Saga murmured in a small voice at the start of the cover photoshoot. He has been waiting for this moment for six years. Six years. Since idolizing this visual scene, since picking up an instrument and forming his first band, he has been dreaming of this moment, that “someday” he would appear on the cover of this very magazine. Hearing Saga’s words, the members nodded quietly.
Launched as the first specialized visual magazine, SHOXX has witnessed the growth and history of numerous bands within the category of “visual kei”. Even now, perhaps most of the artists displayed within the pages of SHOXX have once followed the articles of their idolized senpais [seniors]. They are now trying to build upon that history.
Alice Nine. They are among the very artists whose existence has become central to the new visual scene. A memorable first time SHOXX cover. Exploring “Alice Nine.-ness”, the single [JEWELS] was finished on a fitting note for that kind of memorable moment.
–This time I would like to talk about the new single [JEWELS] that will be released on 3/21. It’s been one year since your last single, so there’s quite a gap open, right? Was that your intention there?
Hiroto: We weren’t thinking, “oh let’s leave some interval open and see”, that kind of thing, but when we released [ZEKKEISHOKU] (April 2006 release), we faced various challenges there, and so from there we took another step forward and we probably naturally started to explore “Alice Nine.-ness”.
Shou: That’s right. We didn’t want to end with just 1 tour for the album. We wanted to stretch it into 2 tours, or rather, we wanted to promote it more. The normal progression is that after the completion of an album, there’d be a tour showing off the album.
–After that tour, of course you’ll still be playing songs from that album in the lives, but in the tour following the album release, the set list does indeed showcase the album, and if you have a single release after that, as a requirement, the next tour will include the songs from the single, and so, instead, some songs from the album won’t be played at the lives.
Shou: Yes. There is that, and also, we strongly thought, not stretching it out needlessly but, that we would like to carefully treat the [ZEKKEISHOKU] album, which has become a big part of our lives.
Hiroto: That’s right, isn’t it. Plus, [ZEKKEISHOKU], including the tour afterwards, let us clearly see “the nature of Alice Nine.”, and because we grabbed hold of that sense, I think that the single we released after that showed a level of care greater than up until now.
–I see. Then, since when did you start working on this single? You must have had a conversation like, “let’s make a single now”, since around last year, right?
NAO: Yup. Probably since last fall. We had 2 rounds of song selection this time. There were probably about 10 songs.
–Was there any theme?
NAO: At the time, it was “something Alice Nine.-ish”. We wanted to do something that would strongly express the current Alice Nine.
Shou: I guess it’s partially from what we saw from making the album, and partially from our evolution since forming the band, but we think that the band Alice Nine.’s weapon is “catchy melodious parts”, so we felt that we’d like to explore that area more.
Tora: When we say “catchy”, it’s not just something bright. No matter how harsh a sound, even if it gives a dark impression, as long as there’s a distinct melody, it’s “catchy”.
Saga: Yeah. “Alice Nine.-ish melodies” or “Alice Nine.’s catch”, so to speak.
Shou: That’s right. Among those, this time we specially selected 3 songs that were pop.
–I see. Well then, let’s hear the songs one by one. The title single [JEWELS] was written by Saga.
Saga: Yes. In this song, the most important thing was the nuance of the song’s vocals and melody. Besides that, there’s the sense of creating it while skillfully combining the “us-ness” as we have constructed it up until now and the “us-ness” added from our new challenges. This time, the way I wrote the song was different than usual. Usually, I just create it from the background atmosphere, but this time I wrote it from the chords and the melody of the song. The song itself is soft and easy to listen to, but I wanted to write a song in which the phrases from the song’s vocals and lyrics would get stuck in your ear.
Tora: The original song is really poppy, so we were concerned about how Alice Nine. would adopt that. We didn’t want to do just pop, so we spent a lot of time arranging the song to sound more rock-ish. That’s not just this song, but the same thing can be said of the other 2 songs. Out of the 3 songs, this song had the most modern mix, so we mainly thought about striking a good balance between modernity and rock.
Hiroto: It’s 1 song that, while making it, required the camaraderie of the band.
–You can feel the depth of the song.
Hiroto: That’s right! We wanted to make the sounds in this song three-dimensional. We tried to make sure that instead of all the sounds mixing into each other, each and every sound would stand by itself freely and have its own position. After all, emotionally, I played the guitar with the sense of being “Maid Hiroto”. (Smile)
–“Maid Hiroto”? What’s that? (Smile)
Hiroto: I’m not advocating it, but I played the guitar with the feeling, “try to put devotion into this song”. (Smile) In this song, I would like you to feel that I played this song with devotion! (Smile)
NAO: When I heard this song from Saga-kun, I fell madly in love with the melody!
Everyone: Sile~e~e~ence.
Saga (unable to hold back): You can say those things with such a calm face. (Smile)
NAO: Ahahaha. I’m glad that Saga-kun smiled for me. (Relief) But it really was like that. I think that because he wrote it with the knowledge that many people would be listening to it, you can really feel the breadth of the song. Personally, I’ve always been conscientious of the position of the drums within the song when I drum, so focusing on the melody and playing the drums in order to promote the melody was a first experience. In that respect, I was probably also “Maid NAO”. (Smile)
Shou: Saga-kun’s songs reflect Saga-kun’s image, really pure and clear.
Saga: Uh. I’m a pure and clear person. (Smile)
Shou: Okay okay. (Smile) But this song especially has a cloudless, pure white sentiment, so I was able to write lyrics where human vice was left out. In any case, I wanted to depict a pure love, of wishing to do something for someone’s sake. In the book that I was reading at the time, the parents embraced their child, who wasn’t blood-related, with pure love. I took those contents, as well as memory, which is just beautified recollections, and compared them to the brilliant cut of a jewel, a sparkling image where various rays of brightness are emitted from various facets.
Saga: By the way, in my songs, there’s been no lyrics where nobody has died. (Smile)
Shou: Ahahahaha. That’s probably true. (Smile) That’s because there’s a lot of fantasy songs. Well, nobody’s died in [DEAD SCHOOL SCREAMING], but that’s about a school shooting with machine guns, so there must be someone who meets a bullet and probably dies...right? In contrast, personally I’ve found that lyrics about human vice come easily from Hiroto’s songs. They’re really energetic. A lot of Tora’s songs are breakthrough and stylish pieces, so I can write the lyrics freely. I get the feeling that they let me express words that come closest to how I honestly feel. Lately I’ve started feeling this way, that I’m affected differently depending on the composer. In this song, I’m actually singing the lyrics along the perspective in the song.
–The second song, [ROSARIO], was the most obvious Alice Nine. song.
Tora: Yeah. Out of the 3 songs, this song is probably the most Alice Nine.-ish. When I heard the original song and the arrangement, I had no doubt in my mind and was quickly certain.
Saga: This song is also by me, but it was left over as a lead song candidate from the first song selection meeting.
Hiroto: It’s a song where your image of it expands since you first listen to it. As opposed to [JEWELS] where I played the guitar with a sense of devotion, for this song I wanted to play the guitar as Hiroto. It’s like, through the guitar, I should try to express the image that I felt.
NAO: I think this song is like the hidden song on a double A-sided single. The theme of the drumming in this song was “carefree and feel-good drumming”.
Shou: The lyrics aren’t concrete; at the time I wrote them by sensation. But as for a theme, I think that the lyrics have a shining air, connecting back to the first song, that strongly express a wholehearted feeling of pouring devotion into another person. I think there’s a really marked progression from [NUMBER SIX.].
–[“13”] is Tora’s song and is a somewhat dark song, right.
Tora: Yeah. This is just straight rock, something that would only go on a normal record. Conversely speaking, I think of this song as “daringly putting an Alice Nine. spin on something that anybody could make”.
Saga: Because it was simple, we worked hard on it. But I think the cool thing about that kind of simplicity is that we were able to complete our exploration. In any case, with 4 chords, it’s a powerful song played with bold sounds.
Hiroto: It sounds like a live song, and so, it’s a song that explores 1 sensation: in the flow of the music, there’s a growing sensation of being at a live. I think it’s a song that let’s you experience us live.
NAO: That’s also because it’s a song that explored the sensation of speed and freedom. Anyways, I was able to play the drums the way I wanted. I hope you can feel the rush of the 16-beat!
Shou: I blabbed it out earlier, but this song is one of Tora’s songs, so the lyrics were written quite freely, running into the way that I’m feeling right now personally. Perhaps it’s because I’ve become really interested in medieval worlds lately, but I tried to write figuratively about the story of Christ and Judas, using the aspects “memory”, “feeling”, and “connection”. In the song, you can sense the tumultuous decision, and so that kind of message is also summed up in this song. Looking at the single that we finished this time, we think that a large part is indeed due to what we learned from last year’s tour. Our experiences from last year really showed up in this single. But, partly because we really learned a lot from last year, to be honest, this 1 single still doesn’t convey everything. That’s why I think we should spend this 1 year applying what we learned last year. I think if we do that, we might grow in a different way again, and we’ll be able to see something new. If that new growth brings us into next year, and that next year’s growth brings us into next next year, I hope that we’ll continue on forever. I hope that the band Alice Nine. continues to grow without rushing, slowly and steadily.
Launched as the first specialized visual magazine, SHOXX has witnessed the growth and history of numerous bands within the category of “visual kei”. Even now, perhaps most of the artists displayed within the pages of SHOXX have once followed the articles of their idolized senpais [seniors]. They are now trying to build upon that history.
Alice Nine. They are among the very artists whose existence has become central to the new visual scene. A memorable first time SHOXX cover. Exploring “Alice Nine.-ness”, the single [JEWELS] was finished on a fitting note for that kind of memorable moment.
–This time I would like to talk about the new single [JEWELS] that will be released on 3/21. It’s been one year since your last single, so there’s quite a gap open, right? Was that your intention there?
Hiroto: We weren’t thinking, “oh let’s leave some interval open and see”, that kind of thing, but when we released [ZEKKEISHOKU] (April 2006 release), we faced various challenges there, and so from there we took another step forward and we probably naturally started to explore “Alice Nine.-ness”.
Shou: That’s right. We didn’t want to end with just 1 tour for the album. We wanted to stretch it into 2 tours, or rather, we wanted to promote it more. The normal progression is that after the completion of an album, there’d be a tour showing off the album.
–After that tour, of course you’ll still be playing songs from that album in the lives, but in the tour following the album release, the set list does indeed showcase the album, and if you have a single release after that, as a requirement, the next tour will include the songs from the single, and so, instead, some songs from the album won’t be played at the lives.
Shou: Yes. There is that, and also, we strongly thought, not stretching it out needlessly but, that we would like to carefully treat the [ZEKKEISHOKU] album, which has become a big part of our lives.
Hiroto: That’s right, isn’t it. Plus, [ZEKKEISHOKU], including the tour afterwards, let us clearly see “the nature of Alice Nine.”, and because we grabbed hold of that sense, I think that the single we released after that showed a level of care greater than up until now.
–I see. Then, since when did you start working on this single? You must have had a conversation like, “let’s make a single now”, since around last year, right?
NAO: Yup. Probably since last fall. We had 2 rounds of song selection this time. There were probably about 10 songs.
–Was there any theme?
NAO: At the time, it was “something Alice Nine.-ish”. We wanted to do something that would strongly express the current Alice Nine.
Shou: I guess it’s partially from what we saw from making the album, and partially from our evolution since forming the band, but we think that the band Alice Nine.’s weapon is “catchy melodious parts”, so we felt that we’d like to explore that area more.
Tora: When we say “catchy”, it’s not just something bright. No matter how harsh a sound, even if it gives a dark impression, as long as there’s a distinct melody, it’s “catchy”.
Saga: Yeah. “Alice Nine.-ish melodies” or “Alice Nine.’s catch”, so to speak.
Shou: That’s right. Among those, this time we specially selected 3 songs that were pop.
–I see. Well then, let’s hear the songs one by one. The title single [JEWELS] was written by Saga.
Saga: Yes. In this song, the most important thing was the nuance of the song’s vocals and melody. Besides that, there’s the sense of creating it while skillfully combining the “us-ness” as we have constructed it up until now and the “us-ness” added from our new challenges. This time, the way I wrote the song was different than usual. Usually, I just create it from the background atmosphere, but this time I wrote it from the chords and the melody of the song. The song itself is soft and easy to listen to, but I wanted to write a song in which the phrases from the song’s vocals and lyrics would get stuck in your ear.
Tora: The original song is really poppy, so we were concerned about how Alice Nine. would adopt that. We didn’t want to do just pop, so we spent a lot of time arranging the song to sound more rock-ish. That’s not just this song, but the same thing can be said of the other 2 songs. Out of the 3 songs, this song had the most modern mix, so we mainly thought about striking a good balance between modernity and rock.
Hiroto: It’s 1 song that, while making it, required the camaraderie of the band.
–You can feel the depth of the song.
Hiroto: That’s right! We wanted to make the sounds in this song three-dimensional. We tried to make sure that instead of all the sounds mixing into each other, each and every sound would stand by itself freely and have its own position. After all, emotionally, I played the guitar with the sense of being “Maid Hiroto”. (Smile)
–“Maid Hiroto”? What’s that? (Smile)
Hiroto: I’m not advocating it, but I played the guitar with the feeling, “try to put devotion into this song”. (Smile) In this song, I would like you to feel that I played this song with devotion! (Smile)
NAO: When I heard this song from Saga-kun, I fell madly in love with the melody!
Everyone: Sile~e~e~ence.
Saga (unable to hold back): You can say those things with such a calm face. (Smile)
NAO: Ahahaha. I’m glad that Saga-kun smiled for me. (Relief) But it really was like that. I think that because he wrote it with the knowledge that many people would be listening to it, you can really feel the breadth of the song. Personally, I’ve always been conscientious of the position of the drums within the song when I drum, so focusing on the melody and playing the drums in order to promote the melody was a first experience. In that respect, I was probably also “Maid NAO”. (Smile)
Shou: Saga-kun’s songs reflect Saga-kun’s image, really pure and clear.
Saga: Uh. I’m a pure and clear person. (Smile)
Shou: Okay okay. (Smile) But this song especially has a cloudless, pure white sentiment, so I was able to write lyrics where human vice was left out. In any case, I wanted to depict a pure love, of wishing to do something for someone’s sake. In the book that I was reading at the time, the parents embraced their child, who wasn’t blood-related, with pure love. I took those contents, as well as memory, which is just beautified recollections, and compared them to the brilliant cut of a jewel, a sparkling image where various rays of brightness are emitted from various facets.
Saga: By the way, in my songs, there’s been no lyrics where nobody has died. (Smile)
Shou: Ahahahaha. That’s probably true. (Smile) That’s because there’s a lot of fantasy songs. Well, nobody’s died in [DEAD SCHOOL SCREAMING], but that’s about a school shooting with machine guns, so there must be someone who meets a bullet and probably dies...right? In contrast, personally I’ve found that lyrics about human vice come easily from Hiroto’s songs. They’re really energetic. A lot of Tora’s songs are breakthrough and stylish pieces, so I can write the lyrics freely. I get the feeling that they let me express words that come closest to how I honestly feel. Lately I’ve started feeling this way, that I’m affected differently depending on the composer. In this song, I’m actually singing the lyrics along the perspective in the song.
–The second song, [ROSARIO], was the most obvious Alice Nine. song.
Tora: Yeah. Out of the 3 songs, this song is probably the most Alice Nine.-ish. When I heard the original song and the arrangement, I had no doubt in my mind and was quickly certain.
Saga: This song is also by me, but it was left over as a lead song candidate from the first song selection meeting.
Hiroto: It’s a song where your image of it expands since you first listen to it. As opposed to [JEWELS] where I played the guitar with a sense of devotion, for this song I wanted to play the guitar as Hiroto. It’s like, through the guitar, I should try to express the image that I felt.
NAO: I think this song is like the hidden song on a double A-sided single. The theme of the drumming in this song was “carefree and feel-good drumming”.
Shou: The lyrics aren’t concrete; at the time I wrote them by sensation. But as for a theme, I think that the lyrics have a shining air, connecting back to the first song, that strongly express a wholehearted feeling of pouring devotion into another person. I think there’s a really marked progression from [NUMBER SIX.].
–[“13”] is Tora’s song and is a somewhat dark song, right.
Tora: Yeah. This is just straight rock, something that would only go on a normal record. Conversely speaking, I think of this song as “daringly putting an Alice Nine. spin on something that anybody could make”.
Saga: Because it was simple, we worked hard on it. But I think the cool thing about that kind of simplicity is that we were able to complete our exploration. In any case, with 4 chords, it’s a powerful song played with bold sounds.
Hiroto: It sounds like a live song, and so, it’s a song that explores 1 sensation: in the flow of the music, there’s a growing sensation of being at a live. I think it’s a song that let’s you experience us live.
NAO: That’s also because it’s a song that explored the sensation of speed and freedom. Anyways, I was able to play the drums the way I wanted. I hope you can feel the rush of the 16-beat!
Shou: I blabbed it out earlier, but this song is one of Tora’s songs, so the lyrics were written quite freely, running into the way that I’m feeling right now personally. Perhaps it’s because I’ve become really interested in medieval worlds lately, but I tried to write figuratively about the story of Christ and Judas, using the aspects “memory”, “feeling”, and “connection”. In the song, you can sense the tumultuous decision, and so that kind of message is also summed up in this song. Looking at the single that we finished this time, we think that a large part is indeed due to what we learned from last year’s tour. Our experiences from last year really showed up in this single. But, partly because we really learned a lot from last year, to be honest, this 1 single still doesn’t convey everything. That’s why I think we should spend this 1 year applying what we learned last year. I think if we do that, we might grow in a different way again, and we’ll be able to see something new. If that new growth brings us into next year, and that next year’s growth brings us into next next year, I hope that we’ll continue on forever. I hope that the band Alice Nine. continues to grow without rushing, slowly and steadily.
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