(original interview/Rutsuko Goto for Vif Music
translation/Emma)

lynch.’s latest full album, no doubt long-awaited by fans, is finally complete. Adorning this album, brought to us after one year and eight months since their previous album Xlll, is the title “ULTIMA”, meaning “ultimate”. Hazuki adds to this title, explaining it as their ultimate work “at this point in time”, making the album a marked depiction of lynch.’s appeal in the here and now that will give us a premonition about their future strides. We hope to enjoy the 12 masterful songs that form this well-balanced latest album to our heart’s content. We had vocalist Hazuki speak thoroughly on this release, which no doubt colors the numerous activities titled as “acts” that they’re currently actively rolling out in the midst of their 15th year as a band.

◆Becoming a band that clashes with absolutes

――The album was finished superbly.

Hazuki: Thank you. It was incredibly tiring, but we’re finally finished.

――Writing lyrics seemed pretty difficult, was everything okay?

Hazuki: No. (laugh) For all of January, I was writing lyrics as I was recording the vocals. I record shouts on my own without going through an engineer, so even after I was done recording the melody portions with the engineer, I still had a ton of shouts left. And writing lyrics for shouted parts is extremely tough. You can’t write them the same way you do melodies. There’s many limitations – this nuance doesn’t come across with this tone, etc. There’s a lot of shouts this time, so I was like “damn”. (laugh)

――Why did it take so much time?

Hazuki: To put it simply, I think there was a large volume of work. Although we finished all the songs relatively early compared to “Xlll”, so we should have started in a state with more wiggle room. On top of that, it ended with a whimper, not a bang. When I started to wonder if we were done, I was told we were starting interviews on X day, so it was more gradual than celebrating a clear finish.

――I thought you must finish more lavishly, with a celebratory feeling.

Hazuki: That doesn’t happen all that often. (laugh)

――Now then, this album has a title with some implications.

Hazuki: “ULTIMA” means “final”, but when I named it my image was more of a shortening of “ULTIMATE”. So there’s no deep meaning at all. This isn’t our last, it’s not our ultimate in the sense that we won’t put anything else out, it just comes from the world view I imagined from the feeling of the word. I settled on the title pretty late into the process. When we were just starting production, I sent the members a LINE message saying “why don’t we incorporate neo-futuristic elements”, explained that the color of the album was black with blue tones, and while we were taking our photos and filming the MV, the word “ULTIMA” just fit perfectly with the image I had. I did consult with the members, like, “I wonder if the semantics of ‘last’ or ‘ultimate’ will become a hindrance. Is it okay?”

――What did they say?

Without hesitation, “that’s fine, right?”. (laugh) Also, this is our “ultimate” in this present moment, so it’ll be improved upon again right after.

――It truly is your ultimate new work, but when did you decide to make it a full album?

Hazuki: In terms of format, we had no other choice. After “Xlll”, we told our record company we didn’t want to release anything else for a while. Well, generally we have a rhythm where we put out one release per year.

――A rhythm…?

Hazuki: Contractually. (laugh) But I think the pace of one release a year is too fast, and a waste. It makes you feel like you haven’t really treasured that work. So making albums is tiring, and we wanted to cherish “Xlll”, so I told them I wanted to take a bit of a break and make as much time as possible before our next release. It’s just, if we don’t release anything then we don’t have a way to tour, and if we have new songs we can get press coverage.

――I did get the impression that your activities around “Xlll” were quite long.

Hazuki: Right. But, even though we’ve worked at this pace since going major, during our indies days we only put out one album every 3-4 years, at the pace of foreign talent or industry veterans. (laugh)

――That’s right. (laugh) Even so, looking over your releases so far, having overwhelmingly more albums than singles is very lynch..

Hazuki: We definitely don’t release a lot of singles. We don’t really market ourselves in a way that works with any format, so singles aren’t all that great for us. (laugh) Also, musically, I feel that singles don’t really fit. My favorite foreign artists put out nothing but albums, and even when they put out a single, I don’t feel like “finally, a single”!

――By the way, at the time of this interview, the number of songs on the album hasn’t been revealed, so it seems your fans are quite curious.

Hazuki: That’s right. I’m being asked constantly, but I can’t go saying things that haven’t been announced, can I? (laugh) But I suppose it’s important. Like, “Are there 8 songs or 15?”.

――I’m sure they’re curious because they’ve been looking forward to a new release. There are 12 songs this time, how many songs were made at the selection stage?

Hazuki: 13. We’re always exact. If it’s a 10 song album, we write 10 songs. This time, we had one extra from Yusuke-kun, but we told him to to put it on the next one, so it’s 12.

――Personally, I have a very strong memory of when “EXODUS-EP” (2013) came out, and you said you made 23 songs and pared it down to 6.

Hazuki: Did I make that many?! I definitely remember struggling hard with making songs. Recently that’s not really a problem.

――Is that because you have a clear vision for the album?

Hazuki: Right. First we make one song, and that serves as hint, and we add the elements that are lacking. It’s a chain where coming up with a song like this makes you want one like that, and you just make what you want. By doing that, you feel like “ah, the balance is good, this song is kind of hard to fit in so we’ll save it for the next”. If you do it like this, it doesn’t have to be set in stone from the start. Rather, we’ve never done it where we decide what the whole album will be like from the onset.

――So that’s why it feels natural to listen to lynch. albums all the way through.

Hazuki: Right. I feel the same.

――『”Xlll” was an album that specialized in clean vocals. Is there anything that was consciously featured on this album?

Hazuki: I’ve always had a goal in mind. Recently we’ve been invited to festivals where we appear before people who don’t know about us. For example, Luna-Fes is our home turf in terms of genre. It’s not like that, we’re totally out of our element, and we’ve played a lot of shows where we start by being looked at with a prejudiced eye. When we would suddenly appear in festivals like that, people would say things like “lynch. are visual kei, but they were cool” or “what even are these guys, visual kei or loud-kei or what?”. I find that frustrating. When people say “they’re visual kei, but” or “even though they’re VK, they were cool”, it’s proof that we’re still held back by visual kei. When people ask what genre we are, it makes me wonder why we have to be one or the other. I feel like we’re still bound by genre, or that we’re hard to understand.

――I see.

Hazuki: I want us to become a band that clashes with these absolutes, a band that makes people think “I just saw them for the first time and they were so cool, I didn’t know there was rock music like this”. So I wanted to create something that would bring the band in a direction that could take us to that level with this album. That’s not something that’s accomplished by aiming for this kind of music, or that kind of melody. Everything has to be perfectly consistent, from the photos to the MV to the music to the lyrics, and that’s still not enough – I think even the way we advertise ourselves will become important. So firstly I had the goal of heading in that direction, and I kept that in mind and wrote songs. It’d be hard to explain in concrete terms how it went, though.

――It’s a lofty but clear goal. Hazuki, recently you’ve touched on the way your band is evaluated. When you said “it’s not a bad thing to want good numbers”, it left an impression.

Hazuki: I live by the hard numbers. I don’t think “those who get us, get us, and those who don’t, don’t”. Results are everything. It’s expected that the content of the album is good. It’s expected that our fans will think it’s good – I want to get results on top of these basic assumptions. If I was just satisfied with that, it wouldn’t be enough to advance.

――You said “you wanted to be #1 someday with this music you believe in”.

Hazuki: That’s absolutely impossible at the moment, though.

――You responded so quickly.

Hazuki: It’s absolutely not possible yet. It’d be a problem if I wasn’t aware of that. Those who don’t get where they stand and say they’re hoping to be #1 will never be #1. We can’t get it yet, but I think we will someday.

――You’re really looking at your current situation with composure. When do you want to take the number one spot?

Hazuki: I wonder. But if too much time passes, it’ll be harder for us to compete visually. (laugh)

――Not at all. (laugh) But for example, there’s the appeal of someone like Chiba-san of The Birthday.

Hazuki: But he has a totally different appeal from us. It’s hard to say if we could be like that. Now we’re using an advantage that Chiba-san doesn’t have as a weapon, so that’ll be marred first. (laugh) Actually, this morning I was just watching a video of Chiba-san. When THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT stopped after one song at Fuji Rock.

――Coincidentally, I was watching the video of the “water bottle incident” this morning.

Hazuki: Oh, that is a coincidence! I was thinking about watching that too. (laugh) Chiba-san was really young in the Fuji Rock video, but I was watching while thinking he’s even cooler now.

◆I want people to listen with preparedness

――Is there anything you want to tell the fans in regard to listening to this album?

Hazuki: I want them to make sure it’s not set to shuffle before playing it. It’s a serious shock when you buy the new album of an artist you truly love and play it only to realize it was on shuffle…! What you thought was the first song wasn’t, and you feel guilty for not going along with the artist’s intentions. Even if you go back to the first song and listening, it’s no longer your first list. I want people to listen with at least that level of preparedness.

――This is important. And also, it’s refreshing that this album has no introduction. There hasn’t been a start to an album like this since “EXODUS-EP”.

Hazuki: I waffled on it, but I thought since we always include one, we should try leaving it out this time. I thought it was nice how ULTIMA [the song]’s start is distinct, so I figured it could go without. Also, I was very fastidious about this song, and there’s a one second delay from when you play it until the music starts. At first when we brought it up in mastering it would play instantly, but I thought it lacked appeal and had a one second delay added. This is pretty effective. You really get it when you compare it to the version without a delay, but it allows for a feeling of anticipation to settle from the moment you hit play. I was very deliberate about that.

――I hadn’t thought about the first second of the album. Continuing, the lead song “XERO” features Ryuichi Kawamura doing chorus work. How did this come to pass?

Hazuki: Ever since last year when I participated in Ryuichi-san’s event (RK presents Children of the New Age at Zepp Tokyo), we’ve gone out to eat a few times. He’s very kind, when I asked he said: “We’re family, so ask for anything. I’ll do the chorus for you anytime”.

――How kind…! After Ryuichi-san saw your solo show “Souen” in January, he wrote “thanks for a one-of-a-kind time” in his blog, right?

Hazuki: He did. He is really kind. When album production started, I asked him if he really would do the chorus work I’d mentioned earlier, and he said of course. It was like it had been settled while I was stunned in shock.

―― For TRIGGER feat. J (lead song of SINNERS-EP, 2017), where J-san participated as bassist, you said you created the song after making a tentative offer to J-san. How did it work this time?

Hazuki: This time “XERO” was already written, and I asked him while already knowing where I’d have the chorus if he agreed. I figured it should be the lead song since he went out of his way to do it.

――Since Ryuichi-san was doing the chorus, I imagined a calm song, but I was shocked when I played it.

Hazuki: Did you think “this is intense”? (laugh)

――Yes. (laugh) And it was a very indulgent way of using his feature.

Hazuki: Because it comes at the end of the end, right? (laugh) Also, the falsetto in the middle of the chorus is him, too. There and at the end our voices are mixed about half and half.

――Ryuichi-san’s voice and your voice are very compatible, they harmonized splendidly. The last “eien ni inochi wo kanade” is too beautiful.

Hazuki: At first I thought maybe his voice should be quieter. But the clarity of his voice is so impressive that it couldn’t get quieter. (laugh) He has a powerful voice. I figured I just have to blast it, it would a waste if I didn’t, and that’s how it is what it is now.

――It seems you touched on J’s one-take aesthetic during “Xlll”, but is Ryuichi-san a one-take man too?

Hazuki: He records in his own studio, but apparently he doesn’t sing more than three times, at most. And apparently he records the whole thing through three times and then goes home. I get pretty granular about the verses alone, and just sing the chorus three times.

――You said that you redo portions until you get the nuance you want when recording, right?

Hazuki: I used to. My technique hadn’t caught up to my ears yet, so it took time until I could express myself with the nuances I wanted. Now after singing it once or twice, I understand what I should do, and record that on the third try, and have the engineer pick the best parts. But I understand J’s one-take approach. If you do it over and over, you master it and lose the spirit, and the feeling of tension disappears.

――Fewer takes means the initial impulses are captured in the song.

Hazuki: I have impulses too, but I don’t yet have the confidence to pin them down in one take. Of course, live DVDs are one take, but I’m not there yet for CD releases.

――Even so, this collaboration is the thing of dreams. As you go through lynch.’s discography, the number of relationships with the members of LUNA SEA increase.

Hazuki: It’s like a dream for me, too. Now SUGIZO-san and Shinya-san are left. But, we have a drummer, so. (laugh)

――At last, twin drums with Asanao-san…

Hazuki: Oh no, I wonder… (laugh)

◆The ambition to rise itself is the “wish”

――I’d always been curious about the tweets you made that said “the lyrics I’m writing right now are just perverse, but it’s the honest feelings of a man, please read them with disgust”, but “EROS” isn’t a metaphor – it was really blunt.

Hazuki: I laid everything out without worrying about a thing, and prepared myself to be hated for it. (laugh)

――”GROTESQUE” (from “Xlll”) nearly rivals this song in perverseness. You said “I don’t remember any women being disgusted by [GROTESQUE]”, but you say “EROS” is a “man’s honest feelings”.

Hazuki: I say so, but it’s pretty biased. This is how I am, though. (laugh)

――My eyes are drawn to the kanji in “anata (貴女) ni shaburitsukitai (射舞りつきたい )”. You said that you made some of Yusuke-san’s lyrics hiragana, so I was surprised to see you focus on this.

Hazuki: That’s right. In that sense I’m not very pleased with “ULTIMA”. I really love the content, but when I look at it, it’s not very beautiful. It’s all letters. (laugh) Of course since they’re lyrics, they’re all letters, but but other lyrics look beautiful too, right? But “ULTIMA” is all kanji, and having said that, there’s no kanji I could turn into hiragana, and I didn’t want to change the meaning of the lyrics, so I just kinda said “that sucks” and finished. (laugh) This is all I have, so that’s how it has to be. I think that for people who don’t read the lyrics it will truly not matter, but I care about how the lyrics look overall.

――That’s the way of thinking of a designer or editor.

Hazuki: I want to show the lyrics so that they’re like a picture when you look at them. So I’m very concerned about line breaks and places where I leave a line blank. I leave empty lines before and after important spots to draw the eye, because I think it can shock listeners when they hear it.

――You pursue visual beauty as well. My way of viewing lynch.’s lyrics sheets has changed.

Hazuki: Recently, the lyrics come up on subscription music services, so I worry about how it shows up there. I wonder if they arrange it nicely. Do they put “(interlude)” between verses and stuff? (laugh)

―― I bet they do. (laugh) By the way, “EROS” was composed by Yusuke-san. At what stage did you tell him you were going to give these lyrics to it?

Hazuki: The temporary title he’d originally used for the song was “EROS”. So I thought, let’s give it these lyrics. Well, all men are perverts. (laugh)

――It is literally a song filled with eros. Changing gears, the word “death” appears in “ZINNIA” and “IN THIS ERA”. I saw won, but because I saw words in common between these two songs on the album, I wondered if they form a pair.

Hazuki: I realized yesterday that both have the word “death” in them. I was like, oh. (laugh) So it wasn’t conscious at all.

――So it’s a word that came up in both unintentionally. The idiosyncratic outro of “ZINNIA” is a highlight. It felt like I was misdirected into thinking it just ended quickly…

Hazuki: Kinda feels like a bonus, right? That one’s all Yusuke-kun’s doing, so I didn’t get involved musically at all. I just recorded the vocals.

――Also, I personally cannot get enough of the style of the verses of IDOL!

Hazuki: I think everyone will like it for sure. At first the melody suddenly came to me and I recorded it on my iPhone, but I thought maybe it was too poppy. But it was getting to the point where we had to produce some songs, so I thought let’s give it a go, and when I made it, it worked out better than expected. We haven’t done it in a while, but I think a direction like LIE (from “I BELIEVE IN ME”, 2011) is a very good element for lynch., so it’s a song that I put together while trying to move towards that.

――The sensuality of the vocals in this chorus were irresistible. Especially way you sing at the end.

Hazuki: Oh, is that right? Thank you. But still, it’s wild that this super poppy song comes right after “ALLERGIE”. (laugh)

――Achieving balance in that way is the strength of this album, I felt. The last song is “EUREKA”. For the first time in a while the album slows down before the last song, so I was wondering what would come next.

Hazuki: GALLOWS (2014) and D.A.R.K. -In the name of evil- (2015) used this pattern. It slows down, then there’s “PHOENIX”. It slows down, then there’s “MOON”.

――This song was clearly designed with live performance in mind.

Hazuki: That’s right. It was very carefully calculated, and while there’s a lot of lynch. songs that can close a setlist, I aimed for this one to be the best. The champion of the closer songs! I thought about what elements make a song popular. There’s all kinds of things like a good melody, good lyrics, the tune, and so on, but when I was wondering what to do about the interlude, this pattern suddenly came to mind. I thought it’d turn into something incredible if I just made it a sing-along and nothing else. Naturally you can already picture it at a live show. That’s where I was confident in its victory.

――It’s definitely the champion. What is the “wish” mentioned in the lyrics?

Hazuki: I wonder. There’s nothing concrete. It’d be terrible if it were like, “to win the lottery”, right? (laugh) Every song is like this, but what I write about in my lyrics is “being born, living, and dying”, and what to do while that’s happening. I don’t really write anything special aside from that. “IDOL” is a different case, but the other songs are basically saying the same thing. You’re born, you live, and more than simply living I want to advance and climb higher, so that in itself is something like a wish. So it’s not something like “I want to play Budokan” for example, but that ambition to rise itself is the “wish”.

――You wrote about this song on on social media: “This song exists only on my desk right now, but this will reach the members, it will be arranged and my lyrics and singing will be added, that will reach the staff, then come staging and lighting plans, and lastly everyone’s power will join it. I anticipate it will be nothing short of amazing”. I’m looking forward to seeing the scene that fans will imagine come to reality.

Hazuki: That’s right. Seems like the staff’s work will pay off, too. I want to play this song at a big venue. The “ULTIMA” tour ([XV]act:5 TOUR’20 -ULTIMA-) has a lot of little live houses, so I feel impatient.

――This tour is pretty bulky, with 26 shows.

Hazuki: It’s a lot. We did 35 with “Xlll”, so it’s not an especially large amount for lynch., but last year was a little scant.

――When we last met it was before “act.0” started, but plans for up to “act.10” have been announced. Last time when we interviewed about future development, “we’ve settled on a frame work, so we’ll keep building it up, and at last we’ll finish with a bang”. Have you decided what that will be?

Hazuki: We have. I hope we really close things off in a major way. I think “EUREKA” will shine, so please look forward to it. “Xlll” came out, then we toured, and I felt like we’d taken a step up. In going to act.10, I think we might be able to take two or three steps up, so I want everyone to support us as if they’re going to push us forward. I’d be happy if you helped us a little.

――It seems like good things will come if lynch. closes things with this album.

Hazuki: Well, something new might come out, you know…? It’s still only February, who knows what might happen.