taste of chaos tour - nt2099 by wynne ip photography by nergene arquelada a j!-ent special feature...

I N T E R V I E W B Y W Y N N E I PP H O T O G R A P H Y B Y N E R G E N E A R Q U E L A D A

A J ! - E N T S P E C I A L F E AT U R E A R T I C L E A N D I N T E R V I E W

TASTE OF CHAOS TOURINTERVIEW WITH MUCC, D’ESPAIRSRAY & THE UNDERNEATH

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Copyright © 2008 by J!-ENT. www.j-entonline.com. All Rights Reserved.

THE J!-ENT INTERVIEW

J!-ENT’s Wynne Ip interviews MUCC, D’espairsRay and the Underneath.

11TASTE OF CHAOS J-ROCK PHOTO GALLERY

J!-ENT photographer Nergene Arquelada’s “TASTE OF CHAOS - J-ROCK PHOTO GALLERY” featuring MUCC, D’espairsRay and the Underneath

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previous interviewsVisit www.j-entonline.com for the following interviews and articles currentlyavailable on J!-ENT. Click on a cover to access a previous article/interview.

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TASTE OF CHAOS TOUR INTERVIEW WITH MUCC,, D’ESPAIRSRAY & THE UNDERNEATH

FROM L-R: The Underneath: Masaki (Dr.), Ryo (Ba.), Taka (Vo.), D’espairsRay: HIZUMI (Vo.), ZERO (Ba.) and MUCC: TATSURO (Vo.), MIYA (Gu.)Photo by Nergene Arquelada

n April 10, 2008, the 46-city rock tour “Taste of Chaos” made a stop at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California.

The tour showcased rock bands from all over the world, featuring the popular US bands Avenged Sevenfold, Atreyu, as well as Bullet for My Valentine from the UK, while MUCC, D’espairsRay, and The Un-derneath represented Japan. This is MUCC’s third appearance in the United States, with their first back in August 2006 at Otakon in Baltimore, MD, and their second in the following May at the first JRock Revolution in Los Angeles, CA. MUCC’s music is ever-changing, and each new album always gives fans a new sound to look forward to. Having just celebrated their 10th anni-versary last year, many of their singles and albums can be found on iTunes in the US, including their latest album “Shion” that just came out on March 26, 2008 amidst their US tour.

O They performed their newest songs such as “Fukurouno Yurikago” from the album, as well as fan favorites such as “Fuzz” and “Libra”. Much like MUCC, D’espairsRay also first toured America back in 2006, and was also featured in last year’s JRock Revolu-tion. With their music inspired by artists such as Korn, Marilyn Mason, and Linkin Park, D’espairsRay’s music is at the same time able to showcase the range of their charismatic vocalist, and that is a great trait that sometimes is difficult to find in a lot of American rock bands. D’espairsRay has released their 2007 album “Mirror” on iTunes in the US this March as well, and they, too, performed many songs from this album during the Taste of Chaos tour, including “Damned”, “Mirror”, Kaleidoscope”, “Sixty Nine”. The five-member band, The Under-neath, as strange as it might sound, were all members of another veteran band, named TRANSTIC NERVE.

The Underneath’s new music style “brings new life to industrial metal with the depth of their musicianship, produc-tion, and compelling live performances,” according to JSHOCK, who released The Underneath’s debut album “MOON FLOWER” in March 2008. With two guitarists in the band, The Underneath is able to deliver harmonious duets that one might sometimes find in other veteran bands such as X-JAPAN. Several hours before the Long Beach concert started, J!-ENT had an opportu-nity to sit down and have a quick chat with several members from the three bands about their experience at the “Taste of Chaos” tour in America.

J!-ENT: I noticed a lot of you have an Eng-lish blog on MySpace. With the “Taste of Chaos” tour coming to an end, do you think you will continue to blog for your overseas fans? MIYA from MUCC: We didn’t know how the MySpace blog worked before the tour. But ever since we started it, we have re-

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FROM L-R: The Underneath’s Taka (Vo.), D’espairsRay’s HIZUMI (Vo.) and ZERO (Ba.) Photo by Nergene Arquelada

FROM L-R: MUCC: TATSURO (Vo.) and MIYA (Gu.) Photo by Nergene Arquelada

TASTE OF CHAOS TOUR INTERVIEW WITH MUCC, D’ESPAIRSRAY & THE UNDERNEATH

ceived such great reaction from fans, we’re really happy about it. I’ll definitely want to continue with the blog.TATSURO from MUCC: During the tour, we wrote on our blog every day, and we would receive perhaps 30 to 40 com-ments. Then one day we wrote, “do you want us to continue the blog after we go back to Japan?” and the number of comments suddenly jumped to 200 (laughing). So yes, we definitely want to continue with the blog.HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: We had a little problem with the maintenance of the MySpace blog before, but now that they have fixed it, we would put our ef-forts in to write in our blog.Taka from The Underneath: MySpace is very new to us. When we came here, we got some overwhelming reactions. And when we want to know about other bands, we go to their MySpace to find out about their music. It’s the same for us. We definitely want to continue with the blog.

J!-ENT: Having performed in the US before, how do you compare your prior performances with this current tour, in terms of playing before an American

rock-based audience, instead of playing in front of probably fans that already know your music?MIYA from MUCC: It’s very different. First of all, the audience don’t know our songs, but when they like us, they open up and they let us know. We really hope that they’ve come to understand more J-rock music. That’s what we hope. Taka from The Underneath: Actually, when we went to all the different cities, I was very surprised by the number of people who already knew about “J-rock” and the music. In a way, I felt like we’re the ambassadors of “J-rock”, to bring its name and the fun to introduce to all over the world.

J!-ENT: You guys participated in a lot of signing sessions in the various cities, so you had a lot of opportunities to in-teract with fans. Did you experience anything funny during some of those signing sessions?Ryo from The Underneath: We’ve been together as another band for over ten years. One fan brought a magazine from ten years ago and asked us to sign it. The members from the other J-rock bands saw it and was like, “who the hell

are these guys?” (laughing)TATSURO from MUCC: Every time at the signing session, there would be people who have never heard of us before but were at the show and have really enjoyed our music. And they would come to us and say, “are you MUCC? You guys were great!” And they would give us high-fives and every great compliment. The fact that they would express their great feelings to us was something very excit-ing for us.MIYA from MUCC: We don’t hug and kiss in Japan, but here, people hug and kiss, so it is a little embarrassing for me. But I guess that’s the American culture.HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: When we do signing sessions in Japan, fans would never really ask us to sign on their body. But in America, people would ask us to sign on their hip or their boobs (laugh-ing), and so that was really interesting. I want to say “thank you” to those girls (laughing).

J!-ENT: With so many songs to choose from but only 30-minutes in each show, how did you decide what songs to play in the American tour?HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: We tried to

FROM L-R: The Underneath: Masaki (Dr.), Ryo (Ba.), Taka (Vo.) Photo by Nergene Arquelada

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FROM L-R: D’espairsRay’s ZERO (Ba.) and MUCC’s TATSURO (Vo.). Photo by Nergene Arquelada


pick up the fan favorites based on what we see on YouTube or the webpages to see what they’d like to hear most. That’s how we came up with our setlist.Taka from The Underneath: (In English) We have only 11 songs. Yeah. (laughing)Ryo from The Underneath: Because we joined the tour as “The Underneath”, so we were choosing only from The Under-neath’s 11 songs.MIYA from MUCC: We only have 30 min-utes to play, so we felt that we have to choose based on what best represents MUCC right now. Most of the audience don’t know who is MUCC, so everything is a new song for the audience. We already released our latest album “Shion” on iTunes, so by including some of our new-est songs from that album, we felt that that is best way to show them who MUCC is right now.

J!-ENT: Having toured with these US bands for a few months now, are there any elements you would like to bring back and incorporate into your future work or performance?TATSURO from MUCC: Usually when I sang in front of the Japanese audience, I would recall the situation when I wrote

the song or the person I wrote the song for. But I learned from this tour that I need to put all of those aside, because at this moment, for this audience in front of me, that’s who I’m performing for. So that’s what I’m going to bring back with me for the future.HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: For me, how we time with the audience, the timing to communicate with each other, is some-thing important that I’ve learned from this tour. For example, I would say to the au-dience, “we’re D’espairsRay from Japan!” And the audience is not expecting us to speak in English, and so they would listen to what we say. And they would respond but we would miss it. Those kind of timing we have learned a lot.Taka from The Underneath: We’re gonna have to teach our Japanese audience how to be more excited and party more.

J!-ENT: After the US tour, what other plans do you have in the near future?MIYA from MUCC: When we go back to Japan, we’ll have our Spring Tour in May. And then in June we will be playing in Sweden, Europe.HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: When we head back, we’ll be releasing a new single

in May, and then we’ll be touring Japan as well. After that, we’ll be making our next album.Taka from The Underneath: We’ll be tour-ing in Japan after we go back as well. But we see this American tour as our first step in the US, and so we will definitely come back again.

J!-ENT: Last but not least, what do you have to say to your overseas fans?MIYA from MUCC: Even though we tour overseas, we’re still based in Japan. So if you can, please come see us in Japan.TATSURO from MUCC: I hope that in the future, we can release our songs in Japan and overseas simultaneously, so that our overseas fans can enjoy them at the same time.HIZUMI from D’espairsRay: We love touring, so we will go anywhere as long as you invite us. So please invite us and enjoy with us!Taka from The Underneath: Even though we just started The Underneath, we have already received so many messages from all over the world. We’d love to go to all the different places to play for our fans, so please support us!

J!-ENT 7

TASTE OF CHAOS TOURJ!-ENT J-ROCK PHOTO GALLERY

BY NERGENE ARQUELADA

LONG BEACH, CA

TASTE OF CHAOS TOUR - J-ROCK PHOTO GALLERYBY J!-ENT’S NERGENE ARQUELADA

TASTE OF CHAOS TOUR - J-ROCK PHOTO GALLERY BY J!-ENT’S NERGENE ARQUELADA

MUCC


D’espairsRay


the underneath

Written by the staff of J!-ENT, a Japanese and Asian entertainment and pop culture website celebrating its 15th Year Anniversary in 2008. www.j-entonline.com

Nergene Arquelada joined J!-ENT as a photographer in 2004. He is known to many as the anime convention and cosplay photographer “Super No. 1”. Nergene has photographed bands, talents and industry professionals for J!-ENT. He is an avid fan of

Japanese and Korean music and dramas. Nergene graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Aerospace Engineering. In his spare time, he enjoys exercising at the gym and attending local cultural festivals. He currently lives in the Los Angeles area.

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Wynne Ip joined the J!-ENT family in the summer of 2004 and has contributed as an interviewer and a writer with a focus in Japanese rock music. Born in Hong Kong, Wynne has had classical piano training for10 years until she was 16 years old. Having been

exposed to J-rock for the first time in the late 90s while studying in the US, Wynne has since developed a love for this genre of music. Wynne graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Computer Science degree and is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.

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