Interview - Arena37 (April 2009)

Issue: April, 2009

Translation by: Oritsu_luv

In July, miyavi became the father of a little girl. I hadn’t seen him for an interview in a while, and I was worried that he might have changed, but miyavi had the same unique aura, and was the same incomparable expressionist as always. I asked him about what he’d been up to lately: how he’d be re-starting his activities in earnest with his birthday in September, and about the emotions in ‘Super Hero,’ the new song he had posted on his homepage in April.

My fans and staff. I’m so lucky to have a place and people who will wait for me.

So where should we start?

(LOL) It’s been about three months? It’s like the time I went to LA – I haven’t done this in a while, so I kind of feel like I’ve just come home or something. But I think I’m really so lucky to have people who will naturally come out and welcome me in like this, to have a place and people who will wait for me. In terms of what I’ve been up to recently, I’ve started rehearsals for my world tour ‘NEO TOKYO SAMURAI BLACK WORLD TOUR 2009,’ which will kick off on September 14th at C.C Lemon Hall. And I’ve got something to announce about my private life too…my baby was born.

To write her name as ‘Airi’ and read it as ‘Lovelie’ is so like you, miyavi.

You think so? I decided I wanted the word ‘love’ to come up more closely in everyday life. It means that when I talk about my baby I’m naturally saying the word ‘love,’ right? I thought that would be a really wonderful thing – not just for my family, but for the people around us.

You want to be a person who can be happy that the people he loves are happy, right? I’m sure you feel that way even more strongly now that you’ve got someone to protect even more than the Comiyavi.

Yeah, that’s true. And, of course, I hope that everyone else feels that way, too.

I think that’s so wonderful. But you know, I was talking to our chief-editor yesterday and he made me realize something. The chief editor always tries to have these pages closely aligned to the Comiyavi’s feelings, and he was talking about how he wants you to always have that sharp edge to you, and how he felt very strongly about that. He said he was glad that you’re happy in your personal life, but he was really worried that it would make you too soft as an artist and you’d lose the shine you have as a real rock artist. I’ve been interviewing you since you were 18 years old, and I do respect you as an artist, but I’ve always been there to really witness the changes in your mind firsthand the whole time, so I think that I’m more able to see you as a person. Yeah. So when you got married, and when your baby was born I kind of felt like a proud aunt. (LOL)

That’s true. I do think that the way I’m feeling and thinking at the time do come out in my lyrics, and I know how much the chief editor thinks about the Comiyavi (The editor at Arena in is charge of miyavi. He even participated in the shoot for the music video for ‘Freedom Fighters,’ which was shot with Comiyavi extras with his face painted black, and always tries to present the pages from the perspective of a Comiyavi) and really understand how he would feel that way. I’m trying to be really understanding about all that, because I think a lot of the Comiyavi have a lot of the same worries. So I worried a lot myself about how to continue on with this style. When I quit the [PS] company, there were people of the opinion that I shouldn’t reveal too much about my personal life, and there are a lot of artists who don’t. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think I’m not allowed to be happy, but I do think that sometimes when you’re happy, you stop feeling what the meaning of happiness is. It’s the same as a baby crying. Babies can’t talk, and need other people to do things for them, so they cry. They cry because they aren’t satisfied or getting what they need. It’s really simple. And I think that songs are the same. You sing to express yourself. And when you’re too satisfied, you don’t need to scream anymore.

There are happy songs, but if everyone was happy, they wouldn’t need songs, and songs wouldn’t be born in the first place. The chief editor is worried because he has a high opinion of you as an artist and he has high expectations of you.

Thank you. But you don’t have to worry. I’m not fulfilled. I don’t mean I’m unsatisfied with my family, I’m very fulfilled as far as that’s concerned (LOL) but the artist miyavi is nowhere near fulfilled, and I haven’t gone as far as I can go. I’m not satisfied at all, yet, because there are still a lot of things I want to do, and a lot of things I need to do.　In terms of who I am now, and who I want to be in the future, I haven’t even gotten started. I need to work a lot harder, and I need to be more stoic, too.

Because if you take one misstep, it could become cheap egotism, and your fans would be left behind. Yeah. I think it’s all riding on me. But it really is hard to maintain a balance. Up until now, I only thought about myself, and about bettering myself, but now a baby was born, and if I can’t protect my baby, who will? I’ve learned what it means to live for someone else, and how that connects to my life. And I think I’ve grown a lot from that. I hope I can reflect that growth in my songs in a balanced way. I mean, I’ve never been an artist who only sung songs like ‘I miss you.’ (LOL) I’ve always tried to sing songs that had parts of myself in them. And like, what would it be like if I closed off my private life and sung songs hiding the fact that I was married, and had a baby? That’s why I wanted to get the truth across. And I knew that once I told those truths, in order for the parts of me that wouldn’t change to be accepted, I had to work even harder as an artist. I mean, I love every one [of my fans], and I want them to love me. It’s the same with my baby. I want to love her, and I want everyone I love to love her, too. That’s just how I honestly feel.

At first I hesitated about putting a photo of her on my blog. I mean, my baby is a baby and has her own life, you know? But she is my daughter, and when I thought about how much love was overflowing from so many people because of that, I thought, “If everyone can look at a picture of my baby and think ‘She’s so cute!’ even for a moment, we’d be sharing that happiness.” I thought that doing it that way was most real for me, and I want to be true to myself.

It’s easy to say it, but it’s hard to think that way from the bottom of yourself.

Yeah. That’s so true. I don’t want things to be superficial; I want us all to be real with each other. When it comes to my tour and to my music, I want to love my fans, my Comiyavi even more than I have before.

I think that my future as an artist is really up to me.

That’s true. Maybe all of the fans who’ve followed you this whole time have big enough hearts to accept the happiness of the one they love as if it were their own happiness.

I think that whether they think that or not is up to me. Like, I feel responsible for it, like it’s connected to how I am as a person. Like, if I’m really fascinating or charming as a person. And the birth of my baby really made me realize that humans are animals. That we’re really natural creatures. Pairing up and having offspring is a really natural　principle. And once I thought that, I even started thinking that the way the entertainment world is right now is unnatural. (LOL) Not in a negative way. Because it is a world that humans created. So if someone likes me on a purely emotional level then maybe their feelings for me would start to drift because I got married. So I think that whether they still like me after that emotional level has been disposed of depends on whether or not I have enough draw as an artist, and as a person. And I think that’s really up to me as artist. Like, my innate qualities are really important. To put it the other way, I think that if I’m fascinating enough they’ll keep supporting me as the artist miyavi even after that emotional part is disposed off. So now I have to be more stoic in how hard I work. At any rate, if I don’t, I won’t still be around as an artist at 30 or 40. For the sake of all the Comiyavi who’ve followed me this whole time, and the people who will come to know me later, I want to put out the best music that I can, as an artist.

That’s true. So was the song ‘SUPER HERO,’ which you put up on your website in April, your way of saying ‘thank you’ to your Comiyavi?

Well, thank you, I guess…I thought about what I could do at the time, what I could do for everyone, I mean, I’d worried everyone so much and caused them pain, so I thought that first off, I want to repay them in music.

It’s a great song.

Thanks. The song is a message from me, and a vision of what’s coming next. I hope it gets across that leaving can also be a way of loving, and the joy of sharing someone else’s happiness. My tour will be starting, and when I’m ready I’d like to release some music, so I want them to wait with bated breath for that. I made a new fan club, and I’m hopefully it will be worldwide so we can do all sorts of things in other countries, too. Like Comiyavi home stays. (LOL) Well, just look forward to what’s to come!