-- This is the first time we have met and had the chance to interview you, so before asking about the new song, I would also like to ask about GARNET CROW's history. First, could you tell us how GARNET CROW was formed?
Yuri Nakamura:Everyone happened to be going in and out of the same studio. We hit it off there and it started with a feeling of, "Shall we try doing something?"
-- Do you remember your first impressions of each member?
Yuri Nakamura:With Furui, it was "He's tall" (laughs). Okamoto had bomb hair at the time, so that left the strongest impression. AZUKI had a soft, gentle image, and that image has not changed even now. I am sorry I can only talk about impressions from appearances (laughs).
-- What kind of musical activities had you been doing before that?
Yuri Nakamura:Actually, it was after joining GARNET CROW that I started doing music seriously. Of course, before that I made songs as a hobby and so on, but it was only a hobby. It was really after meeting everyone that I started making songs while thinking about things seriously, as work. And GARNET CROW was also the first time I sang seriously.
-- By the way, what was the trigger that awakened you to music?
Yuri Nakamura:I listened to classical music a lot from childhood, and I played classical piano. Since then, music was always there beside me, so I entered it naturally. My family was also the kind where music was always playing at home, so I came to love music as a matter of course.
-- You then met the members of GARNET CROW and began facing music as a professional. Do you remember your own state of mind around the time of your debut?
Yuri Nakamura:I think I was reckless, desperate. Everything was a first for me, and at the time of our debut we did not even know whether we would be accepted, so I was very concerned about those reactions too. Also, right after we released our debut song, people often mistook me for a boy (laughs). My singing voice is in the alto range. So when people heard that low voice, they would say things like, "I thought you were a boy," or "You were a girl." I was mistaken quite often. People often said I had an androgynous voice that did not sound girlish.
-- Since that debut, you already reached your fifth anniversary last year. Do you feel clearly that you have grown and evolved over these five years?
Yuri Nakamura:When we were editing the best album *Best* last autumn, we listened to and selected songs from the five years since our debut, and I felt many things then. But they did not feel old. I could still accept the albums from around our debut smoothly, so I thought perhaps what we had done had not been wrong. GARNET CROW has always had the policy, "We want to keep making songs that will become standards for the people who listen to them." I felt that we had been able to continue without bending that. When I listened back later, there were no songs where I thought, "This is so uncool I cannot listen to it at all" (laughs). That was the first time it became confidence for me, or rather, the first time I could notice that. Usually we do not really look back, so I thought it might be good to have such an opportunity once every few years.
-- Around that fifth-anniversary timing, you also held a two-day live at Osaka City Central Public Hall. What kind of concert was it?
Yuri Nakamura:That was a completely invitation-only concert. The venue had a sense of weight and history befitting a premium live, so we thought, "We have to make a stage that will not be swallowed up by this." Compared with a usual live, it was a little dressed up, or rather, I think it became a gorgeously splendid kind of concert (laughs). Including the staging and costumes, we did it with an overall luxurious feeling. Thanks to that, a good sense of tension was born too, and it felt very good. The set list was centered on the best album.
-- Then, after entering 2006, GARNET CROW has continued releasing nonstop, and I get the impression you are more energetically active in music than ever. Is this also a sign that all the members' creative drive is welling up?
Yuri Nakamura:Our production stance has not changed at all over these five years. We are always making songs, and once they accumulate to a certain extent, we edit them into an album, or say, "Let's cut this one as a single." It feels like we are playing cards from the hand we have. That has not changed even now in our sixth year. But last year we only released a best album and did not release an original album, so we had a longer production period for that amount of time, and quite a few songs had accumulated. From among those, various things were decided. So this time we ended up releasing for three consecutive months, but that was also the result of coincidence. At the point when we released "夢・花火," three consecutive monthly releases had not been decided. But "今宵エデンの片隅で" was chosen as the theme song for the anime *MÄR Heaven*, and around the same time, "まぼろし," which had existed since about last year, caught the ears of the program staff and was used as the theme song for the drama *Shin Kasouken no Onna*, so it was decided to release it as a single. Then when we lined everything up, it was like, "Isn't this three months in a row?" (laughs). We were surprised too (laughs).
-- I would like to focus on the second and third releases in that three-month run. First, the second one, "今宵エデンの片隅で." This song was made after you had the story about the anime *MÄR Heaven*. What kind of world did you emphasize?
Yuri Nakamura:*MÄR Heaven* is a fantasy adventure with a story full of dreams, so we kept that firmly in mind. At the same time, we were given the theme of making a bright song with a major-key feeling, like one of our songs called "二人のロケット" (3rd single), so I made it with that in mind too. Also, we wrote this song around June, and at that time the songs we had been recording were relatively dark in content. Inside myself I was thinking, "It is about time we had a bright song." Then this offer came in, so I thought, "Let's write a bright song!" I wrote several, and one of them was "今宵エデンの片隅で." I think it became a song that is thoroughly bright and pushes its major-key feeling further and further forward.
-- What was it like actually singing "今宵エデンの片隅で"?
Yuri Nakamura:It is also a song with quite a groove, so I was able to enjoy singing it while valuing something like a live feeling. I hope that sense of fun comes through to the people who listen. Also, because I had just written it in June, it felt very fresh. We finished it in a short period of time, so it feels as though the energy is very condensed. I think it may be the song where you can feel that kind of momentum most strongly.
-- I would also like to touch on the coupling tracks. First, "失われた物語." What kind of world did you expand from while making this song?
Yuri Nakamura:This was chosen for the single from among songs that already existed, but I thought it had good chemistry with "今宵エデンの片隅で." It is a song that can cool things down, or rather, it is mellow and groovy, a little adult and stylish. Also, the lyrics are written in the polite "desu/masu" style, and I personally like words in that style, so in that sense too it is a song I like quite a lot, and personally one of my favorites. I think it became a beautiful, glossy song where the stylish feeling of the sound and the beauty of Japanese language are intertwined.
-- And the third track, "nonsence." What impressions or thoughts do you have about this song?
Yuri Nakamura:This is really a song where it is enough if people simply enjoy listening to it. Okamoto, our guitarist, joins in the chorus and sings together with me, and that is an interesting listening point. It is unusual for GARNET CROW that the chorus is in English, but instead of standing it up with one lead vocal, we made it chorus-like. We are doing something like a Western-music sound approach there, so I would like people to check that out.
-- Less than a month after the release of this three-song new single "今宵エデンの片隅で," the next new single "まぼろし" will be released. Don't you feel a strong response to this song? To me, this felt exactly like a masterpiece only GARNET CROW could make.
Yuri Nakamura:I have truly loved this song since the time we made it, and it was also a song positioned to bring the next album together. So to have it evaluated purely, to have people like it, and to have it used as a program theme song makes me very happy, because it is a song we ourselves had confidence in. I was very happy that it was evaluated in the place where we wanted it to be evaluated, and I thought it was good that we had been making this kind of music. It was chosen from among several candidate songs, so I felt our feelings had gotten through. It became a great source of confidence.
-- It is a song with the power to stand on its own, regardless of whether someone is a GARNET CROW fan or not.
Yuri Nakamura:I think so. But I never expected it to become a single (laughs). I did think it would become a central song on the album, though.
-- You just mentioned the album a little. Does it feel like the concept for the new album is already taking shape?
Yuri Nakamura:Yes. The songs have come together, and now we are entering the stage of various tasks to bring everything together. Even at this point, I already feel quite a strong response to this album. I feel like I want people to hear it soon.
-- Then after the three consecutive monthly releases, you will simply be running straight toward that?
Yuri Nakamura:That's right.
-- I am looking forward to it. Also, you may have been asked this kind of question often around your fifth anniversary, but if the five years from your debut were five years that built the foundation of GARNET CROW, what kind of five years would you like the next five years, beginning this year and leading toward the tenth anniversary, to be?
Yuri Nakamura:Now that the foundation has finally been made, I think the next stage is to cultivate it. The ground has finally been prepared, and now we are in a period where we will work hard to cultivate and cultivate it, heading toward the stage where we can sow seeds.
-- Finally, please give a message to our readers.
Yuri Nakamura:People have said "GARNET CROW does not suit summer," but this year, for some reason, we are releasing with all our might in that summer that supposedly does not suit us (laughs). We will keep working hard up to the album so that people will say, "This year is GARNET CROW's summer," so please look forward to it!
Interviewer:Tetsuo Hiraga