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Kiyou Bank × FM802 DREAM BANK PROJECT
Vol.15 - Musician: SCANDAL
The first thing we'd like to ask is about the earliest dream you've had. Do you remember yours?
【HARUNA】 Mine was to be a singer. I already knew when I was 5 or 6 years old. I looked up to Namie Amuro and knew I wanted to become a singer ever since I thought of how I wanted to be like her.
Have the three of you been asked that too?
【RINA, MAMI, TOMOMI】 Yes, we have.
【RINA】 The four of us met at a dance school. At that school were many people who came for lessons as well as many people who wanted to go into show business. I knew from the start that HARUNA was someone who attended the school aiming to become a pro.
Did the four of you similarly aim to be artists?
【MAMI】 We're actually all different in that regard. It was like that for HARUNA and RINA. TOMOMI and MAMI attended the dance school back then to learn, and we went because just dancing itself was fun.
It is a glass-enclosed dance school under that elevated structure in Kyobashi, isn't it?
【All】 That's right! It's there.
It seems like things have progressed very well for you girls who had set a goal of wanting to become artists after meeting at school and forming a band. How did you actually feel about that?
【HARUNA】 It was like that at the beginning. We had strong feelings of frustration. I think it was especially like that for me and RINA, who wanted to sing and dance. The notion of "playing instruments" was suddenly set in front of us, and it felt like our fate had done a complete 180.
That was a sense of frustration?
【HARUNA】 It was a collaboration where it was impossible to shut down our encounters with one another and we were walking step by step within a boundary, so we imagined that we'd expand our field further using this as an experience.
What you wanted to do was to dance and sing. Did you think that you would resist setbacks that suddenly fell onto you?
【HARUNA】 The feelings of us being able to express ourselves with music no matter what the form won us over.
【RINA】 We thought our possibilities would expand.
Like, if you could end up doing music in the end, it wouldn't matter whether it'd be through dance or a band.
【HARUNA】 Yes, we also became interested in instruments. I never thought of that as an option until now.
What was it like back then holding instruments?
【MAMI】 A lot of things surprised us, having zero knowledge about them. But the moment we let out a simple sound...the moment the four of us let out sounds together was so moving. It was like, "A sound came out!" (laughs). It was like we came across something new to express ourselves in a way that was different from singing and dancing.
It's like, even though you had a medium of expressing yourselves up until then, this will be the new way of expressing yourselves using a new means from then on.
【MAMI】 That difference was so interesting. We had been able to express ourselves well with body language and words until then, but how can we express ourselves with guitar nuances and performances? The four of us talked about that while watching and studying DVDs night after night.
What kind of artist DVDs did you watch?
【MAMI】 At first we truly had no idea what a band was like, and we all went to a rental DVD shop and rented a strange combination of KISS, Jimi Hendrix, and Sum 41. We all chose them by their covers.
【RINA】 At any rate, we chose showy ones.
【MAMI】 Sum 41's performance was the one that matched up the best among the ones we watched.
【TOMOMI】 We couldn't mimic the other bands because they had fire elements (laughs).
【RINA, MAMI, TOMOMI】 That's right (laughs). So nostalgic.
Were there things that matched up to you and you wondered if you should include something by going in this direction as a band?
【MAMI】 "It might be cool if we did this during a live"...those times were when the four members of Sum 41 were together. We thought a style like, "Let's jump here, let's decide on a pose" would be cool.
【RINA】 As for performances, we thought that being a showy band would be cool.
As a representation of the band?
【RINA】 Yes. We were captivated by showy stages.
Holding instruments was a passive thing at first. From what point did your dreams solidify?
【RINA】 It was very a complex thing to be a band that came from a dance school. Because the four of us danced, in the beginning we combined instruments and dancing by dancing while playing instruments in our music videos. We also did choreography in a range we could play at lives. There were people who said it was fresh and interesting, but we were conflicted, wondering, "Can you truly call this being a rock band?" It didn't seem like this was a good thing at first, and it always felt like there was a drawback to it somewhere. It was also frustrating because we didn't write our own songs in the early days. We honestly thought that SCANDAL's songs are really cool, but if we didn't make them ourselves then they wouldn't be accepted by rock kids. Now we make our own songs and we finally feel like the band is the most ideal shape as it is right now.
It took ten years for you to get here.
【RINA】 That's right. It feels like the things we can do have increased one by one. We're now a band that we've come to understand by continuing on.
Did it not seem like you could have made it here while things were piling up?
【RINA】 Yes...it felt like there were so many disappointments. There were many ways we could have been viewed, making our major debut wearing school uniforms, and because we played many kinds of songs, I think we can say that our breadth has grown as well. But, I think it was hard to catch on what kind of band we were. What I want now is for our spirit to be properly understood.
As for playing lives at Shiroten right after forming, I think that Shiroten was also a place where musicians-in-the-making with dreams gathered. What was the atmosphere like there?
【MAMI】 We felt disappointment there as well. There were people playing lives at Osaka-Jo Hall and pedestrian traffic there, and although we also had those people watch us as we played there, on normal weekends...there were no people at all there when no events were going on, we'd go there as long as it didn't rain, we made and passed out our own flyers. Even so, there were hardly any people who stopped to watch us...our hearts were almost broken then.
How did you have a driving force even after all that?
【MAMI】 We had no choice but to do it. By ourselves. The band was all we had.
【TOMOMI】 When we played at Shiroten, Osaka-Jo Hall was right in front of us. Since the beginning we had talked about going there someday. We didn't have a foundation at all, but we had confidence. Our feelings of "We can do it here, we want to do it" were very strong. That's why the members were able to have the same dream in the beginning. We've been able to continue because of that. We worked hard with that as our dream until we got there.
Your dream of playing at Osaka-Jo Hall came true.
【TOMOMI】 That made us so, so happy. We were happy, but we were also nervous that we'd no longer have a dream after fulfilling our dream that we had continued to talk about for such a long time. We thought we'd burn out, but the moment it was over we were surprised that it turned into a passage point for us. We found out we still have many more things we want to do.
One of the things you want to do that came from that was to always share things among band?
【All】 Yes!
【RINA】 We're the type of band that talks quite a bit.
【MAMI】 (laughs)
【RINA】 Since we truly have a lot of time where the four of us are together, if it's early enough when work ends, the four of us go out to eat. Things like that. We always talk about the band on a daily basis.
*好奇心 = "curiosity"
Last year you celebrated your tenth anniversary. Do you have any dreams or goals for the future?
【RINA】 Venue-wise, there are still many large ones we haven't yet been to...we're a band that also has fans overseas, so we want to respond there as well. But, above all, we we hope to continue on for a long time. Because we're a band that has had many misunderstandings changed into understandings over ten years, we want to continue on steadily. Besides, I think the next ten years for us girls will be large and steep. While thinking of many things such as marriage, the band is currently our priority. We want to keep going as far as we can.
All right, finally, please give a message to those who are currently working hard towards their dreams.
【HARUNA】 It's the same for us...but even if you're not on the road you imagined, you might just end up somewhere anyway. There's a possibility that it could surprisingly fit you well. So, don't limit things like your dreams. I want you to look at things with wide eyes. A very enjoyable life might be waiting for you.
【MAMI】 You really do not know what will trigger something. People who wanted to dance and sing are now in a band. Because there are so many different opportunities, don't refuse things by thinking this isn't what you want to do or it doesn't suit you; they might turn out okay. Taking things casually is okay, so I think just trying things is important. It might turn out to be different, or you might start to like it. For young people especially, I want you to live being full of curiosity.
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