MIYAVI has released his new album Imaginary on 9/15.
It has been one year and four months since MIYAVI released his previous work, Holy Nights, and because of the coronavirus pandemic the time has both flown and crawled by monotonously. Imaginary announces to the world a presence in society as yet unseen, sending a message of pride from MIYAVI as an artist for publishing this item. This album is composed of many hit songs handled by Jeff Miyahara, featuring artists such as Kimbra, Kang Daniel, and Troi Irons. Permimetron participated in creating both the album artwork and the music video giving MIYAVI a novel variety for fans to peruse. Is it his intention to set the world on fire to change its appearance with Imaginary? We asked MIYAVI this and many other questions.
Nonstop MIYAVI
--You are turning 40 on September 14 (this interview was conducted mid-August). What are your thoughts and feelings on that milestone?
Of course. Turning 40 is more than just a number, you feel the years starting to actually build up and feel the body start to change. A while back, Ichiro said that, for example, the physical abilities start to deteriorate on a cellular level. I have to reflect on the way I exercise because if I get hurt, it takes me longer to recover (lol). But I am continuing to try to balance what I’ve experienced and my past knowledge to be able to keep growing. Who I am now likes to learn how to find the joy in life. I think I will continue that way until the day I die, even if my body cannot continue my heart will never fail on me. Every day, I’ll keep like that.
--Your last interview with natalie was held in March of last year, right when the pandemic started to get serious. You were doing variety shows with your family, hosting your virtual project Virtual Live, and were appointed ambassador to the ECC Language Education Promotion. You were so busy you gave off the feeling of being chased.
“I can’t stop” is all I could think. I felt like it was bad to stop in 2020, like things would be taken away if I did. Of course this was because I was anxious. We didn’t have any idea about having a vaccine even in development so we were nowhere near being able to hold live shows. But I decided that I would continue ahead by creating the various shapes of the Virtual Live. Having my family on social media was the same. I wanted to be able to give something to the world. I showed how I fumble and make mistakes by considering new things and was changed by this.
--When did you have time to start working on Imaginary?
I actually planned to release it when the 2020 Olympics ended. There were plenty of songs I’d been holding onto. But then the Olympics were put on hold. The coronavirus pandemic was shifting into high-gear around the world, it made me want to scream out. I took that feeling and put it into this album and remade some of the songs, so most of this was written this year. We finished all the vocal recordings in March in one go. I wanted to be able to show we can still resonate no matter where and when we are. I think we finished everything around June.
--If you were to shout out right now I wonder what would resonate. I feel like the answer to that question can be felt in the word you used for the title of the album: Imaginary.
Yes. In my work supporting refugees there is a commonality whether it is caused by man or nature, the first step to overcoming any calamity is having medical care, water, and food. If you have that then you can start working on education and culture. Each of us humans have dignity when we are allowed to learn and study culture. It’s really scary that we can’t see the future. I think it’s pretty special that we are able to imagine what the future will look like and use that to indicate what it should be. I think that’s the reason music exists, of course I mean anime and manga and movies too. As a musician, I am able to indicate the future’s shape with my imagination. I think that’s part of who I am, what I live for. On the reverse side, that’s the only way I can think of myself being.
--Maybe that’s why I feel that Imaginary has a more cohesive concept as a whole album compared to your past works, indicating one whole message.
But aren’t all artists the same now? Whether we are alive or dead, there is nothing we can do about reality right now. Along with the new variants of the covid virus making things uncertain there is the unstable administration handling Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, and the dangerously heavy rains flooding China making things extremely subjective at the moment. Even now the whole world is changing. It’s as though this situation is asking me “What is there to sing about” and my answer to that question is this album. Shaping myself into someone who will “keep my eyes up and keep walking”.
The commonality between Jeff Miyahara and Perimetron
--I can strongly feel the presence of the co-writer Jeff Miyahara in this.
--Can you be more specific?
He is active in the field of j-pop so he uses an approach that helps swell in a moderately Japanese way, making it feel “Japan’s pop world equals j-pop”. I think he brought something that has never been brought to MIYAVI. We were able to put together sounds from all over and created a vision, Jeff, Lenny, and I, all together of how to make a new kind of album.
--What was something new for you, MIYAVI?
The biggest was taking direction for my singing. He gets specific inspiration from anime characters or scenes from a film that he shares so I had to add the story-telling delivery of lines when performing to my existing way of singing which was really new for me. Also I’d say the sound dynamics. Rock sounds usually get stacked up in a more haphazard way but he takes each sound, one by one, mixing them together smoothly until they are polished decorations. There are even some hip hop parts. I had to cram study the sophistication of pop music. I think it will greatly influence me from now on.
--What was the reason for entrusting the art and the beauty of the music video (NEW GRAVITY) to Perimetron?
For the visuals, I was unable to fly to LA so I hit the Tokyo market of colleagues and wanted to make something that could only be made here in Japan. While having a conversation with KingGnu’s Tsuneta, we started playing with the idea of making something for today’s generation with the same beauty and value that the band YMO (Translator Note: YMO or Yellow Magic Orchestra is a band from the 70’s) or the collective Tomato in London (Translator Note: Tomato is a collaborative practice for artists, designers, musicians, and writers formed in London in the 90’s) once held. There is a strong connection and a lot of trust there, like a group project but in a good way, that I personally don’t get to have as a solo artist. To groups like that, I probably seem like Matsuoka Shuzu (Translator Note: Matsuoka Shuzu is a former single tennis champion and sports commentator) to them.
--Matsuoka Shuzu haha
Honestly, they all sound like they would be pretty my pace lol. Concerning the intention and understanding of creation is not a simple thing, it’s next to impossible when there is no compromise. We just have to drink together, work together, feeling the warmth that other creators have and possess a sense of true borderless-ness. They are able to feel things even when I’m wrong and are able to help teach me a lot as I go. If I get the chance to, I’d love to work with them again.
What to look for in an era that appears in textbooks
--This album starts strongly embracing the topic of “what should I sing” with the first two songs, New Gravity and Imaginary (feat. Kimbra). You were able to draw a really rich background simultaneously with these two songs and it feels like the experience you gained from Virtual Lives really helped. Or that’s how I felt.
Yeah. Frankly, the album could just end with those two songs lol. That’s how well I think they fit the theme. The rest of the songs are like the freebies for anyone to receive. I was worried whether New Gravity was good enough for the title of the album. I thought about it but the language jumps so well along with being catchy so I decided on Imaginary. So these two are the songs that comprise the core of the album.
--In these two songs there are words such as “unbound”, “beyond weightlessness”, “My story”, “no more hesitation”, and “new world”. What kind of feelings do you mean with these lyrics?
The world today is rewriting the pages from good to bad. There are a lot of uncertain what-ifs floating about right now like “There might not be any fish left to catch by 2048” or “In 60 years, there won’t be any more agriculture to harvest”. Hearing people saying things like that makes you look at the materials we have available today and stresses you out. Like, 60 years is a long time but it will actually pass pretty soon. I think the only way we will be able to continue to have a society is to dematerialize. We live in such a materialistic time today and we need to become a society that “goes without” I think. That’s something really obvious in the fashion industry. I think it is important to not let people like Alessandro Michele from Gucci, for an obvious example, to set the standard anymore. We have to dry off from the extravagance in order to break the cycle. That is to say that we are currently in a “state where we have no choice but to reverse”. Of course there is confusion on top of confusion because change takes the ceiling and makes it the floor. But when looking to the future it is definitely more beneficial and we should be able to find a methodology that makes us all unique.
--Because of the coronavirus pandemic we have to get used to the language around the “new normal”. What’s that like for you?
I’m setting out on a tour in America in October (MIYAVI North America Tour 2021 “Imaginary”) and I definitely feel like it has changed so much just watching footage of things in America. I feel a sense of a void inside and my physical strength is weakened, I don’t want to forget that. I want to go back to doing lives where it feels like getting onto a packed train but with the way things are right now, that seems a little dangerous and impossible to do.
--That’s right. How fast things become “back then”.
Right lol. But still, person to person direct contact is really
important, we cannot lose that. I want that part of it to stay the same.
There are still mistakes we are going to make with wanting to go back to
concerts. But for however much the world is changing, we have to be able
to adapt along with it. Freedom is not “I’m going to
do what I want”. I think the world has evolved to a point where we need
to put ourselves in each other’s shoes and follow a doctrine “be
charitable”. In order to change what we value, we need to urgently look
at our SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). With things like the Black
Lives Matter movement, we are able to support and bear witness to it from
outside, participating in events like hunger strikes for the movement. We
have to be wary of what we are going to leave behind in this era for the
history books, including the spread of infectious diseases. I think that
facing things straight on will lead to suggestions for the future.
--That’s where the 7th song on the album “Youth Of the Nation（feat. Troi Irons)” comes to play, I guess.
At the time I was writing this, there were lots of student protest groups in America gathering strength, and here in Japan we had the moment SEALD (Student Emergency Action For Liberal Deomcracy) also keeping the youth active. I also started to notice Greta Thunberg from Sweden. That’s why Jeff recommended I include the guitar solo I created to the Star-Spangled Banner back when I performed it at the Dodger Stadium in 2019 so we hurriedly included that as well.
It is the duty of sound to free people
--What can you tell us about the song featuring Kimbra?
It was casual lol. All of the artists who featured on this album got here very casually, honestly. This song is not quite Kusanagi Motoko from Ghost in the Shell but it has a novel cyber feeling, despite her poorly pronounced Japanese. Truthfully, we were thinking of collaborating on a different song but the timing worked out that we got this song instead! Kimbra’s wonderful singing voice, including the Japanese lyrics, was great.
--This song has a very heavy metal feeling in the drums, coming from a
strikingly tasteful person like Jeff Martin.
That’s right, the beat is kind of a revival so I don’t know whether to say it is a new sound or not.
-- MIYAVI’s guitar style has also definitely changed. You’ve developed from the signature sound of danceable songs found on NO SLEEP TILLTOKYO (released July 2019) to a more mature approach with this album. There is a more frank dynamism expressed, changing gears from the mincing rhythm of the past album, I feel.
That’s right. By accepting the duty of sound being to free people I decided to change up how I use my guitar. I still slap it, I’ll never lose that, but I want it to become more than just a song.
--In Imaginary, you cover Nirvana’s famous song Smells Like Teen Spirit. I was surprised to hear how the lyrics properly compare the feeling of dark conditions to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the start, there was no such deep meaning. This was a song I planned to cover even before the pandemic, it’s kind of my favorite song to sing at karaoke lol. But this song changed up the pattern of the music scene. It was fun to take their famous attitude and put it with MIYAVI’s sound to put on this album released in 2021. It was an honor to finally have the freedom to do something that I have wanted to do for so long.
A sense of variety, no matter what
--I was really interested in the chorus of the song Living in Fire, the melody gave me almost a country western feel.
This is a song I thought about putting on Holy Nights. I worried that it was going to be too dark of a song to be on this album but everyone on my team recommended I put it in. Message-wise I feel this connects the continuity from Holy Nights to Imaginary.
--The song Hush Hush (feat. Kang Daniel) features an unusual, kind of boy band taste with the inclusion of Kang Daniel.
I tried to sing about the contradictory nature of “freedom” and “restraint”. Daniel’s kind of neutral tone created an odd detune when put together with my voice. For this album, I kind of had a different color for every song. Honestly, the way I put together an album has changed a lot. It’s influenced a lot by the market. We are at a point where a lot of people don’t listen to full albums so I tried to make this album one that you could just pick a song here or there and have it still have a catchy pop feel. That might go away again though.
--Speaking of each song having their own color, the development of the 8th song I Swear and the 9th song Are You With Me are strong.
That was what I was hoping for so I’m glad that’s how you felt. Of course the order of the songs is important but this time the team wanted to work on creating a complete sound within each song. No matter what, I keep a consistent message in my work “liberation of the future” so it feels like a natural match to me.
--Lastly, Dance With Me was a fresh feeling. It felt like listening to a record player, with a tempo that makes you want to go ballroom dancing. It was an unexpected discovery for me but I have fallen for it. But it still felt like standard fare for MIYAVI with the message “look up and keep walking”.
At first, I had the image of it being like Beauty and the Beast but Jeff in Jeff style arranged it while thinking of the scene in The Avengers where Captain America is sitting at a bar lol. It’s pretty far from my usual repertoire. This song tells the story of someone who can only meet someone they love in their dream, in a non-reality kind of like Inception or The Matrix. Wouldn’t it be a happy thing to be able to have a dream and it feel real and stay aware of it? With things like virtual reality and the metaverse, the difference between what’s real and what’s virtual is disappearing so we need to think deeply about what is really important.
We are once again loving “Super Hero”
--What was the reason for including the bonus track Super Hero from your 雅-miyavi- era?
Simply speaking I just wanted to make the fans happy. Last time I did
a self-cover of the song DAY 1 so this time I wanted to add my sound from
now. The line “If separating is for the sake of us both
From now on I will always always keep praying” in the chorus links well with
the core message of this album.
That’s right. Taking a song that I wrote over ten years ago, I can feel my youthful rashness but I also feel in my rock sound my desire to save the world and bring people happiness. It makes me think about the people that I think are important to me, like my family and my fans, makes me think about what the true meaning of love is. It gave me the chance to think about these kinds of things again.
--Now that you’re finished with this work, what do you think you’re next project will be? You yourself are always changing your appearance under the watchful eyes of the world, recording music at a breakneck pace.
I don’t know what’s next. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we are in a very uncertain state. I’m
just going what I can with all my power, day by day. But at the end of September, I am planning on holding a Virtual Live from the Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto.
--Ooh.
I’ve always wanted to do that but it has finally finished being under construction from last year. I kinda wanted to take a crack at an iconic stage, “What if I did the Olympic Opening Ceremony?” lol.
--You always seem very busy, between your tour in America, the Netflix film Kate, the Amazon Prime Video program The Masked Singer, and your ambassadorship with the ECC.
I’m actually way more relaxed than before because of corona. I’m spending more time with my family. Of course, I really want to do a full tour in Japan. The travel restrictions should be lifted next year so everyone, please look forward to all the future plans I have to be announced!
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