceled all my jobs and went to Okinawa.

Why Okinawa?

I don’t know. I just wanted to go somewhere far away. I wanted to go to the US, but I didn’t have a passport at the time, so I thought if I have to stay in the country, I at least want to cross the ocean. (LOL) I remember it was November, so I wore a coat, and then it was so freakin’ hot in Okinawa. Everyone else was in short sleeves and there I was in my coat. (LOL)

Did you have a certain place in mind to go?

No. I’d been there a few times with the band, but I didn’t have any ideas. The state I was in, I barely even knew where I was. I figured there was no point in coming to Okinawa if I was just going to stay in the city, so I got in a taxi and said “Take me to the ocean.” It was too painful to think about anything, so I bought a novel and I read it on the beach. As I did that, it became really comfortable.

Then what did you do?

I hadn’t brought much money, so I went to the bank only to find out all the banks had closed at 5. You couldn’t communicate with the mainland at all. I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t buy anything and I couldn’t find a place to stay. I was like, ‘Well, this ain’t good.’, and I was hungry but I figured I could spend the night on the beach, since it was warm. At midnight all these Americans showed up, and they were like ‘Go home!!’ and we almost got into a fight. I couldn’t really speak English, so all I could say was “No home.” (LOL) They laughed at me, and were like ‘What are you doing?’ But all I could do was go to sleep, so I slept and I woke up in the morning, and when to a convenience store a little ways off, and when I looked in the mirror I saw that a bug had bitten my face and it was all puffy. I looked at my face and for the first time in a long time, I laughed. Like, “What the hell? I look like such a dumbass!” (LOL) And in that moment all my worries disappeared, and I thought “What the hell was I so worried about?”

And then you were able to reset youself?

I was able to laugh about having been worried about something so trivial. I thought to myself, “What the hell have you been doing? You better get your ass home and get back to your music!” That was when I got my first text tattoo.

Which one?

‘Tenka Chijo Yuiga Dokuson’ (‘There is only one me under heaven and earth’). I got it to remind myself not to forget to be myself. Like a warning to myself. So I went back to Tokyo, and tried to fix things with the band by telling them the way I was feeling. I said, “Here are my goals, and I want to give this everything I’ve got. Do you want to do it with me, or not?” If they did, we’d given the band a good start, so I wanted us to try again, to work hard as a band.

The band breaks up.

But the band ended up breaking up soon after.

After three or four month, nothing had changed.. I thought, it’s not fair to our fans or our staff if things keep on this way. If a staff member messes up during a show, you’re supposed to get angry with them, but we weren’t perfect either, so we couldn’t say anything. We were half-assed. Those feelings started building up inside me.

The decision to break up was a heartbreaking one for you, wasn’t it?

It was really hard. I mean, if we’d really been serious about the band, things would have been amazing. It was really hard not to be able to do that. It was like, I like it, but I can’t love it. Like, I loved the guys as people, and I had affection for them, so I wanted to be in a band with them,but I couldn’t just go through the motions anymore.

You announced your break up in June of 2002, and you put out a solo album in October. That was a quick turnaround.

I’d actually been playing to do some solo work, completely unrelated to the band breaking up. So the band breaking up actually made it harder to announce that. (LOL) But we had fans, so I didn’t want to stop. So on the day we announced our break up, I announced that I would be working as a solo artist. I was announcing my solo career at the same time as we were saying, “We’re breeaking up.”, so I felt reeeally conflicted. But I also thought that it was the right answer. I cried so much at our break up show. The staff secretly set up a send off for the last song, and when I saw that, I just broke down crying. I remember it really vividly, even now.

What did you get out of being in the band?

My motivation. The bigger I got as a solo artist the more I realized how amazing our band had been. People treat that band like a lengend. In other words, the future decides the past. I call it the ‘philosophy of bowling’. Even if you get a strike, if you can follow it up, it doesn’t mean anything. (LOL) If I had a tiny solo career, that would have meant that my band was tiny too. It’s that pride, that obstinacy that makes me able to continue on, even when things are hard.

Joining the super band S.K.I.N.

What lead to you joining S.K.I.N?

Actually, I joined S.K.I.N before SUGIZO-san did. YOSHIKI-san talked to m eabout it, and at first I was really surprised, and a little hesitant. But then YOSHIKI-san told me, “I can’t keep performing forever, so I want this to be my last band.” and I felt really touched.

That is a very weighty thing to hear.

Normally, I would have asked for time to think about it, but after YOSHIKI-san said that to me, I realized there were only two answers. So we had meetings, and things really came together. We did our rehearsals in LA.

In May 2007 you appeared at a guest at YOSHIKI’s ‘J-Rock Revolution Festival’ in LA, and announced that you’d joined the band, and then you have your first show as S.K.I.N.

We played four songs in an hour. It was really something, that’s for sure. But it did make me think it was nice to be in a band. I hadn’t felt like that in a long time, and since I’d gone solo I was always right in the center, and I couldn’t leave things up to other people, which made that balance [of the band] really fun. It was so electrifying. (LOL) But it did take a lot out of me physically. (LOL)

It seems like you gained a lot from being in S.K.I.N.

S.K.I.N was really big for me. Forget about the Scene or genres or any of that, those men are huge. What I mean is that the way they live their lives is just so cool. They’re really living. Even when they get down off the stage, they’re still artists. Even off stage, they’re still Gackt, YOSHIKI and SUGIZO. They really taught me that that’s a good thing.

You mean not just to express something, but to be it.

Singing is their lives. They’re singing about life. They’re so earnest about everything and trying to live beautifully. I think it’s because they’re so tough that they can be beautiful. You don’t see that way of being very often in the Scene anymore. Everyone is like hothouse vegetables grown in a green house. I was like that too. I hated it, and that’s why I basically broke out of the greenhouse.

Do you have any plans to do any works as S.K.I.N in the future?

I can’t say anything for sure right now. But all of us really want to, and our friendship is really strong, and we have about 10 demo songs. The only we need is for the time to be right, I guess.

Hopes for 2009

What do you want to do in 2009?

Well, I just cut my hair short, so I’d like to go with another Neo style for 2009.

Neo?

My theme is “NEO TOKYO SAMURAI BLACK”. I want to keep on being conscious of it as Japanese music, but the image is little more modern, more like Neo Tokyo. I want to build a new Tokyo style, something that’s cool and stylish, but also cutting edge. Also, I want to be aggressive about doing all kinds of things, not just keeping my position as a Samurai Guitarist. Lately my stance has been that I only need to do music, but I don’t think that’s enough. I want to go abroad in 2009, and I want to do even bigger things in Japan too. I’ve got to build an infrastructure to do that. That’s what I’ll be attacking from.

30 Questions for Miyavi

BLOOD TYPE: AB
BIRTHDAY: Sept 14

1. Describe your personality in one word.
Oresama.

2. What are you into right now?
My iPhone.

3. What’s your current dream?
A tour in space.

4. What did you want to do as a kid?
A world tour.

5. When did you decide you wanted to make music your job? Why?
The moment I first played a guitar. I could picture it.

6. What artists do you respect?
Keziah Jones, Ani Difranco, hide-sann, Hotei-sann, Gack-Nii (aka Gackt)

7. Out of your instrument you use now, which is your favorite?
My throat. I’ve grown to love it.

8. If were stranded on a deserted island, what CD would you bring?
A blank CD. Maybe I’d do a recording there.

9. Is there a certain place where you get the most ideas for songs, lyrics or phrases?
Anywhere as long as I’m high on life.

10. What’s your goal as a musician?
To become worldwide.

11. What do you place most emphasize on for your part?
Being one of a kind.

12. What does ‘Visual’ mean to you?
My reason for living.

13. What do you need to have when you write songs?
My guitar.

14. What’s the first thing you do in the green room?
Humidify, Stretch, Muscle Training, Voice exercises

15. What do you always bring on tour?
A change of panties.

16. What show sticks in your mind the most?
The show in Paris was eventful for many reasons.

17. What’s your favorite outfit or hairstyle you’ve had?
Rainbow or Chonmage Samurai

18. What kind of music do you listen to at home?
It’s on shuffle.

19. What were you jealous of lately?
This is still the Noisettes, I think. (a British indie rock band.)

20. What album has had the biggest influence on you?
John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

21. Are you a Mac person? Or a Windows person?
Steve!

22. What is your most embarrassing moment?
It’s so embarrassing I can’t say.

23. When were you in the most trouble?
I was in so much trouble I can’t remember.

24. What got you excited lately?
It was so exciting I can’t even remember it.

25. What is fine dining to you?
Miso soup and scrambled eggs.

26. Is there any book or movie you read or watch over and over?
‘Matsuda Yusaku Monogatari’ (The Yusaku Matsuda Story. Yusaku Matsuda was a half Japanese, half Korean actor.)

27. Do you collect anything?
Used to be Golgo, now it’s Sanctuary. (both manga titles)

28. What do you hate about Japan or Japanese people?
How they look down on other Japanese outside.

29. A message to yourself of 10 years ago
Keep it going!

30. A message to yourself ten years from now
You did a good job.