Ruki and Uruha Interview

Credits to ST.net :)

Presenter: I will now introduce today’s guests; two members from the very popular Visual-kei band, GazettE!
Ruki: I am the vocalist, Ruki.
Uruha: I am the guitarist, Uruha.
Presenter: I always listen to your songs and watch you on TV, so I’m very happy to have the chance to meet you!
Uruha: Thank you very much.
Ruki: (laughs)
Presenter: I’m not lying!
Ruki: Oh, really?
Presenter: You looked at me as if to say I was lying.
Ruki: Well, yes.
Presenter: Of course not! I always enjoy watching you.
Ruki & Uruha: Thank you very much.
Presenter: You fit with the mood of my cafe very well today!
Ruki: Yeah, I think we did alright. It’s a good job I didn’t come in a t-shirt!
Presenter: But even if you did, you would have probably made some other different, edgy image.

Presenter: Starting from the beginning, how did the band ‘GazettE’ come together?
Ruki: We were all doing different bands at the time, near Yokohama, and we already knew of each other.
Uruha: We knew each other and we also respected each other [as musicians].
Presenter: Oh, so you didn’t see each other as rivals?
Uruha: Not rivals, no. Ah well, but there was a part of me that was *envious (gestures towards Ruki)
[*I think he means envious of Ruki's former band, not so much Ruki himself]
Ruki: So, we knew faces, and we all seemed similar, so we sort of pulled together and decided to form a band.
Presenter: You quit your former bands, then?
Uruha: Yes.
Presenter: Who was the first person to bring that idea up?
Uruha: Well, I was in the same band as our bassist Reita at the time, and as there was only the 2 of us we asked Ruki to join. We were kinda waiting for his old band to split up.
Ruki: (laughter) Yeah, you were!
Presenter: So after his band split up you got together along with the other members of GazettE?
Uruha: Ur…from there -
Ruki: – we formed a different band.
Uruha: That was when I first met Ruki. When that band came to an end, me, Reita and Ruki were the only ones left, so we searched for more members and formed “Gazette”.
Presenter: What was the origin of your band name, “Gazette”?
Ruki: At first we were told that having the sounds “Ga, gi, gu, ge or go” [Japanese phonics] in your band name was a good thing as they were easier sounds to remember… First we were thinking of the name “Gaze”, but it was like, “What does that mean?” And at the time, we used demo tapes and cassette tapes and…we thought, “what about ‘Gazette’?”
Presenter: Ah, you got it from *”cassette” tape?
[*In Japanese, "cassette tape" is "kasetto", which is the same pronunciation as "gazetto" apart from the 1st sound]
Ruki: There’s no real meaning to it, really. We chose “Gazetto” for the sound. And then afterwards there was sort of meaning to it in that…our band’s wanted to make a sound that’s like a cassette tape that blew up [laugh] Dunno what kinda sound that’d be!

Presenter: Do all the band members get on?
Uruha: We do, yeah.
Presenter: Do you see each other when you’re not working?
Ruki: On days off? Well…we’re almost together all the time.
Presenter: Because you’re working?
Uruha: We don’t really have any time to ourselves -
Ruki: – that’s not true -
Uruha: – oh no, that’s not true [laughs]
Ruki: I wouldn’t want us to get that close! (laughter)
Uruha: Aw, I don’t think that!
Ruki: I don’t think that either actually (laughter)
Presenter: But I guess you’re together even “out of the office”, such as when you’re composing, which means that you spend a good length of time together, right?
Ruki & Uruha: That’s right.
Presenter: Do you compose all your songs yourselves?
Ruki: Yep.
Uruha: (laughs)
Presenter: *”Yep?” That was suddenly a cute way of putting it!
[*He was meant to say "un" in Japanese which basically means "yeah", but he got tongue-tied and came out with "fun"]
Ruki: We compose together – well someone will compose a song and we all work on it from there, which we’ve been doing from the past.
Presenter: By the way, who is the leader of the band?
Ruki: The leader?
Uruha: The leader is well -
Ruki: – the kid who plays the drums, I guess.
Uruha: The “kid who plays the drums”? (laughs)
Ruki: His name is Kai, and I guess he takes the role of the leader. He’s the most -
Uruha: – well, like a leader.
Ruki: – dependable, I guess.
Presenter:Does that mean that Kai goes through the songs and decides, “Ok, we’ll use this one next”?
Ruki: No, doesn’t happen (laughter)
Presenter: It doesn’t?
Ruki: It’s more when all the band members are talking, and things get out of hand he…(pauses) (to Uruha) Does he do anything like that?
Uruha: In the past he sort of made a schedule…well, not schedule -
Ruki: – like our Manager? (laughter)
Presenter: Your Manager? When he’s your drummer?!

Presenter: When you first formed GazettE, did you experience any kind of struggle? Or are there any (bad) memories that stay with you?
Uruha: When we first formed, all we did was struggle.
Presenter: In what way?
Ruki: Not many people would come and see us [play], if anything.
Uruha: That’s right. When GazettE first formed, we hardly got any notice.
Ruki: No one noticed!
Uruha: Yeah, no one!
Presenter: Really?
Ruki: It was just like, “Oh, it’s them lot [from the previous bands] who’ve just got together and made another band”, right?
Uruha: Mmm…well…
Ruki: Well ok, I’m not too sure, but…it was only between a small number [of fans?] And we were doing the band with that and…
Uruha: We didn’t get much notice and…like at our second gig, there weren’t that many people.
Presenter: Since you became ‘GazettE’?
Uruha: Yes.
Presenter: But you thought, “Let’s not give up, guys!”…?
Uruha: Yeah, we never gave up -
Ruki: We never lost hope.
Uruha: – even if there weren’t that many people, in order to get more people to know of us, we did as many gigs as we could.
Ruki: I [we] didn’t see it as a hard struggle at the time, though.
Uruha: It was obvious that there weren’t that many people -
Ruki: – it was obvious that there weren’t going to be that many and it didn’t bother us much.
Presenter: But didn’t your fans from your previous bands come and see you play?
Uruha: Ah, it was most difficult losing those fans.
Ruki: Yeah. We didn’t live up to their expectations.
Uruha: Some fans who came to see our gigs when we were in our previous bands didn’t come and see us as “GazettE”.
Presenter: Ah, things like that happen, then. But now, you’re doing gigs such as at the ‘Budoukan’! Thinking back to when not many people came to see you and comparing it to now, how do you feel?
Ruki: We felt like people finally understood us (laughs) In general, what we’re doing now is no different to what we were doing then, it’s just that no one came and saw us.
Uruha: We’re definitely happy and grateful.
Ruki: Definitely.

Presenter: Now, you’ve done gigs overseas – what did you think of them? Is it different to Japan?
Ruki: It’s like, if Japanese fans were drunk -
Uruha: (laughs) Drunk?
Ruki: It’s almost like Japanese fans are sober, and over there they’re [oversea fans] drunk.
Presenter: What do you mean by that?
Uruha: They’re completely ecstatic.
Ruki: Ecstatic, yeah.
Presenter: Really?
Ruki: In Japan, the fans brace themselves when the gig’s about to start, but overseas, it’s already started.
Presenter: Before you’ve even gone on stage?
Ruki: Yeah, before we’re even there -
Uruha: They act like the gig has already started.
Ruki: – when we’re still backstage, the gig’s already started.
Uruha: It really has!
Presenter: Wow.
Ruki: They’ve already set the mood.
Uruha: They’ve set the mood for us so that when we go on stage, we can be in that same mood.
Presenter: So when you walk onto stage, the atmosphere is completely different [to Japan]?
Uruha: Yeah, you should see them!
Ruki: You should – they’re crazy!
Presenter: Do they cause havoc and jump about…?
Uruha: Yeah, we had to keep having intervals.
Presenter: Because the fans were too rowdy?
Ruki: Yeah, a lot of stuff was happening.
Uruha: It was becoming chaotic.
Ruki: Even the security guards were getting into to it!
Uruha: They’d be keeping the fans back then turn round and be like, “YEAH!” [does rock fists pose] It’s like, “Guys, do your job!” (laughs)
Presenter: But I bet as the band on stage, you’d get ecstatic too?
Ruki & Uruha: We do.
Ruki: The security guards were the most ecstatic! It’s like, “what?”
Presenter: But watching all that from stage, are you able to keep calm and cool and perform?
Ruki:That’s the thing, we’re not not – we’re ecstatic from the first song!

Presenter: Doing gigs around different areas of Japan, do you find any differences between the prefectures? Such as between Tokyo and Osaka?
Ruki: Ah, Osaka – in the kansai area, the fans actually get really into it.
Presenter: Really?
Ruki: You know how there’s a blackout just before we start our gig? Well, we know what to expect from the fans’ screams on that day.
Uruha: That’s true.
Presenter: What do you mean, exactly?
Uruha: Just by seeing if the fans yell or not when the lights go out, we know how the gig’s going to turn out.
Presenter: So if they do, it shows they’re going to give it their all -
Ruki: – and we feel that things are going to go great, but when their response is a bit uncertain -
Uruha: – when they don’t respond that well, we think “Are things gonna go alright?”
Ruki: When they’re hesitant like, “Kya…kyaa!”, we think “Damn, today’s not gonna be good!”
Uruha: We think we need to put in more effort.
Presenter: Do you form a circle with the other members to cheer each other on before gigs then?
Uruha: We do. Always.
Ruki: We have different versions of it as well, and we change it occasionally, don’t we?
Uruha: Ur…we do?
Ruki: Yeah, like we’d say we’ll do it ‘this way’ this time. We’d change it, such as going up instead of going down.
Presenter: Oh, so when you say “YEAH!” you jump up instead of bending down?
Ruki: But it tends to not work out.
Uruha: We do get it wrong!
Presenter: What do you normally do?
Ruki: We all put our hands out in the middle -
Uruha: What? No, we put our arms round each other’s shoulders!
Ruki: Oh yeah! (laughs)
Uruha: Don’t freakin’ forget it! (laughs) Considering we do it all the time!

Presenter: Do you have any bad memories of making mistakes during gigs?
Ruki: There was a time when my shoe flew off.
Presenter: Your shoe?! Did you kick it off or something?
Ruki: Yeah I did, and it ended up flying into the audience, didn’t it?
Uruha: Yeah.
Ruki: I had to ask them [the fans] to give it back to me.
Presenter: In the middle of your singing?
Ruki: Well, I sort of gestured to them (shows his gesture)
Presenter: But from the fans’ point of view, they wouldn’t want to let go of it, I should imagine!
Ruki: They all ignored me. They’re all like, “We dunno what you’re talking about”!
Presenter:They must’ve been fighting over it!
Ruki: Well, no, ’cause no one knew where it’d gone!
Presenter: As you wear quite a lot of accessories and jewelry, don’t you lose some when you jump around?
Uruha:(gestures to Ruki) He’s always losing something!
Presenter: Do you not get any of it back?
Uruha: You seem to get it all back…?
Ruki: One thing hasn’t come back to me (laughter)

Presenter: Do you have any other memories from gigs?
Uruha: Mine was when I fell of stage. It was so embarrassing.
Presenter: While you were playing?
Uruha: Yeah, I got too into it and went too close to the end of the of the stage, and I lost my balance and fell forward!
Ruki: He fell, and he was still playing.
Uruha: After the gig finished Ruki said, “Dude, you’re so ecstatic today!”
Ruki: ’cause he fell and was still playing off the stage!
Presenter: But didn’t you hurt yourself?
Uruha: I was alright, I just…fell (laughs)
Presenter: Looking at it all from the audience you’d think that it was all part of your performance, when in fact -
Uruha: – I’d fallen off stage.
Ruki: When you watch a clip of it afterwards it’s obvious he’d fallen accidentally (laughter)

Presenter: I’m sure you have some intense fans who send you presents and whatnot; what sort of things have they given you?
Ruki: Well when we did the tour round Japan -
Uruha: – oh, the flag -
Ruki: – there’s this flag, the Japanese flag, with comments written by the fans. The fan who’d had the idea had brought it to each gig in every part of Japan and asked other fans she or he didn’t even know to write something, and we’ve been given one a number of times at the final gigs of our tours. It’s sometimes displayed on the day of the gig.
Presenter: I’m sure that you were very grateful for them to have done that.
Ruki: Yeah, it’s true that we do enjoy receiving something that money can’t buy.
Uruha: It’s knowing how much effort was put into it.

Presenter: I’d now like to ask a few more personal questions -
Ruki: Go ahead.
Presenter: We had you fill in a questionnaire prior to this interview, so I’d like to ask questions related to it. Firstly, a food that you thought was genuinely delicious! I found it funny that you both chose almost complete opposite foods! Ruki, you chose ‘foie gras’ (a French dish) -
Ruki: I did. I really like it!
Presenter: Isn’t it rare to come across someone who likes ‘foie gras’?
Ruki: If you fly by business class on the plane, ‘foie gras’ is part of the menu. That’s how I first tried it, when we went to Cannes (in France). They even had truffle dessert.
Presenter: That’s a high-class business class!
Ruki:It was! I was so surprised. Anyway, I knew I liked truffle dessert, but after trying foie gras…! It tasted so good! I decided to buy some and take some back with me.
Presenter: Did you buy some, then?
Ruki: I bought a can of it to take back with me.
Presenter: You’re certainly well-off! Have you tried some in Japan since?
Ruki: I often buy it using a delivery service, and I spread it on bread – I was told that it tastes good with jam and… It’s not like I eat it every day! (laughter) But if I go to a restaurant and they have it, I’ll order it.
Presenter: The fact that you eat ‘foie gras’ makes you seem really refined and mature.
Ruki: It does? The taste of it doesn’t really come across like that to me…
Uruha: It’s good though.
Ruki: Yeah.
Uruha: It’s something that would go well with drinking [alcoholic beverages]
Ruki: Yeah, like a snack to go with it.
Presenter:But to have foie gras as a “snack”, you’d have to be pretty rich!
Ruki: You’d have to be pretty rich but -
Uruha: – he doesn’t drink [alcohol]!
Ruki: I don’t drink!
Uruha:Foie gras only.
Ruki: I’d have it with a ginger-ale or something…
Presenter: Aw, how cute!

Presenter: And Uruha chose tarako [cod roe] spaghetti [Japanese dish]
Uruha: I chose a very common, typical dish! [in Japan!]
Presenter: It’s so sweet though!
Uruha: (laughs) See, back in the early days of our band when I had to travel from home to places [for gigs] like Tokyo, there was this really nice spaghetti [pasta/Italian] restaurant that my band-mates and I often went to. It’s part of good memories.
Ruki: (laughs) We did, yeah.
Presenter: That’s so cute.
Ruki: We didn’t even look at the menu, did we?
Uruha: Basically; it was get inside, eat! (laughs)
Ruki: (laughs)
Uruha: I have a really funny clip on my mobile/cellphone, where Ruki – when we step into the restaurant, a waiter or waitress comes to seat us, right? And at the point, he’s already saying “3 Tarako spaghetti’s, extra portions”! (laughs)
Ruki: (laughs)
Uruha: It’s way too quick of him to order! I took a video of him doing that on my phone from behind.
Presenter: Did you always have Tarako spaghetti when you went, then?
Ruki: Well, cause we went there constantly, I was told that I might as well order before we even sat down -
Uruha: – yeah, we did!
Ruki: – so as soon as we opened the door, not waiting to see if the waiter or waitress would greet us, I was like, “3 Tarako spaghettis”!
Uruha: And one cheese fondue.
Presenter: How did the waiter or waitress react?
Ruki: They were like, “Urr -
Uruha: – thank you for your order! But how about you take seat first?”
Presenter: Do you ever cook for yourselves at home?
Uruha: Sometimes.
Presenter: Tarako spaghetti?
Uruha: I do. Even at home (laughs)
Presenter: You really like, it don’t you?
Uruha: I love it!
Presenter: I found it interesting that you’re both like opposites.
Ruki: It’s all good. With only you giving the more favourable impression.
Uruha: How? (laughs)

Presenter: Next, your recent hobbies! Uruha wrote “playing Nintendo DS”.
Ruki & Uruha: (bursts into laughter)
Uruha: I apologise for being so common and average!
Ruki: It’s the chatrooms.
Uruha: Yeah, they’re good fun.
Presenter: Do you often play video games, then?
Uruha: I do.
Presenter: What sort of games, for example?
Uruha: During tours, everyone’s crowded together, so it’s easy to connect with other consoles and play together. Its like, “Bring yours along so we can play together!” And then when you start playing – oh, you can do chat, so then we all started using the chat-room a lot.
Ruki: It’s good fun.
Uruha: It really is!
Ruki: We chat about people who are in the same room. We basically make fun of them!
Uruha: It’s really fun to make silly jokes in the chat-room.
Ruki: Such as drawing pictures of people’s faces.
Presenter: Do you do that within all the members?
Uruha: I guess so…though some people don’t.
Ruki: Then there are those people use other people’s [Nintendo DS].
Uruha: (laughs & gestures to Ruki, arrow appears by Ruki saying “one of those people”)
Presenter: Do you ever get together at some-one’s house and play games?
Ruki: We did in the past. I don’t like – well, I don’t really play console games, but there was this one game that we all played together -
Uruha: – it was a fighting game. It was the only one he [Ruki] played…and you could play it with 5 people!
Presenter: You mean on one screen?
Uruha: Yeah, we bought all the extra parts -
Presenter: Wow!
Ruki: (to Uruha) It was 4 people.
Uruha: Oh, was it 4?
Ruki: 4 people would play and whoever lost swapped with the person waiting.
Uruha: Oh yeah (laughs) Everyone wanted to keep playing it, so no one wanted to lose!
Ruki: It was actually during the time we were recording, so whenever we had time we played that game.
Uruha: We were so addicted to it!
Ruki: Yeah. We even did it when we got home! (laughs) After recording, even though we were tired we’d have a few rounds of it.
Presenter: That’s crazy! I can’t imagine you all glued to a console game, though!
Uruha: We don’t play it anymore though.
Ruki: Not anymore. That was when we used to get along.
Uruha: EH?! (laughter)
Presenter: You get along now as well, don’t you?! (laughter)

Presenter: “A trait about yourself that you admit to and think you are best at”. Ruki wrote “I can be self-centered”.
Ruki: I think that there are parts of myself that I need to able to show, especially as the vocalist… I meant it in that way.
Presenter: Does that mean you often get into a quarrel?
Ruki: Well…*I end up having a bad experience.
[*this could be wrong, I was unable to catch what he says exactly]
Ruki: After I get angry I feel bad, so I stop talking -
Presenter: – you take a step back. Is he always like that? (to Uruha)
Uruha: Well, sort of. If he just lets out his feelings the only thing we can do is swallow and accept it. We try to see his point of view. Try to compromise.
Ruki: I don’t let my feelings out that often, though!
Uruha: (laughs)
Presenter: Ah… I can tell that you all get on very well.
Ruki: Eheh.
Uruha: Oi, what do you mean by that bitter “eheh” laugh?! (laughs)
Ruki: (laughs) That wasn’t a bitter laugh! Don’t say things like that!
Uruha: (chuckles)

Presenter: Lastly, I’d like to ask you for a message to your fans.
Ruki: Um, well…We may be a rather wilful sometimes…but we’re not bad people. So please continue to stick with us.
Uruha: Please do.