Dir en grey: The UV Vulgar Interviews

Part I: Kyo

UV: Your new work VULGAR is an album that really shows you at your best in terms of lyrics, melody, your style of singing, everything. The way the world visualized by the words unfolds is just incredibly unique.

Kyo: Well I did in fact write the lyrics keeping in mind, the idea of an expanding image I've no idea if that's different from what other people are doing.

UV: You wrote them, you can't be expected to understand them. On this new work a sad and painful world unfolds. Thematically it deals with pain and wounds, what did this theme bring to the work?

Kyo: With this album the overall concept is pain, and heft but through the lyrics, as it has been since long before, it's about pain. To put it bluntly, since before Dir en grey, as a singer, I've always been about pain. In fact, I'm quite incapable of writing anything else, nor would I want to. Where does it come from? Probably the life I've lived.

UV: With Six Ugly you put in a lot of English to stress the sound, but with this album there's more Japanese. Is this your true path?

Kyo: By nature I'd say I'm more at home with Japanese. But even in the Japanese lyrics, I used to write mainly moods and stories, but this time there's a focus on the message. And furthermore, this portion of the album's not about fancy word play, or words you've never heard of, I just tried to see how much I could get across with what was already there.

UV: Would you say there's a bit of optimism at the depths of these messages?

Kyo: Optimism? No, none. I only want to express the black part of me, the part of me that's twisted. When something is fun, it's fun for only that moment, right. But the bad stuff, the pain, we bring it with us for days. And depending on how deep the wound, we might not be able to forget for a year or two. First off, It's impossible for anyone to sustain fun for 2 years. In short, I have no interest in expressing the ethereal.

UV: I had the feeling "The IIIrd Empire" with its objective content, was in fact a little optimistic.

Kyo: Put simply, these lyrics are about war, right? But I wasn't born in a time of war. So to be blunt, these lyrics have no weight behind them. But I'm in fact making fun of myself for the very act of writing and singing these kind of things in the song, despite that I know nothing of war. Like, 'what an ass I am, I don't know shit'. Only that portion.

UV: These lyrics are taking the long view but, the others seem to be personal.

Kyo: Yeah right. "INCREASE BLUE" is, for me, like a cute little horror movie. (smiles)Through just these few lines I think you can really get an image of what's going on. Enough to make a full on movie. I didn't try to add heft to this. It's closer to the way one uses an instrument.

UV: But the album in its entirety, lyrically is incredibly deep. You've got to really know how to find the right words, to come up with lyrics and words this outstanding.

Kyo: Yup. For instance if you have 10 songs and you consider all 10 'red', it's easy to come up with lyrics. But, I never see all the songs as one color. So I have to look at each song as a different color. There were many songs I had to rewrite. I overhauled "INCREASE BLUE" and "Shokubeni" too. Whittling down parts that were too obvious. Shaving away parts is the most common.

UV: Because obvious lyrics aren't any good?

Kyo: Not obvious perse, but it's like if I wanted to express a pale red, but I wrote too much and made it distracting. Those are the kind of things I removed. That's why there's more songs with fairly short lyrics. It's easier to create the view the more words there are but it can be distracting. I'm trying to keep myself to the bare minimum points. Actually the most aggressive lyrics are "AMBER"'s. When you read it, you think 'Is it optimistic? Or pessimistic... ' for the most part I'm a pessimist but these lyrics are a new type that could be taken as optimistic. Like 'Are they merely optimistic? They're optimisitic but...' I thought that was fresh.

UV: I've been meaning to ask you for awhile but, generally song titles come from the lyrics but for you Kyo, the title is seperate, isn't it?

Kyo: Song titles generally come from the lyrics. But for us, the song's title is the song's title not the lyrics. We have two philosophies on this as members. There are songs I give titles to, and songs other members name. When I give a song a title it's gotta stress the lyrics. When that happens, it creates a slightly different image from the one the member who wrote it had in mind. So we consider the song title as something seperate from the lyrics.

UV: There are some titles that you only understand after reading the lyrics.

Kyo: Yes, and those would be titles I probably came up with.

UV: I see. Moving on, this time out there's a lot more melody with an approach toward singing. Was it stressful trying to connect the lyrics and the melodies?

Kyo: Well take "Audience Killer Loop"... just the melody I must have redid, oh I don't know 10 times. The melody it had when Kaoru brought it in, had parts that left me a little cold, so I brought a new one in, and he and I talked it out. I just barely got a melody on it at all. I thought the A Melody was nice. Heard objectively its catchy and emotional. But personally, that wouldn't get my lyrics across. I wanted to get closer to a melody that would get my lyrics across the more emotion I put into singing. That's why I didn't settle for catchy, or impressive. The chorus of this song doesn't really take off, you know. It's a melody born from the lyrics. The lyrics and the melody are linked. Up till now it's been the overall song and the lyrics, this time the melody is also linked. Also the shouting.

UV: The portion that's expression. The portion that's song. Both are amazing. Adding to this, you use many different voices all in one song, really pulling the listener into the song's world. Would you say the different voices and the style of singing were more born from the lyrics than from trying to challenge yourself?

Kyo: Right. Most of the time with a heavy band like ours, if there's a shout at the beginning there'll be shouts till the end, or if they're going for a pop sound, it's whispers or a normal voice. I hate that shit. I mean you can see it coming, can't you? Like "and there'll be shouting here..." Or if all the songs are "roaring". That's just run of the mill. The shouting and style of singing in song's of bands overseas probably stems from the lyrics but, doesn't making all the anger shouted, sort of make all the anger the same? Opposite to what you may think that makes it all seem fake. And it's not interesting. I tried to make it so that the lyrics are expressed, in a way like no one's heard before, in otherwords, it's catchier than the chorus. That's why I think there's shouting parts that get stuck in your head, more than even the main melody. I think there's definitely going to be more vocals that use many voices in our future work. But the heft is going to be different. Because we're not doing this "because it's new", we're doing it because "it's interesting"

UV: The warped rock n' roll style of singing on "R to the Core" is certainly a type we've never heard from you before Kyo.

Kyo: It's kind of hard core isn't it? I think it's pretty obvious but, the content of the lyrics and the hard core style compliment each other well. If I sang this song straight, it'd be just a normal song. The song suddenly shifts styles after the metal intro right? I thought how cool it'd be if we totally shocked people by also changing the song at that point.

UV: The song "Marmalade Chainsaw" changes gears with each scene shift going from powerful to insane and then to your falsetto. That's really in synch with what the lyrics are doing.

Kyo: There's not really much meaning to the content of the lyrics. But the image is very strong. When I get set off at a concert, and just lose it there's no reason behind it right? You can only think of it in terms of pieces. In concert, I've got fans in front of me, and members to the side. but when a red light comes from the front, that's all I see. when I tried to express this experience in terms of pieces, this is how it came out. These may be a little tough to understand, but it's a live song. About me in concert.

UV: When you put it that way, reading your lyrics it does seem so.

Kyo: You know that movie "A Clockwork Orange"? There are some aspects of that main character in me when I'm in concert. So these lyrics are two fold, they represent me, and they represent the film. If you just were to read the lyrics, you'd get the picturebut that's not really the picture of the concert. I think it's just something from the words in the lyrics. But if you take a closer look at the lyrics, this is a live song.

UV: Also it's very Kyo-like but, I admit I was suprised that you were legitimately singing as well.

Kyo: Those songs simply came to me the easiest. Like "Sajyou no Uta". This song gave me a sense of relief inside. I mean there's a darker side to it too but, my image of it is this incredibly gorgeous blue. The most appropriate style for that was to sing it straight. supposing that something bad happens to you, and even after two years you can't forget. The colors will soften over two years as opposed to if something bad happening and it being only one day later. We've had a lot more songs on the "only one day later" side, but this song is closer to the "two years later" side. That's why it's more pure. But don't expect me to write anything beyond two years. (laugh) I'm already pushing the limit.

UV: Because any further and the song would become optimistic? As if to say "ah times were rough then... "

Kyo: Yes. Because it'll become the past tense. Only up to the point that they're still dragging the bad stuff with them.

UV: Pain and Wounds. Lyrics and Melody, expressions of emotion is there a great sense of achievement in how it all came out?

Kyo: Sure, there is. If I may speak of my own desires, I was hoping to get a ballad on Vulgar, but when I considered the album itself, maybe it was wise not to include one.

UV: Yeaaah, I don't think this album needed a ballad, it's plenty deep as is. And you sing a lot on it.

Kyo: Good point. I sing too much (laughs) "Sajyou no Uta" pretty much took shape when I brought it in and had Die play over it. The Song was completely different, but the melody remains the same as it was then. But when I actually tried to sing it live, it was the most exhausting song on the album. That melody remains high from the beginning of the song to the end. If I don't get the pitch just right, it loses it's emotion. This song has to be sung cleanly it's tough. It's a challenge. The other day I sang some of our old songs in concert, I was more than able to handle them, as I am now. The new songs are more interesting.

UV: These powerful melodies come into your head, but they don't end with just the initial shock, they get in deeper.

Kyo: Get in deeper? Yeah. Right now I don't want to write anymore songs but, already I can see myself wanting to down the road.

UV: Do you get the feeling that they'll keep popping into your head?

Kyo: Yes. I think of this album as a first step. I've got a lot of confidence that our next one will be even better, my heart is telling me "hurry up and get on it". Listneing to Vulgar I just get assailed with more new ideas.