NAVIGATION
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
Kerrang Jan.24, 2009
With Asia and America firmly under their spell, Dir en grey are now set to become a phenomenon in the UK. Can Japan's biggest stars handle it?
IN THE COMPANY OF DARKNESS
Words: Tom Bryant
Photos: Dave Willis
Photos: Dave Willis
The line outside The Wiltern Theatre stretches long into the distance along Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard. As it reaches the end of the block, the queue takes a sharp right turn, disappearing behind this famous venue. It snakes its way along South Oxford Avenue, past a passive car park and an array of low-rise shops, before breaking right again along another street. There it passes the amalgam of offices, restaurants and lock-ups that make up this, the Koreatown districk, before it turns yet another corner, almost doubling-back upon itself to where it starts.
All along the line as it files through the California night is the excited babble of voices, American teenagers and 20-somethings talking in a murmur of anticipation. Occasionally the pregnant air is punctuated by screams and whoops of delightful expectation, it's all for a band whose lyrics are sung in a foreign language, who speak little English and who, until recently, were virtually unknown here.
There's Edie Malone. She's been waiting here for four hours. She's nowhere near the front of the mass of people waiting to get inside. "I thought I might be a little nearer to the doors," she says, trying to hide her disappointment. "Oh well, I'll just have to push my way to the front inside."
All along the line as it files through the California night is the excited babble of voices, American teenagers and 20-somethings talking in a murmur of anticipation. Occasionally the pregnant air is punctuated by screams and whoops of delightful expectation, it's all for a band whose lyrics are sung in a foreign language, who speak little English and who, until recently, were virtually unknown here.
There's Edie Malone. She's been waiting here for four hours. She's nowhere near the front of the mass of people waiting to get inside. "I thought I might be a little nearer to the doors," she says, trying to hide her disappointment. "Oh well, I'll just have to push my way to the front inside."
Two hundred or so people further along there's Wayne Shechter and his friends. They've been here since noon. They're nowhere near the front either. "Yeah dude, but it's gonna be awesome anyway!" he shouts to massed yells and fist pumping about him.
A hundred people from the head of the line, there's a community feel. There's a vibe. There's an atmosphere. There are friendships being formed. There should be: some of these people have been sleeping together, standing together, talking together and eating together for days.
"No, we're not obsessed with the band," says Brandi Ulicney, who camped here overnight, "we're just really big fans. We sat down here yesterday evening with the bums on the street. People were looking at us, like we were animals at the zoo. They were like, 'You guys are weird'. I don't care. This band are just so different. They're not like every other band around. They're not singing about girls, money and cars. They actually mean something. They reach everybody."
At the front of the line, grubby, greasy but bouncing with eagerness is 20-year-old Richard Rivera. He's been here for four days and four nights. Over half a week. He missed Thanksgiving at home with his parents because he was under a sleeping bag on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. He missed the most important family day in the American calendar to be here, waiting for the doors to open.
He's not queuing to buy a ticket - he has that clutched tightly crumpled in his hand - he just wants... no needs to be first into the venue. He has to be stood front and middle before this band when they start to play.
"I want this to be real," he says, before echoing the thoughts of much of theses fans: "Their music is just so unlike anything else around. Japanese music is more complex and more meaningful than anything else I've ever heard..." he tails off, babbling a little, then finds his thread again. "They mean so much to me, they're so special. I don't always know what they're supposed to be singing about so every song is personal to me. It means what I want it to mean. I'll sing along in Japanese but I don't necessarily know what the words mean. I don't think that matters."
The band they're all here to see are megastars in their home country and across Asia. They're on the way to becoming stars in America. In fact, almost everywhere they go, they seem to strike gold.
But its's a band that refuse to talk about their personal lives. They refuse to talk about the meanings of their songs. They won't discuss their lyrics, almost all of which are written and sung in Japanese. They have a singer who makes words up onstage - when he's not crying like a baby or clawing at his chest and face until he bleeds - and who sometimes just sits down and refuses to sing at all. They are Dir en grey, and they've set their sights on England.
A hundred people from the head of the line, there's a community feel. There's a vibe. There's an atmosphere. There are friendships being formed. There should be: some of these people have been sleeping together, standing together, talking together and eating together for days.
"No, we're not obsessed with the band," says Brandi Ulicney, who camped here overnight, "we're just really big fans. We sat down here yesterday evening with the bums on the street. People were looking at us, like we were animals at the zoo. They were like, 'You guys are weird'. I don't care. This band are just so different. They're not like every other band around. They're not singing about girls, money and cars. They actually mean something. They reach everybody."
At the front of the line, grubby, greasy but bouncing with eagerness is 20-year-old Richard Rivera. He's been here for four days and four nights. Over half a week. He missed Thanksgiving at home with his parents because he was under a sleeping bag on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. He missed the most important family day in the American calendar to be here, waiting for the doors to open.
He's not queuing to buy a ticket - he has that clutched tightly crumpled in his hand - he just wants... no needs to be first into the venue. He has to be stood front and middle before this band when they start to play.
"I want this to be real," he says, before echoing the thoughts of much of theses fans: "Their music is just so unlike anything else around. Japanese music is more complex and more meaningful than anything else I've ever heard..." he tails off, babbling a little, then finds his thread again. "They mean so much to me, they're so special. I don't always know what they're supposed to be singing about so every song is personal to me. It means what I want it to mean. I'll sing along in Japanese but I don't necessarily know what the words mean. I don't think that matters."
The band they're all here to see are megastars in their home country and across Asia. They're on the way to becoming stars in America. In fact, almost everywhere they go, they seem to strike gold.
But its's a band that refuse to talk about their personal lives. They refuse to talk about the meanings of their songs. They won't discuss their lyrics, almost all of which are written and sung in Japanese. They have a singer who makes words up onstage - when he's not crying like a baby or clawing at his chest and face until he bleeds - and who sometimes just sits down and refuses to sing at all. They are Dir en grey, and they've set their sights on England.
Backstage, four of the five members of the band wander around in the aimless few hours before soundcheck. There's drummer Shinya Terachi, stick thin and feminine-looking. Bassist Toshiya (real name Hara Toshimara) and guitarist Die (or Andou Daisuke to his mother) sit in their dressing room, tapping at computers.
Guitarist and main songwriter Niikura Kaoru, know just as Kaoru, pads around too. Tall, authoritative and in control, he's a man who fully admits to keeping his emotions at bay, to keeping his feelings locked away, the better to remain in charge.
Only singer Kyo is missing, hidden away in the band's bus. He's been described variously as enigmatic, sullen, incommunicative, a poet and a genius by those who have met him or listened to his music. Offstage he writes volumes of verse under the name Tooru Nishimura and claims to have no friends whatsoever. Onstage he might simply stand in the front of the crowd and refuse to sing. He might also cut himself open and vent blood across the floor. Then again, he might just open his mouth and pour out the lyrics he says are written from the darkest place he knows - his heart.
He rarely talks to the press. But today he's made an exception and is lured from the band's bus into a dressing room to sit alongside his bandmate Kaoru. For the most part, he'll leave the guitar player to do the talking, preferring to sit silently in a corner, looking balefully ahead of him at a blank wall. It's only later, when alone, that he'll begin to speak about the foces that drive him - at first in one word answers but then with increasing fluidity.
Both speak via translator. Their English is good enough for quick conversations but won't stretch much further. And so, gradually, the story of their band emerges in this quiet backstage dressing room - first in Japanese and then in English.
Guitarist and main songwriter Niikura Kaoru, know just as Kaoru, pads around too. Tall, authoritative and in control, he's a man who fully admits to keeping his emotions at bay, to keeping his feelings locked away, the better to remain in charge.
Only singer Kyo is missing, hidden away in the band's bus. He's been described variously as enigmatic, sullen, incommunicative, a poet and a genius by those who have met him or listened to his music. Offstage he writes volumes of verse under the name Tooru Nishimura and claims to have no friends whatsoever. Onstage he might simply stand in the front of the crowd and refuse to sing. He might also cut himself open and vent blood across the floor. Then again, he might just open his mouth and pour out the lyrics he says are written from the darkest place he knows - his heart.
He rarely talks to the press. But today he's made an exception and is lured from the band's bus into a dressing room to sit alongside his bandmate Kaoru. For the most part, he'll leave the guitar player to do the talking, preferring to sit silently in a corner, looking balefully ahead of him at a blank wall. It's only later, when alone, that he'll begin to speak about the foces that drive him - at first in one word answers but then with increasing fluidity.
Both speak via translator. Their English is good enough for quick conversations but won't stretch much further. And so, gradually, the story of their band emerges in this quiet backstage dressing room - first in Japanese and then in English.
They grew up in Osaka in southern Japan in the late '70s and 80's without much thought of becoming musicians. Exposed only to domestic J-pop and imported chart-toppers, rock music was something almost entirely alien to them. It was only high school that they began to hear more and more sounds from the Japanese underground and, suddenly, things began to fall into place.
"We simply wanted to create," says Kaoru. "We just wanted to make music we enjoyed. When we started we wanted to be different from everyone else and we still do. At that time, a lot of bands called themselves rock bands, but, really, they were pop bands. Back then we wanted to be the exact opposite: we wanted to create noise - something heavy and dark."
Called La:Sadie's - and made up of four of the five current members of Dir en grey - their music was a dense, swirling and bleak noise. Kyo says it couldn't possibly be put into a genre, "it was just so dark.... there was no light at all."
"We'd go onstage and even a 20 minute set was too much for me to handle," adds Kaoru. "It wasn't really about music so much as just an outpouring of emotion onstage. That was pretty much what we were all about. What we were doing back then was just very youthful - almost immature I suppose - because there was very little that was technical or even musical about the band. It was just full on. Eventually we came to a point where we realised we weren't going anywhere. So we all mutually decided to just end it."
Recruiting bassist Toshiya along the way, they moved to Tokyo in 1997 and started working immediately on new material - at the behest of their new management.
"There was really hardly any time to think. Our managers wanted us to release an album as soon as possible, so we started writing immediately," says Kaoru. "Then we recorded and instantly went out to play shows. So for six months, we didn't really know what was going on - things were just constantly happening."
And what was happening was extraordinary. Their debut gigs immediately sold out, their first record, independently released, went to Number 7 in the Japanese charts - a then record - and by the end of 1998 they were playing to a sold out 14,000-capacity Budokan, a venue that has previously hosted the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Guns N'Roses. In context, London's O2 Arena holds 16,000 people for a concert.
"We were overwhelmed by the response," admits Kaoru, "but it was almost too overwhelming. We were afraid that we'd be a flash in the pan, something temporary. We were scared we'd blow up and then disappear, that no one would remember us. So our reaction was half and half - we were happy it was going well, but worried it would all end the next day. So we thought pretty hard about where we were going to go. We wanted to move to a different level rather than just thread water in the mainstream."
So began a cycle that would come to be a trademark of Dir en grey albums: that no one album would ever sound much like the last.
It's always the same for us - whenever we release an album, we immediately start thinking about the next one. We always want to make the next one deeper, darker and more aggressive. We want each album to have more meaning than the one before. That was especially the case back then. The second album is often a reaction against the first album and that was probably a little true for us, too."
"We simply wanted to create," says Kaoru. "We just wanted to make music we enjoyed. When we started we wanted to be different from everyone else and we still do. At that time, a lot of bands called themselves rock bands, but, really, they were pop bands. Back then we wanted to be the exact opposite: we wanted to create noise - something heavy and dark."
Called La:Sadie's - and made up of four of the five current members of Dir en grey - their music was a dense, swirling and bleak noise. Kyo says it couldn't possibly be put into a genre, "it was just so dark.... there was no light at all."
"We'd go onstage and even a 20 minute set was too much for me to handle," adds Kaoru. "It wasn't really about music so much as just an outpouring of emotion onstage. That was pretty much what we were all about. What we were doing back then was just very youthful - almost immature I suppose - because there was very little that was technical or even musical about the band. It was just full on. Eventually we came to a point where we realised we weren't going anywhere. So we all mutually decided to just end it."
Recruiting bassist Toshiya along the way, they moved to Tokyo in 1997 and started working immediately on new material - at the behest of their new management.
"There was really hardly any time to think. Our managers wanted us to release an album as soon as possible, so we started writing immediately," says Kaoru. "Then we recorded and instantly went out to play shows. So for six months, we didn't really know what was going on - things were just constantly happening."
And what was happening was extraordinary. Their debut gigs immediately sold out, their first record, independently released, went to Number 7 in the Japanese charts - a then record - and by the end of 1998 they were playing to a sold out 14,000-capacity Budokan, a venue that has previously hosted the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Guns N'Roses. In context, London's O2 Arena holds 16,000 people for a concert.
"We were overwhelmed by the response," admits Kaoru, "but it was almost too overwhelming. We were afraid that we'd be a flash in the pan, something temporary. We were scared we'd blow up and then disappear, that no one would remember us. So our reaction was half and half - we were happy it was going well, but worried it would all end the next day. So we thought pretty hard about where we were going to go. We wanted to move to a different level rather than just thread water in the mainstream."
So began a cycle that would come to be a trademark of Dir en grey albums: that no one album would ever sound much like the last.
It's always the same for us - whenever we release an album, we immediately start thinking about the next one. We always want to make the next one deeper, darker and more aggressive. We want each album to have more meaning than the one before. That was especially the case back then. The second album is often a reaction against the first album and that was probably a little true for us, too."
It was shortly after the release of that second album, Macabre, that something would happen that would change singer Kyo's life forever. Standing too close to a flash box, used in Dir en grey's onstage pyro display, he was deafened in his left ear. Hospitalized and fearing he would never hear again, he went into a black period of depression.
"I was afraid. I only have music and suddenly it seemed I might not be able to make it anymore," he says. "That frightened me a lot. I didn't know what was going to happen. I'm a vocalist and, if I can't hear, I can't sing."
The Kyo that emerged from the hospital - not deaf, as he feared, but with the hearing in his left ear permanently damaged - was very different. Gone were the trappings of gaudy, flashy stage make-up and costumes of the visual kei movement that the band had once followed. In their place was a newly intense singer, one who had little value for his own feelings onstage. He'd rip apart his skin in front of crowds, clawing at his face and chest, he'd rely solely on his instincts. It's something he still does.
"I didn't think people should put so much importance in appearance - so that's when I started to cut myself onstage," he says. "It marked a point where I really wanted to push myself to try to convey my own self more in my lyrics. Now everything just happens as it happens onstage. It doesn't frighten me but I do lose control a lot."
He's a complex character. Silent when sat next to guitarist Kaoru, it's only alone that he begins to speak. Yet, the more he says, the less it seems it's possible to know him. He point-black snubs any approach as to what his lyrics mean, nor will he stand questions as to what inspires him - saying only "I write about what I feel at the exact moment I'm writing". But some of his lyrics have included such subjects as rape, abortion, abuse, sexual obsession and religion - subjects that have brought the band sharply to the attention of the Japanese board of censors.
Are these experiences he has been through first hand?
"I don't want to talk about it."
Are these experiences his friends have been through?
"I don't want to talk about it."
Are they stories he has read about?
"I don't want to talk about it. I'd rather people had their own interpretations. I want people to listen to the music and lyrics as a package - it's not about picking out meanings, particularly. It's the same as when I listen to an American album. I don't understand what the lyrics mean but I listen to the sounds the singer makes and put that together with the music as a package. That's how I want people to listen to our music."
What is clear, though, is that Kyo's lyrics are not coming from a happy place. In translation, most reveal a picture that is bleak at best.
"I'm a very negative person so, even if something good is happening, I always think that it can't be permanent - it will disappear," he says. "I feel that there's never anything good in my life."
Is writing a form of therapy for him, then?
"I'd like to have something like that in my life to calm me down but I don't think writing or singing is it," he says. "I don't think things will ever be good for me. I'd like to move away from being a negative person but I worry that, if I become a happy, carefree person, then I won't be myself anymore."
He's a loner by choice, one who has few friends and who allows few to come close to him. Even alongside the rest of his band, people he has known since childhood, he remains alone, aloof.
"I've never met anyone who I can be really close friends with," he says. "A lot of people might think they're friends with me but I've never met anyone whose personality can fit with mine. There are a lot of people I can get on with on a superficial level but I can never go deeper with anyone. On my cell phone, if someone hasn't been in touch for a half year, I'll delete them so that I don't have to remember who they are.
"It's not that I don't want people to get close to me or know about me - I'm just living my life," he adds. "This is just the way I am. I just live my life according how I feel. I'm the opposite of Kaoru - he won't bring his emotions into anything but I always do. My emotions come into everything. I do whatever I feel I have to do."
"I was afraid. I only have music and suddenly it seemed I might not be able to make it anymore," he says. "That frightened me a lot. I didn't know what was going to happen. I'm a vocalist and, if I can't hear, I can't sing."
The Kyo that emerged from the hospital - not deaf, as he feared, but with the hearing in his left ear permanently damaged - was very different. Gone were the trappings of gaudy, flashy stage make-up and costumes of the visual kei movement that the band had once followed. In their place was a newly intense singer, one who had little value for his own feelings onstage. He'd rip apart his skin in front of crowds, clawing at his face and chest, he'd rely solely on his instincts. It's something he still does.
"I didn't think people should put so much importance in appearance - so that's when I started to cut myself onstage," he says. "It marked a point where I really wanted to push myself to try to convey my own self more in my lyrics. Now everything just happens as it happens onstage. It doesn't frighten me but I do lose control a lot."
He's a complex character. Silent when sat next to guitarist Kaoru, it's only alone that he begins to speak. Yet, the more he says, the less it seems it's possible to know him. He point-black snubs any approach as to what his lyrics mean, nor will he stand questions as to what inspires him - saying only "I write about what I feel at the exact moment I'm writing". But some of his lyrics have included such subjects as rape, abortion, abuse, sexual obsession and religion - subjects that have brought the band sharply to the attention of the Japanese board of censors.
Are these experiences he has been through first hand?
"I don't want to talk about it."
Are these experiences his friends have been through?
"I don't want to talk about it."
Are they stories he has read about?
"I don't want to talk about it. I'd rather people had their own interpretations. I want people to listen to the music and lyrics as a package - it's not about picking out meanings, particularly. It's the same as when I listen to an American album. I don't understand what the lyrics mean but I listen to the sounds the singer makes and put that together with the music as a package. That's how I want people to listen to our music."
What is clear, though, is that Kyo's lyrics are not coming from a happy place. In translation, most reveal a picture that is bleak at best.
"I'm a very negative person so, even if something good is happening, I always think that it can't be permanent - it will disappear," he says. "I feel that there's never anything good in my life."
Is writing a form of therapy for him, then?
"I'd like to have something like that in my life to calm me down but I don't think writing or singing is it," he says. "I don't think things will ever be good for me. I'd like to move away from being a negative person but I worry that, if I become a happy, carefree person, then I won't be myself anymore."
He's a loner by choice, one who has few friends and who allows few to come close to him. Even alongside the rest of his band, people he has known since childhood, he remains alone, aloof.
"I've never met anyone who I can be really close friends with," he says. "A lot of people might think they're friends with me but I've never met anyone whose personality can fit with mine. There are a lot of people I can get on with on a superficial level but I can never go deeper with anyone. On my cell phone, if someone hasn't been in touch for a half year, I'll delete them so that I don't have to remember who they are.
"It's not that I don't want people to get close to me or know about me - I'm just living my life," he adds. "This is just the way I am. I just live my life according how I feel. I'm the opposite of Kaoru - he won't bring his emotions into anything but I always do. My emotions come into everything. I do whatever I feel I have to do."
Perhaps it's this bleakness at Dir en grey's core that has seen them clock up fans across the world. First came Asia in 2002 where people in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea would chase their bus down the street.
"It was so crazy. People were following us everywhere," says Kaoru. "It was too much. We're a rock band and we want people to appreciate our music but it felt like people were after us more than our music. We were becoming idols, which isn't right."
By 2005, with their fifth album under their belt, they were touring en Europe. Without releasing a single record outside Asia, without conduction any inverviews, without a shred of advance publicity, they sold out venues across Germany - as always, finding fans willing to sing along in a tongue they did not understand.
"We just didn't think there would be anyone out there who would come to see us," says Kaoru. "We were overwhelmed by the people who showed up. I think probably the internet helped. Also, Japanese culture has been getting more popular - Anime cartoons and that sort of thing. That's probably helped turn people's heads our way."
A year later, they were guests of Korn on the 2006 Family Values Tour, alongside Deftones and Stone Sour, before again supporting Deftones across America in 2007. And slowly, surely, they were becoming a phenomenon.
There, they would play in front of crowds who had no idea who they were, who probably didn't care. Yet, to their astonishment, they began to hear crowds singing along. In Japanese. Their own headline tour was soon to follow.
"It's very flattering for fans to memorise our lyrics even though they don't understand the language," says Kaoru. "At the same time Japanese audiences sing along to foreign acts too so perhaps it's not something that's too unusual."
"It was so crazy. People were following us everywhere," says Kaoru. "It was too much. We're a rock band and we want people to appreciate our music but it felt like people were after us more than our music. We were becoming idols, which isn't right."
By 2005, with their fifth album under their belt, they were touring en Europe. Without releasing a single record outside Asia, without conduction any inverviews, without a shred of advance publicity, they sold out venues across Germany - as always, finding fans willing to sing along in a tongue they did not understand.
"We just didn't think there would be anyone out there who would come to see us," says Kaoru. "We were overwhelmed by the people who showed up. I think probably the internet helped. Also, Japanese culture has been getting more popular - Anime cartoons and that sort of thing. That's probably helped turn people's heads our way."
A year later, they were guests of Korn on the 2006 Family Values Tour, alongside Deftones and Stone Sour, before again supporting Deftones across America in 2007. And slowly, surely, they were becoming a phenomenon.
There, they would play in front of crowds who had no idea who they were, who probably didn't care. Yet, to their astonishment, they began to hear crowds singing along. In Japanese. Their own headline tour was soon to follow.
"It's very flattering for fans to memorise our lyrics even though they don't understand the language," says Kaoru. "At the same time Japanese audiences sing along to foreign acts too so perhaps it's not something that's too unusual."
Tonight, at the Wiltern, it's certainly not unusual. As Dir en grey take to the stage, the cheer that goes up is almost feral - a hormonal wail unlike anything that meets most bands. The American security, over-officious at the best of times, is working over-time to restrain people from clambering over anything they can in this art-deco building. And throughout comes the chorus of American singing in Japanese.
Onstage Kyo is not, for once, mutilating himself. He can be found at one point, however, crouched in a foetal position onstage and alone. He starts to cry, sobbing gently at first, then building up into full-scale hysteria, screaming, weeping, bawling, then howling into the microphone in his solitary spotlight.
In the audience, it's pin-drop quiet as everyone stands rapt, their eyes on the singer. Then one girl, misguidedly, yells at Kyo to "get the fuck on with it". She is instantly set upon by the three people nearest to her, blows raining down on her head until the security are forced to step in. As a measure of how high feelings run among Dir en grey's fans, it's as good as most.
And this loyalty, this devotion, is something they've achieved in America just two years and three short tours. It's something they've achieved without being able to communicate anything to their fans except their music. They played their first UK show in 2007. If their career follows the same path over here as it did in America, Dir en grey could be 2009's biggest success story. You have been warned.
Onstage Kyo is not, for once, mutilating himself. He can be found at one point, however, crouched in a foetal position onstage and alone. He starts to cry, sobbing gently at first, then building up into full-scale hysteria, screaming, weeping, bawling, then howling into the microphone in his solitary spotlight.
In the audience, it's pin-drop quiet as everyone stands rapt, their eyes on the singer. Then one girl, misguidedly, yells at Kyo to "get the fuck on with it". She is instantly set upon by the three people nearest to her, blows raining down on her head until the security are forced to step in. As a measure of how high feelings run among Dir en grey's fans, it's as good as most.
And this loyalty, this devotion, is something they've achieved in America just two years and three short tours. It's something they've achieved without being able to communicate anything to their fans except their music. They played their first UK show in 2007. If their career follows the same path over here as it did in America, Dir en grey could be 2009's biggest success story. You have been warned.
DIR EN GREY ARE ON THE KERRANG! RELENTLESS ENERGY DRINK TOUR 2009. SEE GIGS FOR DETAILS.
THE SITE
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Small Large |
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
