INDEX
Keiichi Sokabe Band’s Success Guiding his Company toward a Positive Trajectory
-In 2006, you opened “CITY COUNTRY CITY” in Shimokitazawa.
Sokabe： After we set up the office, many people came to visit us, including Tatsuro Hirata, who is now the manager of CITY COUNTRY CITY. He was working at Disk Union at the time, and he mentioned that he wanted to open a record shop in Shimokita. But rent is expensive in Shimokita, so I suggested that it would be better to open a bar counter while operating a record shop, and then open a bar at night, like a dual operation. Then he said, “I’m quitting the union. Let’s go look for a place to live. I thought it was a terrible idea to start a restaurant when I was already struggling with myself, but since I had already quit the union, he said, “Well, why don’t you go look for a place at ……? I started looking for a place with a very passive attitude (laughs). (laughs) Then the current place came up, and the price was fairly reasonable. But in Shimokita, you have to pay 10 months’ rent for a security deposit, so we did our best to go around the country and lost all our money again, and we didn’t have enough to do the interior work, so we did it ourselves. I had a lot of friends at the time, so we all ripped out the walls together.
-You are tough about “running out of money,” and I get the sense that you are not going to get defensive there.
Sokabe： That’s what I don’t see in you. You are like, “Can’t we do something about it? Sogabe：That’s not there. If you are going to do something this big, I think it is normal to think about getting sponsors and pulling in money from them. But in the end, you quit a major company because you didn’t want to do that. So, I guess I was rejecting that way of thinking in the first place, or maybe I didn’t want to do it, so I decided to do it on my own.
-When did you get on track in terms of management?
Sokabe： In 2005, I formed the Keiichi Sogabe Band in parallel with my live performance as a soloist. It was around the time that local festivals were starting to appear, and I thought that bands would be more exciting at festivals. I think it was 2008 when we released our first album, “Kira Kira! album was released in 2008. That album sold well, and my solo activities got on track to a certain extent, and I was able to settle down.
