Chosen as the theme song for the theatrical film *Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in the Sky*. Realizing their first concert with an orchestra. A new album, *parallel universe*, whose songs were all made this year. From GARNET CROW, for whom 2010 was filled with challenges, Yuri Nakamura (vo, songwriting) and Hitoshi Okamoto (guitar) spoke about all of it. They also mention their live performances, which apparently have an unusually high success rate for helping romance come true, so even if you are not a fan, please check it out!
It Was Worth Giving Birth to It With My Life on the Line
-- "Over Drive" reached number four on the Oricon weekly ranking, your highest position for a single. You must have been honestly happy about that.
Yuri Nakamura:I was happy. Since "Over Drive" was the theme song for the theatrical film *Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in the Sky*, more people were involved than usual. The staff on the film side waited until the very last moment until a work matching the image was completed, so I felt that perhaps we were able to repay them. It is a record I want to dedicate to everyone involved with the film, including the people who came to see it.
-- In the previous interview, we heard a great deal from you about how hard it was to make "Over Drive"...
Yuri Nakamura:(laughs)
-- It is good that you achieved your highest ranking with a song whose production involved such rarely seen difficulty. It feels like you were rewarded.
Yuri Nakamura:Yes! It was an extremely difficult birth, so it was worth giving birth to it with my life on the line. We were driven into a situation where if this one failed, there would be nothing left (laughs).
-- By the way, you said you wanted to go see the theatrical *Detective Conan* in a movie theater to confirm how "Over Drive" sounded. Did you actually go?
Yuri Nakamura:I did. In the theater, "Over Drive" begins from a cappella, and when my own voice came in during the ending, I went, "Oh!" Making the opening a cappella was a request from the film staff. Since we make music, we inevitably want to attach an intro. So until I actually saw the film, it had been bothering me: "Will it connect properly a cappella? Will it feel awkward?" But when I actually watched it, the story, images, and song came together beautifully. The music was not independent; it was properly built into the flow, and I thought, "Ah, so this is what they meant." It felt like I had been shown a new world, another work of art.
-- In that sense too, would you like to try a movie theme song again?
Yuri Nakamura:...
Hitoshi Okamoto:What!? That should of course be yes, right?
Yuri Nakamura:It really was hard, so I thought about it for a moment (laughs). No, but if there is an opportunity, I would definitely like to challenge it. We are accepting offers at any time!
-- Also, perhaps because 2010 was a year of challenges for GARNET CROW, in the summer you held "GARNET CROW Symphonic Concert 2010 ～All Lovers～" with the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra. How did that come about?
Yuri Nakamura:Many of our songs include strings in the arrangement, and we had often said we wanted to try doing a concert with an orchestra. This time the timing worked out well, and we were able to work with conductor Ikuro Fujiwara. It felt like a long-held wish coming true.
-- Adjusting the sound with an orchestra cannot be easy, can it?
Hitoshi Okamoto:I learned an incredible amount. It was my first experience playing while watching a conductor. Usually I play while relying on things that give rhythm as points, like click, drums, or bass, so I realized how easy we usually have it.
Yuri Nakamura:We performed while watching the conductor's movements on a monitor, but sometimes I could not tell the timing of the conducting. It would be like, "Where is the first beat? Ah, this was a pause! Excuse me" (laughs). He conducts with the rhythm of the heart, so it is not a beat.
Hitoshi Okamoto:It is a wave.
Yuri Nakamura:Yes! It is a feeling of sensation. I was not used to that, so I was surprised. Also, violin and guitar are both strings, but the way the sound rises is different. The guitar has a strong attack, right? So even if you play at the same timing, the timing of the sound coming out differs.
Hitoshi Okamoto:I was being told, "The sound is rushing, rushing" (laughs).
If You Stay in Paradise, You Become Urashima Taro
Yuri Nakamura:That is how it sounds. So matching our breathing was difficult.
Hitoshi Okamoto:Usually we are conscious of groove.
Yuri Nakamura:I realized how blessed my environment had been, or how used I was to singing with a beat. I had thought I was singing with musical feeling before too, but I realized I had to be even more conscious of that. My attitude toward singing was still far from enough. It was a world where "I am singing according to the tempo" does not work. I understood how difficult it is to match breathing with everyone and create one world of sound, and at the same time I thought, "What a wonderful world," "This is what music is." It was a live performance that made me conscious of a game of catch between hearts.
-- You were also busy with fan-club events and media appearances. Were you also working on this album, *parallel universe*, during the period after the release of "Over Drive"?
Yuri Nakamura:Yes. All the songs on this album were written this year. We did not pull them from stock. It is truly an album packed with GARNET CROW in its tenth year since formation. Also, this time there are the songs that became a new face of GARNET CROW, born through the influence of "Over Drive" that we talked about earlier. And there are songs with the sadness and fleetingness of GARNET CROW as before, such as "空に花火 ～orchestra session～," "The Crack-up," and "strangers." There is a feeling of freely moving back and forth between two GARNET CROW worlds. Because of that too, we titled it *parallel universe*.
-- In the previous interview, I told you that GARNET CROW songs make me think of the sky, but this work gives that impression even more strongly than usual. And it is not only the image of the sound or melody; when you look at the lyrics, the word "空" appears in nine of the ten songs.
Hitoshi Okamoto:(laughs) Thank you. You counted.
-- And in the remaining song, "迷いの森," words like "夕暮れ" and "月明かり" appear.
Yuri Nakamura:AZUKI Nana must have been in that kind of state of mind too. The background behind the demos was that this year was our tenth anniversary year, and we had many opportunities to communicate directly with fans at live performances and events. We received a great deal of courage and power there. Since everything was made after bringing that back with us, a sense of uplift and release came out naturally.
-- I felt that clearly from the opening "アオゾラ カナタ."
Yuri Nakamura:It is a refreshing sad-pop song full of release. It has not only brightness, but also the color of a sweet-and-sour youth song. This is exactly a song born under the influence of "Over Drive" and the tenth anniversary. I probably could not have written it last year; it is a song I could write because it was this year.
-- This work also includes the album version of "As the Dew," which was the opening theme for the TV anime version of *Detective Conan*. Why did you decide to rearrange and include this song?
Yuri Nakamura:When we made "As the Dew," it was quite a challenge. I thought people might think it was more for connoisseurs, since it is an urban, jazzy song. I thought people who liked it would like it, but it might not become a song with a very large reaction. But unexpectedly, the response was very good. I thought, "Everyone accepts this kind of song too; it works." In that case, we talked about putting it on the album with a slightly more glamorous arrangement. It is a song whose album version was created thanks to the fans.
-- The flow from there into "Over Drive" should make *Detective Conan* fans grin as well. Was this track order intentional?
Yuri Nakamura:We wanted people to enter through "アオゾラ カナタ" as the entrance to a new paradise, the doorway to a new GARNET CROW, then touch on our technical side with "As the Dew," and from there go once more into a feeling of "welcome to parallel universe!" So we decided to place "Over Drive," the symbolic song of this year, as the third track.
-- "空に花火 ～orchestra session～." What kind of recording was this?
Yuri Nakamura:We recorded the orchestra sound during "GARNET CROW Symphonic Concert 2010 ～All Lovers～." So I think it became an even more romantic and dramatic song. It also fits very well with the atmosphere of a sparkling winter city. Christmas illuminations link with the fleetingness of fireworks in this song, so I definitely want everyone to listen to it in this season. It is a song that moves me so much I could cry even while singing it.
-- And "今日と明日と," which closes the album. This song also makes you feel the strength of someone who knows weakness. What kind of image or feeling did it actually come from?
Yuri Nakamura:With this one too, I wanted to value the afterglow very much. It became a song where you are strongly drawn into the spaces between the lines, the places where there is no singing or sound. In film terms, it is like the end roll. It is a song with the image of returning from the paradise called "parallel universe" to reality. If "迷いの森" is the space between reality and paradise, "今日と明日と" is the space between paradise and reality. After all, if you remain in paradise, you become Urashima Taro (laughs).
I Want to Make a "Marriage-Hunting Seat"!
-- *parallel universe* is an album containing many dramatic, colorful, and moving songs. How would you like it to resonate in the world?
Hitoshi Okamoto:... I would like everyone to create a paradise of the heart inside this album.
Yuri Nakamura:(laughs)
-- You are laughing (laughs).
Yuri Nakamura:No, but our stance is "welcome to parallel universe!" It feels like we are waiting, saying, "Please, everyone, come in."
-- Also, on the release date of this work, Mr. Okamoto's new project SUPER LIGHT will also release the mini-album *Now Printing...*. First, could you tell us how and why you launched this project?
Hitoshi Okamoto:With a solo project, I have to do everything from zero by myself, so the key is whether my concentration lasts until the end. It is only a seven-song mini-album, but completing it uses an enormous amount of energy. So I wanted to generate some internal energy with something new. To change my mood, I thought, "Should I change the name?" Then I really was able to approach it with a fresh feeling, and even now, when I see the words "SUPER LIGHT," I feel very happy. I get excited.
-- What kind of album did you aim for with *Now Printing...*?
Hitoshi Okamoto:This is half after-the-fact, but when about half of it was finished, I could see a scattered feeling. So I scattered the remaining songs into various types so that this would stand out more. I staged the scattered feeling.
-- Ms. Nakamura, have you listened to it already?
Yuri Nakamura:I received it and listened. In GARNET CROW he is guitarist Hitoshi Okamoto, but solo he is a music craftsman. The image is of him wearing samue and turning a potter's wheel. I get the impression not of guitarist, vocalist, or arranger, but of music craftsman Hitoshi Okamoto. He is very stubborn, and even if everyone around praises him, if he does not like what he made, he smashes the vessel with a crack! The equipment he uses may be cutting-edge, and some of the sounds may be digital, but his stance is analog-like. I thought that gap was interesting.
Hitoshi Okamoto:You mean I am inefficient?
Yuri Nakamura:Not efficient (laughs). But that is what makes it craftsmanlike and interesting.
Hitoshi Okamoto:Am I being made fun of?
Yuri Nakamura:I am praising you!
-- (laughs)
Yuri Nakamura:In short, it is wonderful.
-- Also, at the end of the year, "GARNET CROW livescope 2010+ ～welcome to the parallel universe!～" and "GARNET CROW Special Countdown Live 2010-2011" have been decided. What kind of live performances do you want each to be?
Yuri Nakamura:In 2010, our anniversary year, the beginning was also live performances, and we can meet everyone through live performances at the close as well. This album was made with the power we received from everyone, so this time I hope we can give some kind of power back to everyone live, together with our gratitude. Also, Christmas is near, so I want everyone to get excited, laugh, and enjoy it together.
-- Finally, please give a message to our readers.
Hitoshi Okamoto:I think this album *parallel universe* has a wide entrance. So I would like even people who know only a little about GARNET CROW to listen to it a lot.
Yuri Nakamura:I would like people to listen to that album and then come to the live performances. I want to meet everyone directly and express our gratitude. Also, our live performances are auspicious. An unusually large number of fans marry each other! At the last event, three couples in a row reported, "We are getting married," "We got engaged," and "We will play a GARNET song at our wedding." So much so that I want to make a "marriage-hunting seat" at this live!
-- If realized, that would be unprecedented.
Yuri Nakamura:The romance success rate is so unusually high that I think that. So even those participating alone may find a new encounter waiting! For those thinking, "This Christmas will be lonely," you can still make it just in time. If you want to spend a fun year-end and New Year holiday, please come to this live and find a partner!
-- If you say that, people will gather from all over Japan!
Yuri Nakamura:Will it become dangerous!? Ah, but please be quiet during the performance. During MC or after the show, please feel free to talk. As for whether there will be marriage-hunting seats, we will discuss it with the office from now on.
-- (laughs)
Interviewer:Tetsuo Hiraga