Source:
http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/12792215/Any comments/criticisms/corrections on the translation are welcomed.
"the pillows' Yamanaka Sawao talks about the background of 'Nook in the Brain'"
the pillows' new album, NOOK IN THE BRAIN, incorporates elements of alternative rock. The collection of songs was written last year during their tour and is packed full of Yamanaka Sawao's personal taste.
Livedoor: I didn't know the meaning of the English word "nook," so I looked it up, and it seems that "Nook in the Brain" means something like "a small space in the corner of the brain." Could you tell us about the reason for this title?
Yamanaka: The songs on Nook in the Brain were all written while we were touring, at hotels in various towns. I still really love writing songs, so I write a lot of songs. During that period I was writing without any aim, no plans for making a collection of songs, without even thinking about making a pillows album really. No deadlines or hurrying for a particular time, just writing a lot of songs while we were touring. I wasn't worrying about analyzing any trends in myself, just writing as I pleased. After that, I picked out the ones that I liked most or the ones that I somehow felt would become important songs, thinking just a little bit about trends and themes, from a larger scale. On that note, this time I'd say tracks like "Be Your King," "Perfect Idea," and "Zhelanie" are ones whose lyrics make up the core of that theme.
Livedoor: And what was that theme you saw?
Yamanaka: "Be Your King" is probably the easiest to undertand, but when you think about how to make yourself enjoy things, depending on your age and environment and circumstances I'm sure there are all sorts of different patterns, but when you get to my age you start to see things emerge that you can't really do anything about no matter how much effort you give. For example, time goes on no matter what, and all living things age and eventually die. That's something you can't fight against no matter how much you try. I can't agree with trying for something like that, so I see getting obsessed with depression as wasted time. So for the things that can't be fixed with your own effort, I thought that some escapism is fine. And in times like that, maybe there's some corner in that brain that controls you, areas you've never once opened up before, and in the midst of them, some ideas that can make yourself happy...I noticed that I had a lot of songs with lyrics about that sort of hope or philosphy at their foundation.
Livedoor: I definitely thought there were lyrics in "Be Your King" that shared something with "Nook in the Brain."
Yamanaka: That's why I wanted to call the album "Be Your King" at first. But then we put that out as the lead single, and it feels bad to have the single and album have the same title. So then I thought maybe we'd call it "Perfect Idea," but "perfect" and "idea" are both too catchy, so it was weak or lacking in a hook somehow. So I thought we needed a different title and started considering the themes as well while looking up all sorts of words. For me, though, the meaning is less important than how the words sound and how they look to me personally. I also didn't know the word "nook," but when I said it I really liked the way it felt, and thought the sound was also cute. I also liked the way the word looked right away, so I decided I wanted to use that word.
Livedoor: There are a lot of songs put together that were written while touring, but do you just kind of naturally write songs when in hotels on tour?
Yamanaka: I've been living a life like that for so long, so there's a part of me that's convinced I'm that sort of person. Or even, it seems "I'm the kind of guy whose character is to write songs while touring."
Livedoor: Like a self-suggestion, haha. Are there days on those tours where you're just like "I can't write any songs today!"?
Yamanaka: Of course, days without writing a new song are more frequent. For only 10 songs to be picked out of a three month tour, that means hardly any songs were written, really. Since there weren't any deadlines, I didn't think anything of days where I didn't write a song. To be honest, there were probably more days that we went drinking, haha.
Livedoor: Well, maybe you were thinking of the songs inside your head when you went drinking, haha.
Yamanaka: When I had something in progress, I was definitely thinking of it. Even when watching a movie or TV, or reading manga, I was always thinking about it. I think the only time I can really turn the music switch completely off is probably when thinking about "adult" things, haha. I guess you could say unless I'm doing "adult" things I'm thinking about music.
Livedoor: That sure makes it clear and easy to understand how much time you spend thinking about music in the day-to-day, haha.
Yamanka: And by music, I guess it means the pillows, and my own artistic work. It's mainly for lyrics, but for example if something happens to really capture my attention, I think about if I can use it for an album jacket idea, or a T-shirt design. Or if I can use it for an MC during a variety show. There's not really much I can just innocently enjoy without thinking of the pillows. I always end up wondering how I can make use of it, I think.
Livedoor: For this album, there was a revival of Alternative music styles. Was there any reason you thought of doing that?
Yamanaka: At first I thought there wasn't any reason, but now I'm thinking maybe there's an explanation. We were the most obsessed with alternative rock back around 1998-2000. In 2000, we were in charge of the music for Gainax's "FLCL." And now after 16 years it was decided that they'd make a sequel to FLCL, and the pillows would be in charge of the soundtrack once again. As a result, when that topic came up on tour, we played the main song from FLCL, Ride on Shooting Star, as an encore. Since [the sequel] will be broadcast in America sometime in late 2017 or early 2018, I thought I must have just been feeling from that point "two more years, huh." But now I look back and think that somewhere in my head, while enjoying the tour and writing songs, some part of me was thinking "we'll be making songs for FLCL again in another two years." So that's why I wrote a ton of alternative songs and really liked them. I felt like doing those songs for my solo work or with another band would have been really unnatural. I had a bunch of alternative rock songs I liked and felt like there isn't any more need to hide that or control where things were headed.
Livedoor: The guitar sound is very alternative rock. It seems that sound is also very particular this time.
Yamanaka: That's the part that's the most to my taste. We spent the most time on that, redoing the mix over and over again. This goes into a bit about the mastering industry, which readers probably have no real interest in (haha), but usually you would go to a specialty mastering studio and have a professional mastering engineer take care of it, with the standard being that you master it once and you're done. But this time we didn't do that and instead mastered it ourselves. We're all amateurs when it comes to mastering, so it didn't go so well with just one time, so we ended up redoing it a whole bunch of times. This is the first time in our 20-some years as a band that we've done that. But when you listen on those incredibly expensive speakers at a mastering studio with huge volume, everything always sounds great. Rather than that, we would go back home and listen how we would normally hear it, and end up with all sorts of thoughts on what to change. We made a lot of tiny adjustments over and over. We'd go back and request of our own engineering team, "we want to redo this one more time like this," so it turned out fine...but I bet nobody's really interested in this sort of story, haha.
Livedoor: I'm sure there are people who are interested, haha. In regards to going so far as doing the mastering yourself, were you able to get an ideal sound?
Yamanaka: In the end, I'm not really sure. After all, the only thing I got to listen to this time was the thing that we made. I'd imagine that if we were able to have the people who did the mastering up through last year also do a master of it and compared the two, we'd end up with different thoughts. But you can't really just ask someone, "just do this anyway" when it might not even be released. We know that there's a difference between the quality that a third person's opinion can bring and the quality you can get from doing it exactly how you want. This time, we wanted to make something that was good because it was just how we wanted it to be.
Livedoor: So it's not like you're feeling "let's definitely master it ourselves next time!"
Yamanaka: I'm thinking right now that we'll do the mastering ourselves again next time. But it'd really be best to be able to hear two different styles. Or even, there are a ton of different mastering engineers, so I'd love to hear all sorts of different people's attempts, haha. But that would end up being really expensive. So I don't think a day like that will come, haha.
Livedoor: Well then, where can we say the pillows are heading from here?
Yamanaka: Some years ago the pillows ended up in this very comfortable place within me, so where I felt it'd be fine even if I didn't write any new songs. I haven't even come close to playing all of the songs that I've written in my life so far at live shows. I have hundreds written, so it's like I'll never catch up no matter how much we tour. Most of them are songs that I really like but haven't ever performed, so I truly don't need any more new songs, haha. But it's not that it's better to not have new ones. It'd be fine even without them, but when I write a song I like, I want to record it and if I like how it sounds when we record it, I want others to hear it. It ended up like that this time, too, so we put out an album and are going to tour for it. The pillows formed 28 years ago. Our oldest member is turning 54. In two more years, we'll be doing our 30th anniversary. But I have no clue what's after that. I don't have the same kind of stoicism that the Rolling Stones do, haha. I don't think I'll be like them physically and mentally, so I think I'll just keep going on a gently like this for a while.
