Keiichi Sokabe’s ROSE RECORDS, marking its 20th anniversary since its establishment, has been a beacon of DIY spirit. Focusing on solo and Sunny Day Service releases, the label has introduced outstanding artists like Lantern Parade, animations by Kimihiro Reizei, and MOROHA. Remaining true to its DIY ethos, the label stands as an epitome of independent music endeavors. Noteworthy is Sokabe’s commitment to the vibrant culture of Shimokitazawa, operating the café-bar and record shop “CITY COUNTRY CITY” and, post-pandemic, managing the curry restaurant “Hachigatsu.”
Over the past two decades, the music landscape has undergone significant transformations. With the advent of iTunes Music Store in 2005, followed by YouTube, Twitter, and smartphones, the internet era ushered in the age of social media, and music consumption shifted from CDs to streaming. The history of ROSE RECORDS, navigating through such drastic changes, and Sokabe’s experiences and reflections, are sure to provide wisdom and courage to anyone pursuing creative endeavors. As love and laughter continue to blossom in some corner of the city, something new is always beginning.
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Origins in Discomfort with Conventional Methods
-First of all, please tell us how you established ROSE RECORDS in 2004.
Sokabe： After releasing two solo records under contract with Universal in 2002 and 2003, I initially thought I would look for another record company. But I thought it would be a bit tough to sign with a major label again and work in a way that would produce results that would meet my goals.
So I parted ways with the private agency I belonged to at the time and went to a real estate agency in Shimokita by myself. At the time, I was living in an old two-bedroom apartment, but I had a small child and a wife, and I couldn’t work at home, so I decided to rent an office. I decided to rent an office, and I was introduced to a property at the end of Shimokitazawa Ichibangai. It was a street-front property with a glass wall, and it was originally a general store or something. It was a tiny one-room apartment, but the atmosphere was rather nice. The rent was about 100,000 yen, which was not unaffordable, so that day I said, “I’ve already decided. That was the start of ROSE RECORDS.
He began his career as the vocalist/guitarist of Sunny Day Service in the early 1990s. In 1995, he released his first album, “Wakamonotachi” (‘Youth’). His entirely new sound, interpreting and reconstructing 1970s Japanese folk/rock in a 1990s style, left a strong impression on listeners. Inspired by the Christmas of 2001 and the simultaneous terrorist attacks in New York, he made his solo debut with the single “Guitar.”
In 2004, he established his independent label, ROSE RECORDS, and began activities centered around independent/DIY work. Since then, he has continued to express himself in various forms, including simultaneous work with Sunny Day Service/solo, as well as production, songwriting, film music, commercial music, writing, and acting, without being confined to a specific style.
-Did you have a longing to do a label?
Sokabe： When I was at MIDI (*), we did a little something like our own label, and we released works by The Happy’s and N.G.THREE. But in 2004, it was more about “going independent” than about “creating a label. Rather than wanting to make a record, I wanted to take on work there first. We had nothing in the office, so we bought a desk, a fax machine, a computer, and other things, and soon ran out of money.
*A record company established in 1984. Released Sunny Day Service, Taeko Onuki, Yurayura Teikoku, etc.
-Didn’t you want to sign a contract with someone else?
Sokabe： I didn’t want to do that. Sometimes it is good to create works with the idea of making a profit, but sometimes I wanted to do things freely, and I wanted to make a record limited to 100 copies. With a big company, that kind of thing is never possible.
So I had already decided to do it on my own, and it was fun at first. Once I started working with an office, many people came to visit me. However, I did not know how to distribute CDs on my own, so I went to Bridge (a distribution company), whom I had known for a long time, for advice. The distributor is responsible for getting them placed in various stores. I really had to start from scratch.
-Nowadays, even amateurs can easily distribute and release their music through digital distribution companies, but back then, in the age of CDs, “releasing” music was a very difficult hurdle to overcome.
Sokabe： It was a time when it was just becoming possible to gather information on the Internet, so I would look for the cheapest CD press on the Internet, and also look for a place that could make paper jackets like imported CDs. But I didn’t compare several companies and get quotes from them, so I didn’t make any money at (laughs).
-Was your motivation to help and support your friends and favorite musicians in their releases?
Sokabe： I never had the idea of making it into a big record company, but just selfishly released music I liked as I liked. For example, I happened to go to Osaka to see Animations at a live performance, and I was so impressed that I said to them, “You don’t have anything out? Then let’s make a record,” and I immediately put it out, and that’s how it all started.
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A Sense of Crisis Post-Independence due to a Lack of Specialized Skills and Touring across the Country
-Well, I was wondering how you went about running the label.
Sokabe： I guess I just kept on doing it. We ended up traveling around the country doing live shows, and we had to make money from the fees and sales of goods. We put in a lot of gigs.
-How did you advertise?
Sokabe： We didn’t have the energy to advertise in magazines at the time, and when we thought about which was better, advertising in “ROCKIN’ON JAPAN” or having our songs remixed by our favorite artists and making a record, we decided on the latter. I decided on the latter. I don’t know how to compare the two, but because of this fundamental feeling, I gradually stopped advertising in the media.
So when it came to advertising, the only thing I could do was to go anywhere and sing on my own, and that was it. Once I started doing this “go anywhere” style, I started getting a lot of calls from people saying, “We’ve never done a live show at this café, can you invite us? I started getting a lot of calls from people saying, “I’ve never done a live concert at a café before. So many people are performing there now, but there are many places where I was the first.
-So, it was your idea that led to the use of the space for live performances.
Sokabe: “You can do it anywhere. You don’t need a microphone or anything. One of the reasons for this was that I needed to develop my own abilities. I had never done anything like that before, and the tour was arranged in such a way that a bullet train was provided for transportation, so I had to go to the venues by myself, get paid, and come back. I was in my early 30s at the time, and I really felt that my career would change from then on. So I was already playing a lot of shows.
-So you had such a sense of crisis.
Sokabe: When I became independent, I realized that I didn’t have a job, and I thought I had to get one. I learned that there are various ways of doing things, such as getting a percentage back if you get this many customers, or getting a refund on all ticket sales but putting the drink money into the venue, etc. I also learned what kind of goods to sell and how much it costs to make a T-shirt. I also gradually learned what kind of goods to sell, how much it costs to make a T-shirt, etc. (laughs). That approach has not changed much.
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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.
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Sokabe: “Monetary rewards will follow later. Prioritize assessing the inherent interest or appeal of the activity“
-By the way, has the number of staff members changed little by little since the label was launched?
Sogabe： Basically, from the second year, we have Mr. Mizukami and Mr. Rota, who are still working with us, and there are usually three of us plus one other person helping us.
-Didn’t you ever think of adding more people to the team?
Sokabe: We are just now (laughs). Mr. Mizukami was originally a part-time mail-order worker. But now he does most of the work, including accounting, management, booking, billing, touring, and merchandising. And Rota is in Tokyo, scheduling releases, doing sales and publicity, and dealing with TuneCore Japan (*), the digital distributor, and everything else. In addition, we have to distribute the royalties, so the calculation is done by just the two of us, and recently we have been talking about how that might not be possible. We have talked about the possibility of having another person who can work hard on site. We have tried several times to recruit employees, but it has been difficult. Even if a young person joins the company and says, “I like Mr. Sogabe’s music,” he or she may not be what he or she imagined.
TuneCore Japan is the Japanese version of the American music distribution service, TuneCore, which allows anyone to distribute their music to over 55 streaming platforms in 185 countries worldwide. The service was launched in Japan in October 2012.
-Did you ever have a crisis like the one that kept the label going?
Sokabe: In terms of money, there were a few times. When I said, “Give the staff a bonus,” I was told, “We have no money in the bank right now,” and I was in a hurry (laughs).
– “DANCE TO YOU” (2016), which was a major turning point for Sunny Day Service, was a work in which you had to abandon the finished album at the last minute and remake it all over again by yourself. I thought it must have been very hard work indeed (laughs).
Sokabe: We ran out of money at that time. But I also learned that it is possible to make an album with this little money. For “Dance to You,” we used a regular recording studio at first. A regular studio costs about 150,000 yen for lockout, plus the engineer’s fee, so just one day in a studio costs about 200,000 yen. After doing that for a long time, I decided to get rid of it, so I had no more money at all.
I ended up going to a practice studio with my Mac, setting up the microphone, recording, and doing the mixdown all by myself, but I think I was able to make a good product. I had to do it because money was tight, but I think it turned out to be a successful product.
-I felt it was an amazing work that had to be made in such a way. When Sunny Day restarted and the first album was released, you were still not that active, but “DANCE TO YOU” became an album that succeeded in presenting Sunny Day as a “current band” once again, didn’t it?
Sokabe：I didn’t want people to think of us as a “reunion band that only made a few albums.” If we were serious about Sunny Day, I felt strongly that we had to put out something that said “Sunny Day Service is still here and active.
On the other hand, I don’t really care about money. For example, when I am asked to produce a show, I always say, “I can do it even if I don’t need money. I just want to do interesting work, so it doesn’t matter if I don’t get paid. As an artist, if you are doing something interesting, people will pay you for your work, so before you think about how to secure money, you just have to be able to say, “This guy is interesting. I always think that the money will come later.
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Sokabe: “Everyone should have their own independent label.”
-The way you released “Popcorn Ballads” (2017), the next album after “Dance to You,” was to release the album as soon as the announcement was released and people could listen to it immediately via streaming. There were examples overseas, but there were almost no prominent Japanese artists doing this. Being able to take such a challenging move is one of the strengths of running your own label, isn’t it?
Sokabe：I remember at the time we talked about “Why don’t people do it? Sogabe：I remember we talked about “Why don’t people do it? I thought it was very interesting that Kanye West made an album (“The Life Of Pablo” / 2016) solely through streaming, and that he changed the content in the middle of the album. I asked TuneCore Japan if it was possible. I asked TuneCore Japan if they could do that, and they said they could update the songs after release. I also wanted to appeal to the public that “from now on, there is a possibility of releasing works only through distribution.
-In fact, the times have been moving in that direction, and now all of your past works, both solo and Sunny Day, are distributed through TuneCore Japan. Is there a reason why you use TuneCore Japan?
Sokabe： TuneCore Japan came to talk to me in the early days, and I thought it was very nice, so I have been working with them ever since. I don’t know anyone else but TuneCore Japan, but they have always listened to my every wish, and I feel like I’ve had a relationship with them for a long time.
-TuneCore Japan started in 2012 and was one of the pioneers of digital distribution in Japan, wasn’t it? As I mentioned at the beginning, nowadays anyone can release music, and in other words, it is no longer necessary to belong to a label.
Sokabe： We don’t really think of expanding the label by releasing other artists, and we don’t do that much promotion for our own works either. Of course, there are some things I can help with, but I don’t think there is any great advantage to putting out work through ROSE.
Rather, I think it would be better if each artist had his or her own independent label. After all, when you release someone’s work, you have to sign a contract with that person and ROSE, and there are always various restrictions that come into play. Even now, there are some cases where I have to think about what to do with contracts I have signed in the past, but on the other hand, I have to sign a contract with someone else, and it is a hassle to sign a contract on (laughs).
Sokabe: I think it is the most beautiful thing when a person takes care of himself/herself without any contract and makes his/her own sales by him/herself. But there are people who say, “I like ROSE, so I want to publish from ROSE,” so I say, “Well, let’s publish from ROSE.”
-So I said, “Well, let’s put it out.
Sokabe： Yes, some people find out what they can do after releasing on ROSE. Lantern Parade has been a signature artist of ROSE since the beginning, and I love them, but now they are releasing their music on their own, which I think is great.
-I think it’s great that they are releasing music on their own now, and I think it’s great that they are doing it.
Sokabe： I think the current Internet society is getting better and better for individuals because there are more and more systems that cater to individuals, not to companies. But now, with a smartphone, you can do anything, and that’s great.
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Engaging Concepts and Entertaining Occurrences Frequently Arise from Realms Independent of Financial Considerations
-I think Sunny Day Service is entering a new phase after 2020. On the other hand, what kind of place would you say that solo output is for you now?
Sokabe： I don’t really distinguish between solo and Sunny Day, but Sunny Day is a brand with a sign, and solo is music that can be anything or is born every day, so I feel like I write a lot. I want to organize Sunny Day and create music within the image of Sunny Day, so there are people who have been listening to Sunny Day for about 30 years and are still fans, and there are young people who have recently started coming to my live shows. I would choose a song that I wanted them to hear next, and I would play it. I can just play a single note, and that’s my music, so that’s what I play. I was going to release only one of them at first, but then I had another one in mind, so I decided to release them together.
I don’t really like to let things accumulate and brew, or rather, I don’t really like to express them after they have been laid to rest. My music is proof that I am alive.
How would you describe the balance between yourself as an artist and yourself as a label manager?
Sokabe： I wish I could “run a business,” but I don’t really feel like I’m “running a business. It’s like, “Oh, you don’t have any more money? I’m like, “Oh, no more money? I think a manager is someone who has it all figured out and is doing it all on his own, but I’m not like that.
I do my own thing. I earn my own money for the food I eat today. If it were that kind of primitive way of running a business, I might be doing it. But I never think about how I want the company to be in 10 years’ time. I think somewhere, “It’s good to not know what will happen next year. It is not a capitalistic management activity.
-It’s not about making money every day.
Sokabe： I’m aware that interesting ideas and events are born out of things that have nothing to do with money. There will always be people who will put them together and turn them into money, but interesting things can only come from the street. Interesting things are created by people without money, without thinking about money at all, and they are definitely not created by agency people meeting together. It is the most interesting things are done by people we don’t know, somewhere we don’t know. So maybe that was the case at the very beginning of ROSE. We didn’t have any goals or anything in mind at all. I just said, “I don’t want to be under the care of those guys,” and left the big company. I think it’s like that with everything at first.
-That’s why it’s important to try things out on your own first.
Sokabe: There are many people whose motivation in life is to work hard at whatever they are told to do, and I don’t know which is better. Well, I think everyone should try everything. After all, there is no one right way.
