Recently in November of 2019, Kirito, the vocalist and band leader of the Japanese rock band Angelo was invited to talk about his thoughts on the visual kei movement of the 90’s in the Youtube Channel of Allen, who is the drummer of the Japanese band Serenity In Murder, and who has also participated as support musician with several acts, doing drums for other artists including Kirito during his recent solo concerts.
I decided to translate this video because Kirito’s thoughts on the visual kei movement and also his thoughts on the comparison with this era are very interesting. I apologize for any mistakes.
Allen: This time we invite Kirito from Angelo, we are visiting Kirito’s private studio. And today we are going to ask Kirito to talk to us about Visual Kei.
Kirito: Visual kei…
A: That’s right
K: So, because it’s about visual kei, then you ask me (laughs)
A: Of course! (laughs)
K: I occasionally forget about it… (smiles)
A: Kirito is a big visual kei legend.
K: Nah, not at all.
A: Right now, he is currently active with the band Angelo, and today although he is very busy in the middle of their acclaimed tour, he is today with us making an appearance here. Thanks a lot!
K: You’re the Youtube teacher. I can’t refuse if I am called by the teacher. If it weren’t for you Allen, I wouldn’t be here at all.
A: Ohh I’m grateful for that, thanks! I had the privilege of touring together with Kirito in summer, and I also had the privilege of appearing in Kirito’s Youtube channel. So, without any more delays, in regards to the main topic, Kirito is having his 21 years anniversary this year, and he has always been involved in the Visual Kei field, in those days at the beginning he debuted and was active with the band PIERROT, and today he’s active in the band Angelo. So, I would like to hear from Kirito, what are his thoughts about the transition and natural ambience of the Visual Kei.
K: Well, to be honest, there was a time when my generation was not really aware about being named under the category of “Visual kei”. So, afterwards, it wasn’t really a V-kei boom, it just became something common and a little bit out of place too. Consequently, at that time PIERROT was somewhat considered as a representative of the V-kei, however for our point of view, we were just debuting after seeing the previous generation with the likes of LUNA SEA, X Japan etc., so it was a generation that was not really self-conscious about what is referred to as Visual kei.
Well, how should I put it? it was really like a new genre. Instead of the feeling of just having make-up when going out into the stage, and in order to enjoy the visuals, for example, we would try things close to white make-up for actors etc., and the clothing at that time too, it was not like it is today; at that time clothes to be used specifically for V-kei were not sold at all. So, we did things like making our own clothes by cutting and patching women’s clothing, in order to look disgusting, and wear things like skirts on purpose too. V-kei was not a trend, it was actually meant to shock people visually, it was okay to be disgusting, and well, I think by doing such things we had the feeling we were able to enchant others, and because there were people whose level is higher than those of my generation, therefore the V-kei word became something established.
A: I see. So, we could say that Kirito’s performance turning into visual kei shape happened a little bit before that time.
K: When we continued to be referred to this way, I really thought it felt like being looked down on, however later I had the feeling that it became established that when there’s things like make-up it will be roughly referred to in this manner. And I don’t mean that I overlooked everything related to V-kei to get to this point, in the end I got to where I was by not only thinking about myself.
A: Ah well, about the band too.
K: Yeah, I was doing that continuously until reaching this point, and when you think about the overall flow, and if you ask me how we did it, maybe it was going in the opposite way.
A: I see. Yeah, so we could say that during the 90’s era, the band-men of visual kei had a strained feeling about this, and I think you could see a bit of a glimpse of that.
K: When I said such things, it couldn’t be helped that my seniors got angry at me (laughs). Maybe it was a state, we could also say it was a state of human nature, you know the flow coming from a delinquent is to be very quarrelsome. While living as someone who was ready to pick up a fight with anyone, perhaps it is why I was able to start a band. And this was more real to me than the fact that what was considered as visual kei because people in the past did it that way.
A: I see, it was your own thing.
K: I was really quarrelsome (laughs). But it had to be like that in order to survive the brutality, I think I had that kind of temperament.
A: Actually, before meeting Kirito I did have that kind of image in my mind… (laughs) However, when I met you for the first time, you were surprisingly kind, a very good senior whom I had the pleasure to be able to perform with.
K: Are you really sure about that? When I meet people for the first time, they are usually very scared (laughs).
A: That’s right (laughs).
K: The people from the young generation are perhaps very peaceful. In the past it was more like in the middle of the carnage, you would need to snatch the customers in order to survive, it was like trying to crush everyone except yourselves, that kind of ambient from the delinquents of the past era is something that the people from today really don’t have. And this is why, I’ve come to feel this peacefulness naturally.
A: I think maybe more than a visual kei related thing, it was more like the big trend of that era. I think the band-men of the 90’s visual kei era had a strong nature to become stars. Instead, today with the emergence of SNS, anyone is able to broadcast, so it’s considerable harder to become a big star.
K: I think it is like that in any world. For example, even in the Youtube world, I think it’s like that in various genres. Isn’t it also like that when a new genre is born? It’s like the dawn of a new era, where rules have not really being decided yet, at the time when a movement has just being born, and the people who participate in such movement is still not many, and from there, there are a lot of troubles, mistakes and ideas, where people aimed to go to a unique place, and from there, little by little the road starts to be built.
The people that join later, start to add more roads to the already established road, over and over, and when you get to the next generations, then the road has been properly completed already. Conversely, for those people that were at the dawn of something new, who had to create the rules first and fight through it, they had to face a lot of risks and difficulties. When you build something from the beginning to that extent, that’s when you reach that sort of status. Well, that’s the status you achieve when you have gone through that much effort and difficulties, this is when you are referred to as a “star”, maybe in the world of show business, regardless of the music genre, be it rock, visual kei etc.
For example, this is the case also when it comes to Youtube, the people that established their status in the dawn of that era, weren’t they able to shake things too? And the numbers are great too, things were able to start out from the originality of someone, however the younger generation that comes later might never be able to win in this road
If you ask me, I think that’s the main difference of this era. In the era of Visual kei for example, the people from the previous generation prior to mine were fighting from nothing. When I started the PIERROT band, there was a “case model” that my seniors had already fought for to some degree already. And in my case, I was aiming for the gaps in the portions that had not been successful, and that doesn’t mean that I did not want to become like these people, these people were here before I was, and I just wanted to aim toward the things that these people had not done yet, and by doing that, I wanted to be able to establish myself in that place.
Afterwards, when the time passed and I looked at the history, Kirito and PIERROT with our uniqueness, and in order for our name being lined up with the great names in history, I was always thinking a lot about our originality. So, I did it that way for this purpose.
So maybe the difference in this era is that as more younger generations come to be, there are just too many “model cases”, and rather than becoming unique they would choose one of the many existing recommended courses by those that they liked and received a lot of influence from, and then it becomes like “I chose this course and I want to be completely immersed into it” (laughs). Maybe that difference is huge.
A: Yeah, it’s definitely big. What Kirito just mentioned is very profound, that even with the existence of such senior bands, you were able to aim towards such originality…
K: I always thought a lot about it. I was always very conscious about coming up with contents that were not already within any of the other existing products.
A: Well, that’s for example songs, and it’s also strongly tied to the band activities, right?
K: It’s everything. Whether it’s songs or lyrics writing style, etc.
A: So in regards to that, now that Kirito is leading the band Angelo, and has also introduced himself in the Youtube market, what is the vision that Kirito has pictured for the future?
K: During the passing of time since I debuted more than 20 years ago, there are many things that have changed. I made a contract with a record company for my major debut, appeared in many TV shows and music magazines, and sold a lot of CDs; from that reality, now the times are changing continuously again.
Now there’s downloading, even the methods for streaming are changing today, for example, when an album is released, and when you think about how to do the promotion for it; if it was in the past, you would need to appear a lot in news coverage in music magazines, and also appear in music TV shows; that kind of thing has changed now, there are almost no music magazines anymore. Even in TV, there’s no such thing as genuine music TV programs anymore, they have disappeared, therefore the method for promotion has changed. For example, there’s Youtube, and from here you can broadcast content from your own channel, and there’s no time limit for the videos.
I thought I wanted to put in practice the things that I am able to use. According to what I’ve heard about Youtube, if you have 1 million subscribers, and your average number of views is 1 million, you can achieve a level of influence as high as having a prime-time TV show. When you think about it, this method of transmission is something that can’t be overestimated. The methods are changing rapidly, and that’s why it’s very important to respond to this change.
A: Indeed. Today Kirito talked to us about the visual kei topic, thank a lot! This has also been included in Kirito’s Youtube channel content summary. Please continue following on Kirito’s activities going forward.
JAPAN MUSIC SEKAI ~ Jrock & Jpop talk ~ 