INDEX
Kuwajima: I Was in an Denki Groove Cover Band in High School
It was your first experience to fall in love with a musician and take his picture, wasn’t it?
Kuwajima: I have mainly focused on commercial photography, so I haven’t really had the chance to take photos for my own projects. That’s why it was so enjoyable. It felt great to shoot exactly what I wanted, especially being able to watch my favorite band perform right in front.
Kato: Since then, you’ve frequently come to take photos of live shows, and you even came to Tomakomai.
What was your impression of Tomakomai?
Kuwajima：I don’t mean to sound negative, but I was drawn to the parts that feel a bit run-down. I’m from Okayama, which is very neatly organized. In Hokkaido, it snows, and it feels like there’s no time for maintenance, which gives it a certain natural charm that I found appealing.
When you were in Okayama, did you go to live houses?
Kuwajima: I was in a copy band of Denki Groove in high school. The band was called “Chinese,” and there were three members: me, a guy named Sakamoto Toruichi, and the son of a construction worker. There was a copy band event that featured Judy Mari, Pistols, Lunacy, and Denki, and the construction worker’s son and the bass player of the Pistols didn’t get along very well, so every time we played together we would have a falling out.
Kato: Denki and the Pistols fought [laughs].
I wanted to ask you this once, but how much do you think the environment and music have to do with each other? For example, a band from Hokkaido is often said to be Hokkaido-like.
Kato: To be honest, I don’t really know. Hokkaido is an absurdly large island, and when people say we sound like Yoshimura of the bloodthirsty butchers, I think they are looking at the Sea of Japan, but I am looking at the Pacific Ocean. But when I went to a festival in Yamagata, Komatsu-san, the drummer of the Butchers, told me after the show that I looked like Yoshimura-san. I was like, “Well, if this guy said that about me, then I guess I can’t blame him (laughs).
