I think SUGIZO is a top-class headhunter. He always finds excellent musicians regardless of their nationality, even if they are only needed for a tour. Now he found another talented musician to start a new project, The FLARE. His partner is called YUNA. He has powerful voice, spirit and good looks.

Interviewer: I listened your debut single and thought it has some will.

SUZIGO: Yes, it has. (laugh)

Interviewer: And I felt that all three songs in the single have the same sort of will. If I say in one word, it has the sense of assimilation or belonging, like something was separated by some reasons, but it is trying to get together again.

YUNA: That’s absolutely right. “INNER CHILD” and “LYRA” implies “Let’s think about the reason why we live”.

SUGIZO: That’s the theme of our songs, and what YUNA said now was the reason why we started this project.

Interviewer: Can you give more details?

SUGIZO: We expected new things would happen in the new century, but it has nothing changed and the problems worsen every day… in such situations, what should we do? I came to the idea that we should think about our roots seriously. We both agreed on this so we decided to form the band together.

YUNA: When we went for a drink, we always talked about the things like “What is the most important thing in our life?

Interviewer: How long do you know each other?

YUNA: About... 7 years.

Interviewer: Oh, when the members of LUNA SEA worked solo?

SUGIZO: Yes, that’s right. YUNA liked my album “TRUTH?”.

YUNA: At that time, I was a teenager, and I spent my time going to clubs and watching the video of “Woodstock”. I really liked the album because it was mixed with club music and rock guitar sounds.

Interviewer: Then you were introduced to him through your friend?

YUNA: Yes. He was a charismatic guitarist so I thought he was more destructive. (laugh) I was so surprised that he was such a positive person.

SUGIZO: I was a rebel when I was a teenager. (bitter smile) I was offensive towards the people who tried to press their rules on me. YUNA said “Nobody tries to understand me” when we first met.

YUNA: I still remember what you said then. You said to me, “You don’t need to be obedient, because you are a rock musician.” (laugh)

Interviewer: When I met SUGI-chan at first time, you told me, “Everybody says I‘m selfish (waga-mama).” (laugh) I replied, “waga-mama is written with the character ‘self’ and ‘as you go’ so it doesn’t sound too bad.”

SUGIZO: Yes. It's lucky that I am different from others. If I had freedom in my school days, maybe I wouldn't have made an effort to go further. I was not satisfied with the environment so I left, and then I tried hard to be free. You feel lonely sometimes, but if you think that you are lucky to be different from others, you can change it into positive energy.

YUNA: I gradually realised it, so I feel comfortable now. I’m so glad that I’ve found a real partner like SUGIZO-san who understands me completely. I feel like I am standing at the start line of what I really wanted to do. It’s hard to find a person who wants to create spiritual rock’n roll. People say rock stars make only rock 'n roll, and spiritual things are for healing music. So The FLARE can present something new in the music scene. We make music that has very spiritual message through loud rock.

Interviewer: How do you make music together?

YUNA: For INNER CHILD, I listened to SUGIZO-san’s melody first then the image, and everyone has an inner child in their heart, came to mind.

SUGIZO: The photo we used for the cover of the CD was also very important for us.

YUNA: We chose it together. When we saw that photo, we thought, “Ah, this is our image.” The photo was taken by a female photographer who takes pictures of healing spots of the world.

Interviewer: Your voice was as natural as this picture.

YUNA: I wanted my voice with no colour in this song, to make our message to stand out.

SUGIZO: It was quite hard to do. We had to forget our own style that we have been built up for years.

YUNA: It was a little bit scary to do so, like I’m showing my naked body. But I wanted to build on only what I need one by one from there.

Interviewer: “Flare” is a big explosive energy of the sun, who gave this name to the band?

YUNA: We collected the words that related to light each other then FLARE was the one matched on our list.

SUGIZO: When I began LUNA SEA, I liked darkness, dark clothes and no suntan. (laugh) I like the sun now. At open cafe, even if everyone chooses to sit down in the shade, I go to the sunny side to have a meal. (laugh)

YUNA: I don’t understand the people who shut the blinds in the train. (laugh)

SUGIZO: I want my body to feel the sun. The world is born by the light from the sun. Although I understand that the feeling of ‘Destroy everything with music!’, I don’t feel like going back to the world of darkness.

Interviewer: Destroying and killing are everyday things that we can watch on TV.

SUGIZO: All recent news is so depressing, isn’t it?

YUNA: Everybody likes this sort of things. It seems that there are so many people who feel relaxed with listening very depressive music. It's maybe natural thing but I want it to change, definitely, and say “You see? You were wrong.” (laugh) That’s the thing The FLARE wants to do.