“Before the tour, I traveled alone and did spontaneous shows on street corners.”

I: Congratulations on a successful world tour, Miyavi! On behalf of your fans everywhere around the world, we musicJAPANplus would like to say “Welcome home!” Today we’re going to discuss various topics relating to your world tour. Thank you for meeting us for another interview.

M:Oh, It’s OK, my pleasure.

I: Let’s get started. Concerning your “THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK” tour, we would like to talk to you about each stage chronologically. You officially announced the world tour to your fans last year at your final show of the tour on December 25th, 2007, at Shibuya’s C.C. Lemon Hall. After that, you released singles in January, an album also in March, and the tour began in May. In the preparatory period before the tour, what were you up to? How were you spending your time?

M: Well… umm... What was I doing? For new years, I went to Los Angeles. I also drove to San Francisco, Las Vegas, and even San Diego. It was kind of a road trip by myself.

I: By yourself?

M: Yes. Hmm… My drummer came along as well, but we both went our separate ways. Cause, I like driving alone. Then… I came back. Then what’d I do... (laugh) Oh right, I played with SUGIZO, and that’s how “Hi no Hikari Sae Todokanai Kono Basho De” was born. Actually I've already finished the album the year before. So...what else... (laugh) Oh yeah, I remember. I kind of secretly went to clubs and performed on my guitar.

I: Was that outside Japan?

M: No, no… that was in Japan, but I also do it overseas too. For example, on new year's day, I was in LA and I went to Little Tokyo and did spontaneous shows performing with a Japanese Minyo band which had shamisen and taiko. I usually go to Venice Beach or Santa Monica to do street shows, but on that day, I stopped by and joined them before I went to some beach. and I played with them totally spur of the moment.

I: Were they Japanese artists performing there?

M: Yes, the Japanese community over there. After I returned to Japan, I sometimes secretly went to the Udagawachou area in Shibuya to do surprise performances.

I: You’re in surprisingly familiar places! (laugh)

M: Yeah kind of. (laugh) I jammed with some friends of mine. and I also casually attended events where the members of my crew were performing, and borrowed instruments from someone to play. (laugh) So, that's February and March.

“The plans for the tour weren’t totally solid until about a week before it began. (laugh)”

I: So during that time you were planning the tour and taking time off and stuff like that?

M: No planning.

I: No planning? (laugh)

M: None. (laugh)

I: You had no real plan?

M: Not really. Honestly, I didn’t like how my performance turned out in Shibuya on X'mas . I had the image of what I wanted in my mind, and planned to work on the problems based on the show at Shinkiba Studio Coast; but… I couldn't actually solve or improve them.


I: Was it something specific? Presentation, or something?

M: Yes. Presentation. Like...mixing up between typical "show style" and our jam session style. In my image, I just wanted the show to be very solid and clear. But, as a result it just trapped us. And also there wasn’t enough time. So we couldn't play a few songs. Anyway, the things just didn’t go very well at the show. Because of it, I didn’t have any clear image of what I really wanted on this world tour.

I: So after all that, when is it that you got that spark of ideas for your presentation and the settings?

M: … Um, honestly, about a week before the show. (laugh) That’s how it usually is. Always last minute. It’s like… if you’re not in that mode, you just can’t feel it. And it really depends on your spirit. Same as writing lyrics. You can only write songs when you’re in the right mindset, and if you’re not then it’s hopeless.

“Before heading out, I hadn’t decided on a particular goal. There was a lot of things I couldn't picture.”

I: The actual first show of your world tour began on May 14th in Anaheim. Before that, you had the fanclub kick-off rally, which was the last show you did in Japan before leaving the country. What was going through your head at that point? Looking forward at this world tour, had you set any preliminary goals?

M: Um, when rehearsals began, the final image started to build and I thought that I wanted to be able to put on a show that showed every aspect of my abilities. Like "KAVKI BOIZ style", performing with no guitar like when I was in my indies days, Jam session with tap dancer and beat boxer from the show named "Dokusou" and more with artistic imaging, and several songs from the new album which everyone could just have fun with, brand-new single, DJ time with electro-remixes, a section with electric guitar after a costume change… like that. So the image finally got there, but didn’t reach the complete level with the performance using shoji (Japanese screen paper) until about 2 days before. So, honestly speaking, I didn’t have a specific goal in mind for the tour, but as a result I was able to give everything I could. And every show we’d done, compared to the original kick-off rally, its quality had much more depth and it was much more persuasive. But I really didn’t have a specific goal for the tour beforehand, and there were a lot of unforeseen things. As you guys know, there were places we couldn’t get the japanese taiko drum, or bring the one of the members of my crew. (laugh) Unexpected things were common. How would you say… we tried to be prepared for whatever was to come.


“I was surprised by the first show, there was some kind of feeling like I was walking on clouds to it all.”

I: Now, the first show in America was in Anaheim. From your point of view, how did you feel? Like, what did you think of the fans’ reaction?

M: First of all,… I was overwhelmed. That’s the biggest thing.

I: Overwhelmed?

M: Yes. I’d done shows in Los Angeles, Germany and Korea the year before, and even before that, shows in Asia, so I had experience of foreign audience, but the air of excitement was sensational. During this tour, there wasn’t a single concert outside Japan where I was able to hear the SE. (laugh)

I: Really? Because of the cheering?


M: Yeah. From the time the venue opened to the time the curtain rose, they were always, always screaming my name again and again and again… I don’t know how to say it. Anyway everybody’s energy was so high, and that energy just made me go “whoa!” and it felt like we were moved around the world by the power from my audience.

I: So powerful that even the performer’s were overwhelmed?

M: It was…crazy.

I: How is it compared to fans in Japan?

M: They’re kind of different, for various reasons.

I: MC and presentation wise, were you prepared in advance for these highly enthusiastic fans?

M: Basically no plan. But I did my MCs in English, and in the other places that didn’t speak English natively I tried to talk to them in their languages. On the day of the show, I practiced the native language spoken as soon as I entered the venue.

I: In total, how many languages were there?

M: Ten or eleven.

I: One for each country?

M: Pretty much, all their languages.



“Going overseas reassured me that the things I have been doing, the things I aim to do have been facing the right direction.”

I: musicJAPANplus posted a feature on your San Francisco show. When the staffs who attended called, they said, “We were walking the streets of San Francisco after the show ended, and we felt like we were hallucinating because of how Japanized and Miyavized (laugh) it was.” If it’s all right, we’d like to ask you about this awesome enthusiasm. After smash performances in America, you went to South America. I checked your blog of the day you traveled there, and I remember the story to be very striking. After America, you wrote very confidently, “This was no mistake.” As an artist, do you feel your ability to connect with your fans and the way you do so has change through this world tour?

M: Until now, I’ve worked in Japan always trying to come up with new ideas. This has been my basic concept, and on top of that, I try to be innovative in my own way and go full steam ahead in my own style. But when it comes down to the way it had been commercialized and sold, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. There is a kind of "contradiction ". While I was trying to figure things out by trial and error, sometimes I felt lost and really anxious about it all.

I: What do you mean by ‘commercialized sales’?

M: Basically, it must be something simple and easy. If there’s a band, it has a drummer, bassist, guitarist(s), and a vocalist. Done. What about hip hop? You have DJs, rappers, and dancers. Great, done. That's it. Enough. Like this.

I: Things already out there?

M: In that format, yeah. It’s already on sales in a nice little package. What I do includes a tap dancer and a beat boxer. Of course, there are some opinions saying, “Is that necessary?” (laugh) Even though I think this of it as my style of artistic presentation, I find myself wondering about that sometimes, too. And I wonder what the fans who have been supporting me all this time think about it. For example, there are probably fans who liked the kind of music I made when I was still indies. So I wonder, do my listeners think it’s necessary? It’s been a conflict in me for a long time. But now that I’ve gone overseas and performed for the fans over there successfully, I felt that they liked my style as a non-stereotyped artistic format too, I feel like they really appreciated it. Not only the fans, but also relevant parties saying, “new Japanese music” “music with originality”. Hearing that is what reassured me, “There was no mistake in what I’ve been doing and what I’m trying to do!!”

I: So it was like starting from scratch. This playing for listeners who had absolutely no preconceptions about your performances, was a new kind of challenge for you.

M: It was. More those fans who had been supporting me for years already. I was able to reach them too. So it was a pretty big conflict in me.

“I think that hesitating because you’re afraid of failing, is an offense against my fans.”

I: I see. You talked the distance between you and your fans, saying “We shouldn’t make a distance so our connection doesn’t break, build a kind of strong connection where, when broken, we can overcome and rebuild it together. That’s the really important thing I think.” Those are strong words, what made you think this way?

M: Oh, I said a pretty good thing, huh? (laugh) As an artist, I’m sometimes at odds with my ego. One of the problems an artist has is finding a compromise between what appeals to fans, what they want, and your own ego. Right now there are a lot of artists out there performing that aren’t actually doing things they want to do, but I feel really blessed to be able to do what I do. I have so many fans who support me, and I get to do the things I want to its full extent, the way I want to. That’s why I think I shouldn’t be afraid of loosing. I’m a human being so I make lots of mistakes, but they’re insignificant. If I hesitate and hold back my passions, that would be an offense to them. So I will express all I want and present to them all what comes from me to make a strong bond so we can overcome anything and not let our relationship be broken no matter what happens.