Emerald x YONA YONA WEEKENDERS talk about working class city pop

Unusually, they hit it off immediately upon meeting. Sympathy felt by both

-The two groups hit it off immediately after their first encounter, didn’t they?

Fujii: At first, Yosuke (Nakano) met Isono for the first time at “exPoP!!!!!”. When Yosuke (Nakano) first met Isono and introduced himself, he told me that he was listening to “Tokyo” a lot.

Nakano: After that, we played together at WALL & WALL in Shibuya in March 2020, and we hit it off.

Isono: Emerald is somewhat muddy in a good way, and I had a feeling that they are not just fashionable, but when I talked with them for the first time during our first encounter, I felt sympathy for them. I could clearly feel from the stage that they had gone through a lot of experiences, including those of their predecessor bands, and that they had arrived at this point through their muddy activities.

Nakano: YONA YONA is also a cool band that survives in the city. I met some nice adults, and I liked many of the other artists on the label, too, and I was genuinely envious of them.

Fujii: One of my definitions of “good music” is that “a situation comes to mind when I hear the music,” and YONA YONA goes well with so many situations. YONA YONA can be played at night or in the daytime, at the beach or in the mountains, and I think, “That’s the best! I think it’s the best!

Isono-kun: I’m glad!　For example, I wrote “Kimi to drive” thinking that it would be great if it was used in a car commercial, and it really was used in a Honda cars commercial. I was happy that my image was conveyed properly. I was happy that my image was conveyed properly.

Nakano: It means you’re a very good writer.

Isono-kun: No, no, no, thank you.

Kiichi: But really, we participated in many events, and Emerald was the only one that we got along with right away. So I definitely wanted to continue working with them, but then Corona started right after that, so we couldn’t work together anymore.

Isono-kun: Yes, and it has been a couple of years since then. When I was invited to participate in the Emerald event this time, of course I said, “By all means! I said “Sure!” and after that, the two bands went out for a drink once. That day was the first time in about 3 years, but it didn’t feel like a long time at all (laugh).

Nakano: It was a very cold and snowy day, wasn’t it?

Isono-kun: We all smoked cigarettes while covering ourselves with snow.

Nakano: We definitely want to do a two-man show at least once a year, and we cherish that one time very much. So far, we have invited Bonobos and Mononcle. When I asked YONA YONA to join us this time, they immediately responded, which made me very happy.

The difficulty of making a living with music alone, and the things that must be protected in order to continue

-Emerald is independent and YONA YONA is a major label, but YONA YONA has always been a punk and melodic rock band. Emerald is independent and YONA YONA is a major label, but YONA YONA is made up of members who originally came from the punk and melodic music scene, so I think they have a strong DIY spirit. Another commonality is that they are active while also cherishing their jobs and families outside of music.

Nakano: We work really hard at playing live shows, pool the money we earn as band expenses, use it to make sound recordings, sell them to fund the next activity, and so on. We have never had an opportunity for an adult to come in and boost the band. …… It’s not that I dislike adults or anything, but I think it’s a good thing to have an adult in the band to boost the band.

Fujii: It’s not that I dislike adults or anything, but there were good encounters that ended up disappearing.

Nakano: We were approached just before Corona. We were independent, but we played quite a few festivals, and I thought we were doing well, and then Corona came along. …… In the meantime, we got the name “DIY band” just the way we wanted it (laughs).

Isono-kun: It is true that we were approached by our current agency by chance, and it was a big thing for us to be able to get on the right track. Originally, everyone in YONA YONA, except me, was in other bands, and we didn’t intend to put that much effort into it. I was working in sales and honestly didn’t have much time. But the office was very supportive, telling me things like, “This is the way to do it,” or “You should participate in this kind of live show,” which was very helpful.

However, I had a punk background, and I didn’t like the idea of being in a major label, or being told to write this kind of music or wear this kind of clothes. But as it turned out, I was blessed to have found a team with whom I could talk with on equal terms, rather than just doing as I was told.

-Is that because you wanted to focus more on the band?

Isono-kun: Yes, I did. Kiichi chose to go back to a part-time job instead of a full-time job so that he can move around more.

Kiichi: My wife’s hometown is Osaka, so I used to use my paid time off when I went back to Osaka for a batch of work, but as the band got going, I started working more weekdays, so I had to take more time off from work during the week even though I was an employee. Because of this, I was snubbed within the company, and I said to myself, “If that’s the case, please change me back to a part-timer. It was when we had just made our major label debut.

Nakano: Was it a big change in the environment after you made it to a major label?

Kiichi: Yes: Yes, it was. We had never done anything like that before, so we kept running around thinking, “We need to record by when, distribute by when, and shoot a music video before that,” and before we knew it, two years had passed.

So I guess there is a big difference between the impression people have of us and what we actually feel. My friends who are in bands say to me, “Congratulations on your major label debut,” “The Liquid Room sold out! I’m still working part-time. So, I sometimes directly asked their labels, “I wish you would put a little more effort into it.

Nakano: So you did talk to them about it.

Kiichi: Yes, we even invited the manager and had a drink with him. We are a team, so if we wanted to do something differently or were heading in different directions, I thought it was necessary to say, “Isn’t that different from what you want? I felt it was necessary to say, “That’s not right. As a result, one manager quit.

Nakano: I have always felt a sense of teamwork in YONA YONA.

Kiichi: I really feel a sense of unity now, and I feel that the team is supporting me a lot.

Isono-kun: I have a family and a job, and I can’t devote myself entirely to music due to my age and circumstances, so I’ve been trying to find the right balance. So I am still searching for the right balance. So, I don’t think I’m at peace at all, and I still have a long way to go.

How have the changes in activities and environment affected the band and their work?

-Nakano：I guess it is difficult to be an independent artist and a major label artist, isn’t it?

Nakano: Nakano：It is hard to keep beating our own asses like Emerald does. If something goes wrong with us, I think we would sink immediately without being able to recover. We have been doing it for about 10 years on a very small raft, rowing ourselves even on days when the wind is not blowing (……).

But I have a real sense that there are people who listen to us, and I can do my best because I have the hope that one day I will meet those people and they will come to our live shows. What I do is very simple: work, child-rearing, and music.

-How do you balance these three things?

Nakano: If you ask me if I have a good balance, I may not have a good balance, and I may have already broken down. Maybe people think I have a good balance, but I have been doing music for 10 years. ……

Fujii: It’s hard to find a balance, isn’t it? There are moments when all the members go bad, and when I get paralyzed and crazy, I can’t even listen to music. As long as we are doing DIY, it is the same as the band dying if we don’t work on it, so it is both interesting and difficult to do it by ourselves. So, I think each of us feels stress differently.

-Nakano：Did these activities and changes in the environment have an impact on your lyrics?

Nakano: I decided not to show the hardships behind the scenes in my lyrics. Even if the lyrics start from a negative point, I want to make them positive and transform them into lyrics that can be received in various ways depending on the listener. I’ve been doing this for about five years since Emerald started, and it’s been a strange life. It’s a strange life.

Fujii: I think all six members of Emerald have had strange lives (laughs). (laughs) But in the midst of it all, we have experienced great blessings, and that’s why it’s so strange. It’s a strange life, for better or worse.

Nakano: Has your language changed, Isono-kun?

Isono-kun: At first, I didn’t have anything in particular that I wanted to convey through music. But as I continued to publicly talk about being in a band while working as an office worker, more and more people came to know about my situation and started to listen to my music, comparing it to their own. I realized that there was another way to communicate.

Looking back, I myself fell in love with Mr. Mineta of Ginko Boyz when I was in junior high and high school, and the more I read his blog and learned about his personality, the more the way I listened to and received his music changed. So when I became a major musician, I began to write more and more, imagining the person who would deliver the words properly, since I might not even know their face, and even people overseas might be listening to my music.

Nakano: Yes, that is a big change.

Isono-kun: But lately, I’ve been told too many times that I’m “there for you” or “a friend to businessmen,” and I don’t like that either (laughs). I don’t want to be a man who is just nice to people.” I think that is punk or a chuuni-sickness, but I want to be twisted somewhere. So there was a time when we intentionally wanted to make strange songs, and “Taste”, which came out last year, is rather that kind of work.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0CiS34PalHOIuiR8f9Y1NE?si=cINmtOSPROykkfJhAjRFyw

Fujii: I was thinking that very much!　I thought there was something strange about it.

Kiichi: I wanted to arrange the song while keeping the same tension in the chorus, so I spent a whole day just working on it. It was from “Taste” that we all started to think more together in this way. Shingo, the bass player, was originally a melodic punk bass vocalist, so he didn’t have the concept of rests at first (laughs), but he started to experiment with various things in his own way, and I think the way we present the music live has also changed.

Isono: Around that time, we had a fight. Isono-kun: Around that time, we had a fight, or rather, I asked myself, “Is it OK as it is? As I mentioned earlier, one of our managers quit before we started working on “Taste for Taste. YONA YONA WEEKENDERS was originally started as a band to relieve my stress, and I basically wrote the songs and lyrics, but when we all got together before the release of “Kosokusei,” we each developed a sense of responsibility, and opinions like “I want to do this more” started to emerge. I am still making the bass guitar. I still play the bass guitar, but recently there have been more and more songs that have changed in ways I had not imagined.

More sympathetic to rock and punk than city pop

-We would also like to ask you about the new song “i.e.” released by Emerald.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0rHgx8XlDI

Fujii: We all write songs: We all write songs, but this song was created from the demo of keyboardist Tatsuto Nakamura, and we unveiled it last year when we played a 2-man show with showmore. That day, Tatsuto Nakamura was taking a break from the band, and we really wanted to play a Tatsuto Nakamura song, so we decided to restart with a new song by Tatsuto Nakamura. At first, it sounded like “the song”, but we wanted to create a slightly sharp sound image while being conscious of our original roots or blackness, and that’s how we ended up with this song.

-Nakano: It’s unusual to have a beat that is computerized, isn’t it?

Nakano: It’s the first time since “Re: Fureitai Hikari”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMRlIJhYvuQ

Fujii: We couldn’t do a normal recording for that song because of the Corona disaster, so it had to be a hammering song, but this is the first time I’ve done a hammering song without that reason. I wanted to give it a new jack swing feel. Isono is a guitarist, but he is also in charge of the beat, and sometimes Takagi, the drummer, comes up with the guitar riffs. Our band is strange in that way, too.

Nakano: If you notice, there are almost no bands like that around anymore. The image of a band was one in which everyone was together and doing things in a group.

Fujii: That’s why YONA YONA is good!　It’s a great “band!

Nakano: Yes: Yes, I can see the similarities with YONA YONA. I think that the human smell of a band like that is what makes it rich, and even though we say we are bankrupt, there is a moment once every three months or so when I feel like my life is somehow good. When you get to be our age, people quit the band or go backstage, but it is those moments that make me still want to create something new and inspire people, and I am grateful for that.

Kiichi: More and more band members of our generation have broken up and started working, but when I see bands that are doing well in different genres being invited to Ken Yokoyama’s tours, it motivates me to do my best so that we can be together in the future, even if we are in different scenes. It motivates me to do my best so that we can eventually cross paths, even though we are in different scenes. I was also happy to be able to play with ASPARAGUS just recently!

It’s a great story that YONA YONA did a 2-man show with ASPARAGUS, who is a senior member of the punk scene, isn’t it?

Nakano: That’s a dream come true. I also loved CAPTAIN HEDGEHOG (Shinobu Watanabe’s band before forming ASPARAGUS).

-Nakano：I think you are right, there are names that are far away from city pop (laughs).

Nakano: I always had the impression that people with names like “city pop” and “AOR” came from well-educated, good families. But what I always liked was kiwi rolls and other music that started from nothing, so I have never been able to identify with the term “city pop. Rock and punk are more sympathetic. Well, I’ve grown up enough to be able to say, “Please do that,” as long as everyone feels comfortable listening to it, and the labeling provides an entry point.

Isono: Now you’ve expressed all the feelings (laughs).

All: Ha ha ha ha (laughs).

Fujii: I originally listened to punk and melocoa when I was a student, and Takagi, the drummer, also came from a burly punk background, as did my brother and Isono. The only difference is Tatsuto Nakamura on keys (laughs).

Nakano: The other day, someone who knew me when I was about 20 years old asked me, “Nakano-kun, how do you live with the murderous spirit you were radiating back then? (laugh). I told him, “I found a solution by listening to Marvin Gaye and pouring everything I had into sublimating my anger and negative emotions into his sexy singing voice. I see.” And they were like, “Oh, yeah! I decided to face my strong inner impulses by going in that direction with my singing voice, even though it doesn’t look sexy, and that was the entry point from melodic and hardcore to Emerald. There are times when I find it hard to do music, but I always felt that I would die without it, and I think that’s why I’ve been able to keep doing it.

-Nakano: I think you should create a new word that is not “city pop” anymore.

Nakano: Or “working class city pop” (laughs). (laughs) We know that there is a richness that you cannot get even if you have a normal job and earn a certain amount of money, and we believe that it is thanks to music. I feel that when I see YONA YONA, I can feel that, and I think that’s why we have such a good group of people. The atmosphere of the audience is also very good, and I feel sympathy in that way.

Lastly, could you give us a few words about the upcoming 2-man show in June?

Isono-kun: I have been thinking about them for 3 years (laugh), and I think they are cool not only in their music but also in their way of life, so I want to live up to their expectations since they invited me to this important 2-man event. I am sure it will be a great day and we will have good drinks.

Nakano: The title of this year’s event is “Re:Start,” and it is partly because Tatsuto Nakamura is coming back, but it is also like rowing once again on a tiny raft from the place where we once stopped at the Corona Disaster. So seriously, I want everyone to follow me again, and I also want people who have not been coming to live houses for a while to come back. I would be very happy if I could have a great band called YONA YONA WEEKENDERS to accompany me.