When the Spank Your Juice announced that their indefinite hiatus in March, Sugizo promised he was going to start a new project, but nobody knew when it would begin.

In early June, Sugizo’s website unexpectedly renewed. We could see a round blue object with flares full of energy. The FLARE. That was the name of the new project.With Yuna on vocal and Sugizo on guitar.

The only information we have got was that the first single would be released on August 25 and the band would participate in the event, “SWEET EXTRA 2004” at Zepp Tokyo. The rumours and information were spread among the fans on the Internet.

Who is Yuna? How does he sing? What kind of music do they play? What messages they are going to send us? What live performances are they are going show us?

Everything was mysterious. I had many thoughts, and I had a chance to meet them in the late June.

The story began 7 years ago, in ’97. That year, Luna Sea stopped their act for a year, and Sugizo began to become remarkably active as a solo artist. He stayed in London and created a surprisingly avant-garde album “Truth?” with the musicians whom he'd influenced. And he participated the event tour, “Abstract Day” with the former members of JAPAN and Masami Tsuchiya. During this time, he met many people, Yuna amongst them. At the time, Yuna was a teenager who loved overseas guitar sounds such as Lenny Kravitz. He was so moved when he listened Sugizo’s works. Later, he could meet him through a mutual friend.

Yuna told me that he felt so strange when he met Sugizo. There are many difference between them, such as their birthplaces and their ages, but they got along with each other very well. They talked about music, the situation of other countries, astronomy, chi kung…. They could talk about anything and had the same thoughts. He realised that he could even talk about his worries about his private life to Sugizo.

Were they going to create music in the future?
It wasn’t only Yuna who felt that feeling but also Sugizo.
However, they had their own responsibilities. Sugizo had to restart Luna Sea and Yuna was successful with his project.

Even though they got along well, they walked from each other’s way. If the wheels of fate worked differently, they would never have a chance to create the project together.

It is my own guess, I think they got much closer when Sugizo was creating “C:LEAR”. The album was like evolution. He wrapped up his thoughts of the past in his music, and when he looked into the future, he might have thought about Yuna.

Yuna said, “Because we are in such a time, I wanna sing songs with lights. Positive songs. If it reaches you, you can smile. If you all smile, the energy of lights will spread like ripples. The positive energy will then grow to the earth, and to the universe. I think that is the reason that we were born.”

And Sugizo said…“Even if you feel happy with having everything that you want, you cannot feel real happiness with it. I finally realized that. I want to start The FLARE very miminum and primitive. I cannot change the sound completely, but I intend to make it with the message I want to send and the melody as simple as possible. Start with the point that children can sing, then how many more original sounds can we create? That’s what we should challenge in this project.”

The FLARE. Explosions in the atmosphere of the Sun. They placed the message “no matter how dirty you are, everyone must have some pureness like a child in their heart.” in “INNER CHILD”. We will see them on stage on July 24th.