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turtleations · 14 days

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Interview with I.N.A. (Spread Beaver / Manipulator, Percussion; Music producer)

Published in the hide BIBLE (by Akemi Oshima) 2008

Note: INA calls hide “hide-chan” throughout the interview, and in the spirit of being as authentic as possible without actually giving a literal translation, I will, too.

Note 2: As with Sugizo’s interview, this is very, very close to an actual translation. Many of the things I give you here are INA’s exact words, just moved from first to third person. The prompts and questions of the interviewer are actual translations.

The reason why I stick with this format for now is because there are some parts where I can figure out the meaning but wouldn’t know how to accurately put them into English sentences. Doing it like this allows me to work around that. It also allows me to skip some small bits and fillers that I cannot figure out, although there were hardly any of those this time. There is nothing in terms of content value missing from this.

INA-san’s memories with hide-san must be like a mountain, aren’t they?

INA could talk about anything (laughing). When he’s given interviews since, he gets asked to recall memorable incidents, but it was all memorable, so he doesn’t know where to start.

You first met hide-san when you were working for X?

When INA was working with hide-chan for the first time, he was stage manipulator for X’s Jealousy-tour in 1991.

What kind of work did you do until then?

INA had been working on the recording of popular music. He was thinking that he would like to work more with actual artists, but of X he had never heard before, even though they were all the rage then. When he was shown a video of them, he thought “Eh?” and “What am I doing here?” But he did it anyway. Hide-chan he first met at the rehearsal studio. Since there were so many heroic stories about them, that was a little scary…

You heard a lot about them, didn’t you?

That had been a problem. But when he met them for real, they all turned out to be good people. Because they were with SONY then, there also was a lot of staff. But even though INA was the new guy, hide-chan often invited him to go drinking with them.

About the Jealousy-Tour

Ever since then, INA and hide-chan worked together, and that continues until now.

Any memories of the tour?

At that time, after the show, all the members would gather and go drinking together. Going outside in their full flashy set-up, clothes and all. Surprisingly, the fans went with them into town and would just have conversations in the bars as if that were normal. INA also went along.

Your working with hide-san

It started with INA sampling hide-chan’s voice for his solo corner “HIDE’s Room”.

“HIDE’s Room” started out as improvisation and developed from there, right?

So it seems. When INA got involved, “HIDE’s Room” already existed. But it was still pretty improvised. Hide-chan said he wanted to make a variety of noises and they sampled his voice like that. INA added keyboard and drums on top of it and it gradually developed from there. After that came the three days at Tokyo Dome that Taiji resigned with, and then, half a year later, INA went to LA for the recording of "Art of Life".

Wasn’t going to the US for "Art of Life" delayed by half a year?

In the meantime, they did things like Talk Live at Budoukan. For Talk Live, INA was on stage with the orchestra, tampering with the computer in a tuxedo (laughing). That was the time Yoshiki did "Art of Life" alone at the piano with the orchestra.

After Jealousy, getting involved with "Art of Life" happened naturally?

INA was told they wanted him to come along. Before that, he had helped Yoshiki with his solo-songs – that kind of progression.

Yoshiki’s solo?

Violet UK. INA was there for the very beginning. 15 years ago now? Even sooner than that.

After the Jealousy-tour, Violet UK already had a name, that’s amazing.

At that time, it probably didn’t have a name yet. The good thing about going to LA was that for the first three or four months, INA had nothing much to do and just went drinking with hide-chan and Heath. Various incidents happened. Fire trucks were involved.

Fire trucks?

Hide-chan, drunk, pulled the apartment building’s fire alarms in the middle of the night and a lot of fire trucks came, which made everyone flee into Heath’s room. Hide-chan then went to sleep on Heath’s bed, and the next day during the recording of "Art of Life", Heath reported, “He won’t wake up.” (laughing) Heath himself had gone to the studio having barely slept at all.

INA-san’s previous work?

When he thought about working for X, he had already stopped doing that. He thought those people were interesting. After that, hide-chan made a song for “Dance 2 Noise” with J and Inoran. At first, he was working with the machines himself. He always said to INA, “I don’t get it, I don’t get it. Please teach me how.” He did his best to do it on his own with the crappy hand-down equipment at his disposal, but he fell asleep during INA’s explanations. Then he asked INA to help him, because he didn’t understand it, and they decided to do it together. Hide-chan and INA were in LA for the recording of Art of Life, J and Inoran and the programmer were in Japan, so it was a constant back and forth with the data. INA’s professional working with hide-chan started there. They secretly went and used the studio X had claimed for themselves when it was empty. Song recording happened in Japan. Afterwards, INA went to the US again. At that time, he came and went. Next, hide-chan made that movie with Tusk, and the called INA and said, “Let’s make the soundtrack together.” They returned to Japan to create it during a one or two weeks long break in the recording of "Art of Life".

About making hide’s solo music

It started around that time. Hide-chan decided to go solo and was thinking about various things, like finding a producer, who should play the keyboard, and in the course of this, when hide-chan wasn’t able to find the right partner, INA was called to the collaboration that continues to this day. He now thinks the work on the first single went smoothly (laughing). Therefore, he now thinks it was fortunate he got invited to work with hide-chan. Back then, not so much.

What do you mean?

INA doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but he was told to be open with hide-chan and during the vocal recording they basically had a fight. Because INA was also strict and insistently kept telling hide-chan, “No, wrong!” Good things came from it, thought, so hide ultimately didn’t resist it.

hide-san gave up on doing it on his own?

He probably still wanted to when he started to work on his solo. He borrowed a computer from INA, and then called him incessantly with things like, “It doesn’t work,” “I don’t understand this,” “It doesn’t have power.” At that time, he called INA wherever INA happened to be, it was a problem. It was a time without mobile phones, but he still managed to find him wherever, bafflingly. Even at his parents’ house (laughing). Then he accepted that he couldn’t do it alone and said, “Let’s do this together!”

Did you also act as vocal director?

Yes. INA had already done that on X’s demos, so it happened naturally from there. But even so, why him?

Hide-san rarely asked people to do tings like that, he must have trusted you from that time.

At that time, hide-chan still lacked self-confidence and didn’t want people to hear his voice.

In the beginning, he said he hated his own voice.

He sang a lot at that time. He practiced, recorded. Practiced, recorded. Over and over, until his voice was all rough. “Doubt” was recorded almost in one go, but other songs he had to sing hundreds of times. The music they listened to back then was similar, so talk was quick, but it was probably a good thing that their musical backgrounds were completely different. INA liked black music, hide was a rock guy. INA thinks hide-chan found it more interesting to work with people from different backgrounds, since he wanted to do a lot of different things.

What was music you both liked?

During that time, industrial rock and fusion came up and they talked a lot about how good they thought Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy, or Jesus Jones were, “I wonder how to go at it, to make something in that style,” and things like that.

Did you want to make that kind of music yourself?

INA did not know rock until he met X, and he thought it would be good to add another component to the things he liked. Hide-chan probably thought the same way. INA had things hide was looking for, and he also had a lot of experience in the technological aspects, so that was a perfect mixture.

What was your impression of hide-san at that time?

He went drinking a lot. He went drinking with INA. One way or another, there had been a strong impression of alcohol consumption. Returning from the studio, they absolutely had to go drinking until morning. Why did he have to drink so much? (laughing)

Did you also like drinking?

Yeah, INA liked it. He was a pretty heavy drinker.

It’s probably a happy thing that you two became friends.

They could go drinking together. In the course of doing so, they also took trips to Hakone and things like that.

Along with Pata-san?

No, others. Various other people came along. If they went somewhere for fun, it probably couldn’t be helped. In LA as well, people were always with them when they went out to drink.

Any episodes from that time?

Plenty. (laughing) The fun episodes with hide-chan are mostly stories of alcohol. A lot of memorable episodes from when he was drunk. He said he was going to drive the van on the vast grounds of their American apartment complex. Since it was private land, they figured it would be okay, and INA, Pata, and Heath got on the ride, except they somehow ended up in the mountains where there were no roads. Thus, Pata flipped out, yelled, “Asshole! Matsumoto, you fucker! This is going too far!” and everyone was surprised by how angry he could get. Because hide-chan was going up a cliff. (laughing) That was the first and the last time INA saw Pata get that angry. And then, there was stuff like throwing things into the pool.

Didn’t you also live together?

Of course not. In this, they practiced abstinence (laughing). But INA certainly spend more time at hide-chan’s studio than in his own home. In Japan it was the same. Since hide had a studio at home, that’s where they worked all the time. [Note: These studios, according to INA’s book “Kimi No Inai Sekai”, were simply little extra rooms that weren’t soundproof, and the neighbours having opinions about the noise level drastically limited what they could do in them.] They were among the first to record things at home. Equipment like that wasn’t really in use back then. In any case, they were early with it.

He liked new things.

Seriously, he was a person who did not know whether he was a commoner or a celebrity. He had opinions about the cost of alcohol that was several thousand yen, yet easily bought new equipment that cost tens of thousands of yen. He’d say, “INA-chan, here’s a new computer,” and bring it along with a smile, while INA went “How expensive was that?!” He was quite strange. In his heart he was a commoner, though, extremely so.

After you finished his first four solo songs

After that, they went drinking together. “We’ll do it together,” INA was told earnestly. And, “You’re not in my employment. I want you to openly tell me if something is good or bad.” And also, “I don’t want you to work for anyone else, INA-chan. I want you to use your talents only for me.” And INA thought this person was amazing, and replied, “I get it. Let’s do it together.” At the time, hide assembled a bunch of specialized people and created the prototype of LEMONed. Two weeks later, they went to the US, and it was like they were living in a new rock’n’roll castle. An apartment building where Toshi-kun and Heath and hide-chan all lived together. In a room there, they prepared a system for audio recording and the beginning of the first album was made. It was also around this time that the X Film Gig was happening in Japan, wasn’t it?

Ah, yes, that film gig that was an entire tour.

At that time, Yoshiki was still working on "Art of Life". INA’s work on it was done by then, so the year 1993 was entirely dedicated to hide-chan’s album. At that time, hide-chan became all well-behaved so as not to cause trouble anymore. They stopped going out and secluded themselves in hide’s room for a while, to work. Without taking a break either, from noon until two or three at night, only working. Every now and then they would go out to drink. This repeated every day for about half a year.

Still, you always went to Japanese bars.

They didn’t know LA very well at the time and rarely went to American bars. Just once, to a place that was like a giant disco. Later, they went to more places, but at that point, they were living in a pretty narrow world. After going back to Japan, they recorded the last three songs of HIDE YOUR FACE, then went on a nation-wide tour after.

That tour was your debut, INA-san?

Before, when hide was on TV for the promotion of his singles, INA was with him – maybe because hide-chan felt it would be better if there was someone else in addition to him, so INA had to do it. Since he had never done anything like that before, he hated it. There was a “?” constantly hanging over his head.

Can you elaborate on that?

Regarding his solo, hide-chan said he hated being on his own. When they had a live for the press at the tie-up of “Tell Me”, they did that together, too. INA doesn’t know what to make of that. (laughing)

How did you do it together?

INA was freestyling on all the machines (laughing). Because of this, he also joined the band for the tour, probably. Back then, programmers like INA never went out of stage like that.

Now that happens a lot, though.

INA wonders if they weren’t the first to do it. Since there was no one else doing it, they had to figure out how to go at it. At that time, scratching on DJ equipment wasn’t a thing yet, but INA had played drums as a student, so should he maybe beat those a bit? He was never really at the keyboard because they had DIE for that. INA thinks he did a good job overall. Since programmers didn’t go on stage, they were never seen in public. So, he created his own thing for himself to do. In regard to that, he wasn’t really told, “Do this,” or “Do that.” Maybe hide simply wanted more people on stage (laughing).

Or maybe he just wanted to be with you?

It’s funny. Just now, INA worked through the uncut MCs of the first and second solo tours on the DCR, and they are amazingly long. Second tour, ten hours altogether. INA is going to be busy with that for months. On the first tour, it was only 104 minutes of MC in total. But for the PSYENCE-tour, ten hours. At the end, there would be fifty minutes of talking in a two-and-a-half hour concert (laughing).

The MCs were that long?

Chatter. But it was interesting to listen to. During the first tour, INA searched and searched, but they barely talked at all.

The first tour’s rule of no alcohol the day before a live stuck around, right?

During the second tour, they had to abstain as well. They did that part when they were done (laughing). On X-tours, on the other hand, they drank a lot. They went through hotels and such until five or six in the morning.

After the first tour was finished, hide-san’s solo activities took a bit of a break, didn’t they?

Yeah. They went back to LA for X. For the recording of DAHLIA, they were there for a good while this time. 1995, wasn’t it? The solo tour ended in spring 1994, until summer they worked on videos, after that they went to LA. Zilch came into being at this time. X and zilch and the solo stuff… LEMONed was also started, they published a compilation, it was an extremely busy time.

You had to deal with all of that, right?

For real. INA went to Osaka for X, came back to Tokyo for solo recording, the next day it was off to the US for zilch… like that. And they travelled with all of their equipment. INA and hide-chan and the manager, all those people, and about 20 pieces of equipment, going to the US every week. At the end, the customs people only went, “There they come again” and waved them through. That was terrible. While INA finished the second album, hide-chan went to record the vocals for zilch. Then he had to go to the studio to play guitar for X. In this time, they mostly divided the work. If they worked together all the time, they felt they wouldn’t have been able to get it all done on time. The recording of Toshi’s vocals for "DRAIN" was also done at hide’s apartment. The bass was also recorded at home rather than going to the studio.

Was his home studio that enormous?

No, it was about the size of an 8-tatami room [Note: About 13 square meters or 142 square feet], where they crammed in all their equipment and recorded the sound.

What about zilch?

It was a mess (laughing). When INA and hide-chan came to the studio, they were earnestly there to work. They took what they did seriously. When the others were fooling around in the studio, hide-chan and Ray McVeigh often clashed. Hide then said, “INA-chan, I’m going to lose my temper today, so you better go home early,” and then they’d have a fight. It was quite interesting. Since zilch and hide’s solo activities happened at the same time, INA and hide-chan spread their work out between them. They had a producer as well, and the project grew as more and more people got involved.

Did you hear about the conception of LEMONed?

He didn’t. Only after the fact, just like with Spread Beaver. Hide just dropped that information casually in the middle of a conversation. When the LEMONed store opened, they were in LA. INA remembers how hide passed him a video and said, “It turned into this kind of business.” At the time, they did a bunch of things in Japan. The “Misery”-PV had a home-made feel to it because INA edited it himself from raw material of stuff the two of them had filmed at home. It was a time like that (laughing). The lip-syncing for that PV they filmed in front of a blue TV screen at hide-chan’s home. The staff just turned the light here and there. It cost 0 yen (laughing).

There had been a plan to make a video like that, huh?

INA thinks that a plan for filming a video like that already existed within hide-chan. But he had no plan for the actual contents.

Here, staff member Motoyama provides the information that they made the video by sending it to Japan for the design team t.o.L. to edit, and those then send it back to LA.

INA once again emphasizes that, seriously, it cost no money, and laughs. INA did not get a salary, of course, and he even had to be the chauffeur. “INA-chan, you got free time, right? Let’s go take some pictures together.” Also, in the desert, their car got stuck and they all had to work together to get it free. That time was really fun. It felt more like an extension of their playtime, not at all like work.

A lot of people said the same thing: That it was like playtime.

When INA was down with a fever, hide-chan got worried and came by to make him rice noodles. At that time, they lived in a world made up of ca. four to five people, in LA and Japan. At the time of PSYENCE, hide-chan said he wanted to create “The best possible work with the least possible number of people in the shortest possible amount of time.” Song creation aside, they needed about one month to finish the recording. Which was pretty terrible, actually. They finished work at five in the morning and started again at eleven… like that (laughing).

And when you were done at the end of the day, you couldn’t even go drinking.

They could not. It was hard, but they pulled through.

How was the second tour?

Combined with the LEMONed event, there were nearly twenty shows. Strangely enough, while INA had his doubts about how to handle it in the beginning, in the end it turned out to be fun. At first, he was concerned with how to proceed, but as the tour continued, it all just fell together and solidified. Hide-chan was amazing when it came to bringing out people’s talents – not just with the musicians but also with the staff and everyone. He didn’t say, “Please do it this way because that’s the way to do it,” but instead, “This is want I want to do, but do you have any alternative suggestions?” And if a suggestion was made, he’d go, “That sounds good, let’s do it!” He had that stance towards everyone, so everyone enjoyed working with him and had a good time. Even if he ended up not doing what had been suggested, he gave it serious consideration. There aren’t many people who can say they were given a chance like that. Since hide-chan quickly realized the ideas he liked, everyone had fun and gave their best. By the time the tour was over, they had really grown close as a team. Even now, the staff from the PSYENCE-tour called it the most fun one they were ever involved with. Regardless of whether they contributed in big or in small ways. In this regard, hide-chan was amazing.

INA-san, your hairstyle became very flashy. Why was that?

Miyagi-kun, hairstylist at LEMONed, said, “This is gonna stand out!” and pained INA’s hair in fluorescent colours. But that paint would come off, so they decided it would be better to dye it if INA was to sport those colours every day. Miyahi-kun also went over the top (laughing).

It wasn’t done by hide-san?

Well, it had been kind of a spontaneous thing. But hide-chan also dyed INA’s hair. He had a beautician’s licence, after all. During the first tour, he also dyed DIE-chan’s hair. And Pata’s, way back.

And after the PSYENCE-tour?

The incident where hide-chan fractured his skull. All of a sudden, he just stopped contacting INA one day. Usually, they were in contact every day even after the tour to make up a time for INA to come to hide-chan’s place to work on songs. But now, there was no phone call at all, and INA was told by the office, “hide-san got injured, so we’re taking a break for now.” They didn’t give him any details and he didn’t hear anything else for about a month. INA didn’t do anything, but he wondered what was going on until hide-chan himself contacted him one day and told him that he had been hospitalized. INA was surprised to hear this (“Eeh, what happened?”), while hide was rather dispassionate about it (“Broken skull.”). INA was startled, even though he only heard about it after the worst was over. They were talking about going to the US to resume work and start recording for zilch, but the doctor told hide he wasn’t allowed to fly. Regardless, hide went anyway, then told INA that there was this terrible ringing noise in his ears during the flight. When INA heard that, he went pale and thought, “It’s over.” But it was okay; after this they stayed over there for a while. In fact, that was their longest stay. They resumed the work with zilch that had been postponed for the PSYENCE-tour and only returned to Japan in Summer. [Note: They had left for LA around February.] After that, X JAPAN announced its dissolution.

He just went about song making as if there were nothing happening, though?

Basically. Get it done, get it done… he worked like that all the time. He finished one song about every one or two weeks. But when they were in Tokyo, he just wanted to play around. Abroad, he calmly worked in the studio every day, but in Japan, things immediately got in the way and no work was done. Kiyoshi or whoever would come over to hang out and they wouldn’t work. One day during the creation of “Ja, Zoo”, in order to get them to focus, the record company send INA and hide to a camp at Lake Yamanaka. It was supposed to be refreshing, but since there was absolutely nothing around, the two of them turned a little weird about two days in. They were alone in that mountain hut, there was no one else around, outside was nothing. “I wonder if there isn’t anyone in Tokyo who can come to visit,” they said and kept making phone calls. Inevitably, they went out at night, but there were no establishments around, so they kept circling the lake in their car until morning. [ Note: INA makes it sound like they were the only people in the area, but according to “Owaranai Kizuna”, the book of hide’s former manager Kuma, there was an entire team with them, and also Kuma himself, who got stuck there when hide abducted him on the way to the retreat and set his mobile phone on fire. (More at eleven.)] Then, the people from the record company said, “Good work!” and invited them to the Atami Onsen as a reward. And thus, hide-chan, who had shown great restraint until then, let loose, went berserk while drunk, and broke his foot. And that just a couple of months before X JAPAN’s Last Live in Tokyo Dome. [Note: Actually, it seems that it was more like one month before the concert, as the accident happened in late November.] Just before that incident, INA, in a good mood, had warned hide’s brother and manager Hiroshi to make sure that hide did not, no matter what, injure his hands. And his hands were safe. Instead, he came back with a broken foot (laughing).

No kidding. (laughs)

But, at the time, it was adorable. When hide came back from the hospital and INA knocked on the car and asked if he was okay, hide pretended to be asleep (laughing). When INA later asked him about it, he explained, “I didn’t have a clear answer, so I decided to just feign sleeping for the moment.”

The photographs for the jacket of “Rocket Dive” were taken at that time, weren’t they?

Staff member Yamamoto again: That’s right. Hide-san just said, “I’m sorry” regarding those photographs.

INA: That day, his leg was still in a cast.

Yamamoto: They could only photograph the upper part of his body.

INA: At the Tokyo Dome, he was already well healed.

Yamamoto: He ate small fish all the time. He had put it in his mind that he would be healed for X JAPAN’s last live.

INA: Everyone brought calcium and such. But within a week, hide-chan already resumed pre-production at home. Since he needed to stand while singing, he did so while carefully balancing on his tip-toes.

Did you hear about X JAPAN braking up in advance?

INA did, by accident. Even hide’s manager didn’t know about it, no one knew about it, so he kept it a secret.

Did you say anything?

They didn’t speak much about this matter. Only after the press conference announcing the break-up. They walked home, worked on “Rocket Dive”. There was an air of “March on to the next thing” after they watched the press conference on TV. But then, in the afternoon, an old friend contacted hide and they decided to go for a drink (laughing). At that point, the Last Live had not been decided yet and it felt like it would end with that press conference, so INA thought it made sense that hide-chan wanted to drink.

X JAPAN’s Last Live was on New Year’s Eve 1997.

INA was there backstage. After that was the Kohaku-performance at NHK, so after the live was over they immediately had to move on to the NHK building. Those who, like INA, were left behind, were like, “There they go.” Afterwards, they had a closing party with the members. Ah, yeah. Pata-chan was there, too.

Yamamoto: There was a full -page advertisement for “hide with Spread Beaver coming…1998” in the morning issue of the Asahi Shinbun, so they waited for it in a pub while drinking.

INA: Except no one had heard about that yet (laughing). INA had known about it, but Joe was all, “Eeh, what’s Spread Beaver?” Since they had been working together all the time already, it wasn’t a problem to just turn them into a band, but everyone was still delightedly surprised. There was no formal contract, so at that point, nothing really changed. After that, they went to LA for recording again. Everyone was involved.

What did you record?

“Pink Spider”, “ever free”, and stuff for the album. But work on the album did not go as planned. “Pink Spider” and “ever free” were to be released in May, and it was decided that they should return to Japan for the promotion. The plan was to release the album and go on tour then, but now there was talk of doing something like a pre-tour, since the album wasn’t finished. First, a pre-tour with the three new songs, then the zilch-tour, then the real national tour once the album was finished. “No matter how you look at it, there isn’t enough time,” they said.

How come the completion of the album was delayed?

Basically, a sense of “Let’s make it better”. It was changed over and over, and the promotion of the singles also got in the way, so the time for recording just disappeared. But they made it to the point where it should have been finished in a month, maybe a month and a half.

Did you hear anything regarding hide-san’s thoughts on the world?

He wanted to do western music, but by the time zilch was started, western music was already circulating in Japan, and he wondered if it wouldn’t be more interesting to take Spread Beaver aboard. He wasn’t just obsessed with “The World”. Rather, he’d said, when PSYENCE was completed, “This is great, INA-chan. If this doesn’t sell, we will go abroad, we will give up on Japan.” He’d always been conscious of foreign countries and the world as a whole, but it’s not like he absolutely had to make it there above all else.

INA-san, you continued participating in hide-san’s work after he died, didn’t you? Just now, you told me about listening to and editing ten hours of his MC.

That’s simply because it’s interesting. Separate INA from it for an hour and he’s already going back to it. Everyone else from Spread Beaver also comes at once if they are called back without warning. INA didn’t do anything for it for a bit, but this year [2008] there was a lot. He edited the live album and there were also lives to perform. Listening to it as music of today is strange.

Where there ever times when it was difficult?

That, too… There were times during the work on “Ja, Zoo”. And then, after, the tour without hide. That was hard. Because they had to keep smiling amongst the thousands, ten-thousands of people in the audience who were all crying. But it’s because of this that they are here now. Even if there were also grudges… There were a lot of people who held it against them that they did this. But there were also those who said it saved them, so he is now glad they did it.

In that sense, those were difficult circumstances, weren’t they?

To be honest, there were times when INA thought that he also wanted to be saved. However, they decided to do all the things hide-chan had wanted to do in 1998. They did the things they could do, like release a Best of-CD or re-release “Tell Me” with the band. And when things calmed down, they opened the hide museum. Altogether, they held a lot of events. Since INA is the one participating in the museum the most (laughing).

And so, DJ INA was born. (laughs)

At first, he was a false DJ. He did hide’s tour as a DJ. After all, there were people waiting for it who did not just want to listen to hide’s music at home but enjoyed experiencing it loudly with everyone else, and things would continue after this. There was the memorial summit with X JAPAN, Luna Sea and all the others, as well as tens of thousands of people. If there were things INA could do for that, he ought to do them.

There are too many memories, aren’t there?

When INA thinks about them, they rapidly come back. At the launch party for the memorial summit, he talked to Pata and it brought back a lot of stories. Things normally forgotten that none the less stayed in everyone’s heart.

Did you ever fight?

When it came to making music, there were things resembling fights, but never outside of that.

You were the same age?

Yes. Their birthdays were one day apart. INA’s is on 12 December.

INA-san, what kind of person was hide-san to you?

He honestly doesn’t know.

Anything you want to say to hide-san?

Things like “Thank you.” It was interesting, and it stayed interesting after hide-chan was gone. It’s strange, though… INA’s feelings haven’t changed now that he supports hide’s activities after his death as opposed to them working together when he was alive. What he wants to say is just “Thank you.”

#hide #hide bible #x japan #hide with spread beaver #interview #translation #sort of #summary #INA #and staff member yamamoto I suppose #this one was less horrible than most #in fact I would actually say it was fun #but still #so much work #anyway #way to not tell your band members that they are now a band hide #never mind the other things #apparently information sharing was not their strongest skill

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