Putting all the translations in one spot to make my life easier (as I review) and so it's easier for people to read them all without the discussions.

Chapters 1-4 translated by Moon_Margaret, 5+ by zorahk.

Chapter1


Q:what sorts of things did the pillows adhere to,
also what sort of vision did you have for the future,
at the time of your formation?

yamanaka:I don't really know. I don't think there was much there.
not really many specific settings, good music like the beatles.
Write good lyrics to a good song, and if possible sing it with a good voice
and then play well for our performances. I really think that was about it.
That's why we had our strong points and weak points. Because everyone likes things that are easy to understand.

Manabe: a lot of trial and error.
There was a keyword... basically we said we'd be like the beatles and have good songs that we play well.
And that keyword was rock and roll. I'm a guitarist with out rock and roll in the core..

Satou: basically we were heading in an ambiguous direction, saying we would have good music that we played well.

yamanaka: in the beginning we had, a bizarre, I don't even know if it was fast or slow but, anyway it wasn't a smooth sound.

manabe: in the beginning I was thrown around, as a guitarist, by the words rock and roll, which appeared in various places.

satou: probably a spiral staircase. I don't really even think that this here is our prime. After 15 years.

yamanaka: I guess in a way it was hard to understand. Just playing good music, even for a critic of music, is hard to put the right words to, I think.
It was hard to find a good place to put the position maybe. But I don't think we had too much we adhered to. That's the same now too I think.

Chapter2

you are there (kimi ga iru)

ueda: nice to meet you, we're the pillows. I play bass, my name is Kenji Ueda.

manabe: I play guitar. I'm pee.

yamanaka: I'm vocals and guitar, yamanaka. Sorry, I'm a bit tipsy.

satou: I'm shinichirou, I play drums.
ueda; yeah shinichirou. hahaha.

Satou: I like dry(?)


THE BEGIN

yamanaka: hmm yeah I really remember that. I got a phone call from Ueda-san.
He said that kenzi and the trips were breaking up. I was shocked at that.

satou: ueda was our first leader. As a bassist, he was famous in the punk world.

ueda: I came home to sapporo for a year or so, and I met yamanaka there.
So even after I returned, I had yamanaka send me his tapes. And I thought he was pretty good.
When it was suggested that we break up, I thought of yamanaka not two seconds after, and I suddenly felt like it was gonna be fun.

yamanaka: when we were in highschool there was talk about getting together with ueda-san, but we missed eachother and ended up not.
Then of course he was in kenzi. After that I became a member of the coinlocker babies, and I figured we'd stick with these members,
so even if I wanted to play with ueda-san, I had told myself I was gonna stick with these members forever, but that all changed with that phonecall.
Of course I wanted to go with uedasan.

yamanaka: "I want to have a new band with you, yamanaka." When I heard those words I was really surprised.

satou: in the beginning we were known as the band formed by two former kenzi and the trips members, but that's not true, it was ueda and yamanaka
who started it. I was just called in later.

yamanaka: so uedasan said to shinchan; you know yamanaka from the coinlocker babies that we've run into a few times at performances?
I'm thinking of making a band with him, so we want you to do it too shinchan. He probably heard my demo tapes too, and they said they'd do it.

manabe: and I was the last one to join, as a guitarist.

yamanaka: we didn't have a name the pillows yet, but we said we'd go as a trio. Because we talked about how there weren't any bands that were famous that were trios.

manabe: I think their ideal at first was to make a three man band, but I went to rehearsal once.

yamanaka: my guitar sucked. The two of us basically had our heads in our arms, it was really bad. So we had auditions with like 7 people. For guitar. They were all bad.

ueda: everyone was like 1,2,3,4,etcetc... playing like that, but peechan came all of a sudden, playing it up, really into it too. And we knew this was the guy.

yamanaka: the band manabekun was doing was really great, even though they were an amateur band in hokkaido, they'd have 600 or 700 people, playing in a big hall.

manabe: yeah my band was breaking up at that time too, and I was thinking of what my next stance was going to be. I was seriously considering Talking Heads, or joining Police.
I was really a guitarist that full of himself. But it's true that I had an energy about me that people didn't even take it as a joke.

yamanaka: if manabekun, the persia of sapporo, would really join like this, then it'd be really great.

manabe: so we had a session, I felt the potential and the fun, so I thought "hey why not"

yamanaka: we sent him a plane ticket. I didn't know him at all. So we went to a studio, and I immediately thought this was the guy.

yamanaka: so we finally had the 4.



paris woman marie

Chapter3


THE 1st MOVEMENT


Live P.A engineer takaharu kobayashi

kobayashi: they came out to tokyo and did a performance, and i first saw them after. They were really together.
They were a bright poppish sounding good band.

ueda: what you don't understand? Hm. For example... hey don't talk I'm talking.


music magazine editor kiyohiko sasagawa

sasagawa: I heard their demotape, and then did an interview. My impression of them at the time was that they weren't awesome yet, technique-wise.

sasagawa: but they had a lot of energy, roughness, and an overall sense of a band, and their popularity.. or their melody line was set too. An interesting band.


Management "Bad Music Group" mitsunori kadoike

kadoike: they have a jazzy sound in some songs, and that they did a lot of difficult sounding things. That was the first impression.

kobayashi: peechan's left thumb was always sticking out, and that was the coolest thing.
I believe Yamanaka was still 19, but he was surrounded by amazing guys, so he seemed a bit reserved still.

yamanaka: when we started I alone was apart from the others in age, and it wasn't just that I was younger, but inside I was still a kid, and I really wanted to change,
and I tried hard to do so.

Chapter 4

1st ALBUM

ueda: we're going to release a mini-album with five songs from captain records,and today we've come to announce this.
Right now we've just finished the performance at the loft, so my head is a bit elsewhere. Shinichirou san, what is this album like?

satou: Great. Putting it simply.

ueda: and yamanaka san?

yamanaka: there's up beat songs, acoustic.. it's a rather enjoyable variety of 5 songs I think.

ueda: and pee san?

manabe: Well first buy it and listen to it. It's contraversial.


Q: how did you feel when you released Pantomime?

yamanaka: very complicated.

satou: the cover was interesting. It's a cover that makes me wonder why we did something like that.

yamanaka: me being 20 at the time, it's needless to say that it was a very exciting experience.

manabe: kenji ueda and shinichiro already had experience you know? Even when they went to the studio they had a sense of comfort.

satou: when we released pantomime, there was reasonable thought I think.

manabe: yamanaka and I were desperate. I'm sure we were underestimated to an extent, so it wasn't like it was fun. We were desperate.

sasagawa: in many ways, at the time of their debut, I think they were fighting with their surroundings(people around them).

kadoike: yamanaka is very stubborn, and I too am stubborn, so we had many occasions where we'd clash. In the past. Peechan and shinchan were always the ones to stop us...

manabe: the pillows, looking back in a spectating way, was not a band that started with a set style so.

sasagawa: speaking from a musical standpoint, it was a time where they were blindly searching for various possibilities I think.

yamanaka: the beginning of the pillows was a time when I was bad, and even though I think I put out good music, the position in the band or, well I had doubts but, I couldn't say
those things at the right time, and sorta quietly mentioned them later I think. I think that's the kind of CD making I did.


MAJOR LABER


two from the pillows. Welcome. It's nice to meet you. First, they're releasing their first major album on 6/21. Titled Moon Gold.

yamanaka: there isn't a concept. There isn't anything like that and the lyrics and the music are not uniform. Just making each song good.

it's said to be filling, so I'd like to introduce the video.This was released on 5/21, so that makes it their debut single.

yamanaka: the pillows' "ame ni utaeba"

yamanaka: the music ringing in the world. I can make that level. I thought there would definitely be people that would understand me.


Radio Personality Takako nakamura

nakamura: a lot of letters came, saying how the song was good, how they fell in love with it, just a lot of responses directly came like that, and I felt the luckiest being a personality.
And I thought I hope they like me, getting responses really are the best feeling.

This is my fashion

yamanak: there, prepare yourself!

sasagawa: as people who understand us increased in number in the audience, I think that mentally comfort started to come in a good form.


PRODUCER RYOMEI SHIRAI

shirai: while others were saying about policy and nonesense, those guys were flaky. Flaky people don't adhere to unnecessary things.

yamanaka: I guess I know because I'm doing it but, it was an uncommon band. A band like band. Really.

manabe: I really think we're a band that relies only on sound.

satou: I think that the pillows now, in that sense, are entering a realm of bands not moved by such things.

ueda: I think there are a lot of possibilities. For example I think we're a band that could really bite into the upper ranks on the hit charts too.


Yamanaka: so, today we have a special guest, let us welcome Ringo Starr!

satou: hello, I'm ringo starr.


satou: when I was speaking I had it ready. I'd go to the bathroom before performances and stuff. When I couldn't think of anything it was painful.
I guess I wanted to speak. I actually like attention so I think I wanted to talk.

satou: so finally, I think I want, with everyone, to make this into an excitement contest.

yamanaka: the pillows, even during any bad times had, through music, as musicians, as song writers, always respected one another I think. From the beginning.

[b]Chapter 5:[/b]

Yamanaka: We were in London starting in February because of recording. The pleasant London...

the pillows & London

Yamanaka: At the time, about me being in London, I was really merry about it. This was when I was immersed in Mod culture, so it was a great event for me.

Yamanaka: It was kind of similar to when I went up to Tokyo (Translator note: No matter where one is in Japan, you go "up" to Tokyo, even if you are actually located north of it)

Yamanaka: To live in Tokyo and be in a rock band, I embraced that "I am cool" illusion. But when I was in the airplane and an hour and a half passed and I arrived at Haneda, there was no reason for me to become cool.

Yamanaka: That was the feeling. Kinda like "I'm in London, so aren't I cool?". But just riding 13 hours, and then arriving and still being me. I wonder if I realized that.

Manabe: Whether it was going to see splendid lives or going to see events, when the recording was over we really went to play a lot.
At the time at a place called town & country club, I was finally able to experience the live Ziggy Marley, the son of Bob Marley. I had an extreme change in my view point on live performances.

Satou: In '91, it was my first time traveling overseas, so it was my first time with a passport and all that. If you could say it was fresh, it was fresh.

Yamanaka: However it looks like now I'm standing on that bright pier in Quadrophenia. On the other hand, when we were recording or between the members, I was the worst!

Yamanaka: I really wanted to return quickly. I hated it. A lot. And so we haven't recorded a second time overseas. At the time I said something like "I won't go overseas".

Yamanaka: On the contrary (to the other members) I thought it was really tough. I thought "Japan is easier". I felt that a lot. I want to sing in Japan. It comes out too straight, my feelings, and well there's just a lot of them.
It wasn't because it was London, maybe it was because it wasn't my house and wasn't Japan.
From the start I think there are a lot of people really focused on recording, but the pillows didn't really do that I think. I don't really know about other bands but.
But in my own special way I'm just worried about being normal.

Yamanaka: Maybe it’s like this?

GO! HOME!

Yamanaka: By the way, we did a London recording.

Aren’t you just happy?

Yamanaka: But uh, since the staff was the same as the previous time, Engineer was JJ and the producer was Ryomei-san, it was almost identical. The place was just different. So I was able to relax.

Manabe: Since it’s after all been more than a year since our first album, I have confidence that our strength as a band is growing.

Is that the relationship between music and music?

Manabe: Yeah, that’s it isn’t it.

Satou: This time the uh, jacket, we repeatedly arranged detailed meetings.

Everyone is saying a lot huh, I’m happy.

Satou: The jacket is flashy, it’s nice. It feels like it stands out. The first one we had a lack of meetings and so it ended up really plain, but this time I’m pleased with the flashiness.

Ueda: Sound with depth, since I think yearning for that is the best, I think I want to release things like that.

So on that point, I wonder if you had regrets with the first album?

Ueda: Always with a first album.

Will you say them?

Ueda: Yeah. I want to release things that have more depth, things with my own emotions. That’s in the arrange, and in my own playing. Like “I wonder if I achieved enough”...that feeling.

Ueda: The feeling of being able to see it (what does he mean here?)

Yamanaka: Really, losing your feelings overseas, I think it’s starts with your reasonable feelings first. I have some regrets too. I don’t want my life to amount to nothing (lit: zero). But you know, I feel like they became considerably sparse. They’re completely trivial. There are also bands that have a significant amount. Even in Japan. Good things are good, bad things are bad. In England, and in Japan.

Chapter 6

What is the pillows music

Q: When writing lyrics in the pillows, what are you aware of, and what are you fixated on?

Yamanaka: More than other people I am fixated on how it fits with the song. In short, aren’t we talking about the words? But even so, how to make the rhythm and melody close, and how to feel the ratio of notes, that’s what I’m strongly conscious of I think. Even more than other songwriters. I don’t think lyrics are something you can read like this. I think they’re something you have to sing or hear, I don’t think I want to separate them from the music and evaluate them that way.

Our Haley’s Comet

Sasagawa: To make words extremely lively, to expose them, that is Yamanaka-kun’s literary style.

Kadoike: Yamanaka’s songs are extremely good, so the lyrics also have extremely deep components, and that liveliness is like a movie eh?

Nakamura: With great music, when gentleman face each other, even the listener is included and every one really understands well.

TONIGHT

Chapter 7:

LEAVING

Yamanaka: Today was fun but, there’s something I have to let all of you know. Please listen to our leader, Ueda Kenji-san.

Ueda: Um, on the 28th there is a show in Sendai, but I am going to be omitted. I’ve been thinking for the past three years, and uh, it’s my own selfishness, but, I want to follow my own path, and everyone consented. That’s it. Please treat everyone well from now on, because the pillows are continuing.

Yamanaka: We are really egoistic, both ueken and me.

Manabe: We had a period where the balance was unstable. But we were also a beginner band. Our close feelings and the problem of our egos. In a band, the problem of egos is always tagging along.

Satou: It wasn’t Yamanaka, it was Ueda who was the leader who formed the pillows. Since Yamanaka didn’t have the stance like he has now, I wonder if that was the source of our difficulty.

Manabe: If we didn’t deal with it well, the band would function temporarily but would’ve ended up in a strange direction. Unless you clear the problem of the egos.

Yamanaka: We had clashes on how to make wholesome music, and so Ueda ended up leaving but...

Manabe: At the foundation is the band’s ego. The struggle for initiative. I wonder if that period is an impression which even now is left with me.

Yamanaka: He’s the person who found me. The person who at the very beginning sensed me was, Ueda Kenji-san.

Yamanaka: The three remaining remembers will still play. Ueda Kenji will also still be a bassist. Please support us!

Chapter 8

THE 2nd MOVEMENT

Producer Yoshida Zin (It should really be Jin but he thinks he is cool if he writes it with a Z).

Yoshida: One day around noon, suddenly I got a call from some kid bassist named Kashima-kun, and I remembered him from the time when he helped with the guitar arrange on SUPER BAD.
His call said something like “I’m now in a band called the pillows, and I wanted to introduce Zin-san to them.” and “Today there is a live performance, if you have the time please come see it.” I think it was something like that.

Manabe: He said he wanted to take main leadership of all of Yamanaka’s songs, and proclaimed that he would oversee them. (referring to Yoshida, not Kashima)

Yamanaka: Uh, somehow an entire year ended up passing. Thanks so much for you all gathering here today like this.

Nakamura: I feel as if he was really dragging.

Yamanaka: The second wave was soul-ish, bosanova-ish, and uh reggae-ish.

Manabe: Various, because in a sense it was a period where we were challenging the music.

Sasagawa: The sound was colorful, they put in a lot of various sounds.

Yamanaka: We basically did every genre possible, and because I had liked the mod culture, and I even wore suits which flowed with that.

Manabe: Since from the start we were a skillful band, it was like I was continuing the spreading of my width in that direction.

Yamanaka: Today and always, the reason we are standing here is because of this person. SUPER BAD’s Kashima Tatsuya!

Satou: That Kashima kid, entrusting the recording to him was the first chance. It was like “Just do the recording.” The truth is at first he said “I won’t do lives”, but then he said “Well lives, they are uh, also good right?”

Yamanaka: Kashima-san is uh, well mysterious, and so it was a wonderful meeting. We didn’t even do any auditions or anything. It was just like Kashima was suddenly introduced and that was it.

Manabe: In those days that he wanted to play in the pillows... I think he was the perfect bassist at the time.

Yamanaka: When we entered the second wave I really liked Paul Weller. It was about when the Jam finally belatedly changed into The Style Council. Like the 23rd or 24th.
At that time, he was playing jazz and funky music on a wood base. He could do that “babbababba”, and he was really good and getting along with people, and he was even good looking! And he was an honest person. It was like I suddenly felt he was familiar and it wasn’t hard at all to have meet him so suddenly.

Satou: He provided a lot of influence to the pillows of that time period.

Yoshida: Even more so that saying that he “really fit the pillows during the secondwave”, the songs they were able to do because Kashima-kun was there, a lot of those kinds of songs that they were able to do since Kashima-kun joined were on Kool Spice.

Yamanaka: I think I met that person and studied a lot. A lot of various things. More than just as a bassist, but as an musician who excelled. I think he really influenced us a lot, at the time.

Chapter 9

5th single “Tiny Boat” CD jacket meeting.

So like one person is sitting, and another person is holding the oar like a guitar or something, that kind of situation might be interesting I think.

Yamanaka: Is that appropriate?

That’s right huh. I’m thinking if we can photograph something good at that time...

Yamanaka: Isn’t it another choice role or something?

I want him to appear as the leading role.

Yamanaka: Is he really 183cm tall?

Yamanaka: During the second wave I tried to incline my ears towards various people’s words, everyone was affected by it.

Good morning

Yamanaka: I wonder if he responded to the edge request.

Satou: Isn’t it love?

Yamanaka: Around 1996, the details of releasing Tiny Boat, or the results of releasing it, it really was something where the members got their feelings hurt.
I put in a lot of people’s opinions, it was like somehow I ended up wanting to blend together all these irregularities and release Tiny Boat.
But it’s something weird and, when I listen to now I think “Thats a good song isn’t it.” The song itself has no sins. But simply, in order to release that song, whether it was the meetings or the conversations or things like that, I really hated the process.
It’s something everyone doesn’t need to know, but. Since we couldn’t sell it like that everyone really ended up getting hurt. Somehow I sidestep the memories, as if I was bending my own policies.
We couldn’t sell it like that. And so I thought, am I really, really stupid?

Chapter 10

STYLE OF THE PILLOWS

Manabe: Because I don’t really think we are making music which has no popularity... Because I don’t think we are making music that no one can understand.

Yamanaka: To say “I’m making music for huge enthusiasts”, well I don’t really think that’s the case.

Manabe: Aren’t we standing on the same ground here?

Yamanaka: As for our contemporaries and such, we’re a group of friends. There’s a lot of “Did you sell a lot?” or “Did you break up?” and discussion like that.
Eh, about whether you can or can’t sell, we’re more concerned with other things. I mean, aren’t we a type of band which doesn’t put that high on our priority list?
The sound they are doing helps to instruct us. So what I’m saying is, as a songwriter, how are they different from myself? Why am I not accepted? There used to be a lot of stuff like that.

Manabe: I would see Yamanaka groaning, right, and I’m just like “Eh, do want you want”.

Introducing the pillows’ manager, Miura-san.

Yamanaka: Ahhh! He’s suspicious looking eh?

Manager Kazushiro Miura

Miura: Since it was the heyday of tie-up programs (referring to a 15 second commercial at the end of a program), I was like “if you did a tie up program you could sell like a million copies!”

Manabe: There was this so-called tie up boom going on, it was like to be able to sell you had to do a tie up. It was an era when a 15 second catchy hook (note: hook here refers to the “high point” of a song) was a prerequisite.

Miura: With the member’s thoughts, and in relation my baseless “1 million copies”, without a doubt a sort of gap resulted.

Manabe: We also decided to challenge that didn’t we. But in the end, in reality we didn’t challenge it.

Sasagawa: In terms of music, there were a lot of great songs in the first and second waves. But uh, for me to say this is kind of out of my place but, in terms of business, we weren’t extraordinarily blessed during the second and first waves.

Yamanaka: Anyways, the end of the second wave was both the best and the worst of times, in terms of the band’s health.

Miura: Really, around that time I think the members were probably bitter, and I was also really bitter.

Satou: We did a live in Iwate. Exactly around the time of the end of the second wave.
The head of the office was like “this is not good”, and expressly established meetings.

Kadoike: There were just too many various things going on, and we just didn’t know what to decide to do. Those kinds of things were felt during the lives of those times. “Now, there should be things we have to do. We should once again return to the high school student time, the image we had when the band was made, and try making music”. That kind of thing was discussed. Though I think that’s becoming the pillows rock sound now.

Satou: Well we probably didn’t do it enjoyably in those days, eh. Those kinds of things circulated. Around the end of the second wave was really the bands biggest slump, though it’s a pretty well known story. I think I wonder whether that slump showed up in our lives too. Lives are kind of like being in a dream but, I also feel like we were not wasting our energy.