The FLARE
Positivity ~Prayer to Peace~
The much-anticipated single, Positivity, is due to be released on June 1st.
The message this duo declares with one voice is strong and deeply felt on this release.
All songs are receiving much acclaim at live performances.
I took a chance to speak with these two who have announced their new tour and are gradually gaining popularity.

At last the new single, which had been delayed, will be released. The acclaim that the title song, Positivity, along with the medium tempo “Meguri aeru nara,” notable for its deep chorus and the acoustic “Kinou mita yume ~ heiwa no chikai,” have received from fans who have heard them live is reason enough to call this a highly anticipated single.

When I looked over the material before the interview something that seemed strange was the fact that the songwriter and lyricist credits for “Kinou mita yume ~ heiwa no chikai” were not written. Forced into it by Sugizo, Yuna said at a concert that “With this we mean to present to a new audience an old, famous song.” After that MC the two played U2’s “Bloody Sunday” but I believe that “Kinou mita yume ~ heiwa no chikai” is also a cover of an old song. It seems like I’ve heard it somewhere before. It tickles my memory, but I can’t place it.

There is nothing for it but to ask them, I suppose. Fortunately the day of the interview was in the middle of Golden Week. The bright, sunshiny day was complimented by a breeze and it seemed I would enjoy my conversation with those two.

- This was a much-awaited single.

Yuna: It seems that everyone was kind enough to wait for it.

Sugizo: At least it would be nice if that were the case. (laughs)

- The FLARE’s releases always feel something like a mini-album but I think this release seems the most so. The lyrics are all different but I suppose you could say that, like yakitori, they are all connected by a single skewer. (laughs)

Sugizo: Yakitori?! (bursts out laughing) I guess the skewer is the main point.

Yuna: But you understand what well what we want to say. (laughs)

- You played the title song, “Positivity” on the winter leg of your tour and I suppose that it received an especially good response from the fans.

Yuna: We debuted it at our first one man. The response was surprisingly good and the venue heated up. Because we had talked about making our next single one with a strong live vibe, we chose this song.

- I didn’t notice this when I heard it live, but listening to the disc, Sugizo’s guitar part is incredible. Makes you want to headbang.

Yuna: It’s good isn’t it? I like it too.

- Every living being is stained in some way, but listening to this joyful song and Sugizo’s guitar part, it seems to like some sort of cleanser that creates purity.

Sugizo: That guitar part is based on the image of cutting through sins, because we humans cannot yet attain purity. Even if we wish to create something clean, it is unlikely that it will be realized, I believe. If I try to make everything beautiful, for some reason I can’t infuse the work with feeling. For that reason, I always want to mar things in some way. (laughs) In the depths of the song I incorporate some sort of psychedelic poison and Yuna’s vocals and my guitar cut through that. I suppose that crazy feeling is our reality. I suppose that’s what positive means to us.

Yuna: Humans have ideal visions but they can never completely reach them, right? No matter what there’s some poison that they cannot help but absorb. Lately I’ve been focusing on eating organic foods at meals but I can’t get to the point where I can eat three of those kind of meals in a day.

Sugizo: It is impossible to live in the city and not ingest poison. I think that if I were able to change over to a lifestyle that was very natural and community-oriented, a way of being in which I didn’t use electricity and was self-sufficient, would write beautiful songs I suppose. But, and I mean this is a good way, this is the world we live in now. In truth if we stopped using electricity right now, we couldn’t record anything.

- Even if it is impossible, I think that it is important to continue to think about cutting through the impurities. If we stop reaching for our ideals, it’s like everything would regress.

Sugizo: I agree completely. I have long thought that the coolest rock and roll contains an exquisite balance between the spiritual force that allows one to keep moving towards one’s goal and the opposing power that wants to hold on to the physical. I think Jim Morrison certainly had that. I think that John (Lenon), Jimmy Hendrix and Janis (Joplin) thought the same way as well. No matter what the era, people long to be beautiful. They want to live their ideals. But at the same time if one goes to play rock and roll appetite and sexual desire get mixed in. It is impossible to eliminate all of that.

- After all hermits aren’t writing music, right?

Sugizo: Our music is unmistakably something that is being created in 2005 but it feels like the pure rock and roll feeling of the 1960s is flowing beneath the surface. Or so I think, but I don’t know why the conversation has gotten so off course. (laughs)

- In the lyrics there is a part that goes, “Even the current, painful darkness /will become sustenance/And the door to understanding/ the miracle called life will open.” I think that part explains your thoughts well.

Yuna: When writing these lyrics we thought about what the narrator of our previous single, “Uetiko,” who was crying out over the state of the world, would think if he took it a step further. After all, he would go a little crazy if he remained the same as he was in “Uetiko,” wouldn’t he? (laughs)

Sugizo: He would probably become a militant revolutionary like Che Guevara. (ironic smile)

Yuna: I think that once people realize what’s going on in world, it would be nice if rock could created a world where individuals could be happy. I don’t think that anything would be created if people turn towards one another while they still have a negative mind frame. Because of that people have to turn the darkness to sustenance and try and think about what they can do.

Sugizo: If one believes that happiness can only be attained by eliminating all poisons, one will never achieve happiness, I believe.

Yuna: Truly, happiness is in the small things.

Sugizo: It’s an extreme argument, but I think that even in a country that has become a battlefield, happiness is possible. For instance even a person injured by landmines could find it. No matter what your situation is, it is important to have the spiritual strength to do the best that you can at that time. If you do that, you will become thankful that you are alive.

- Let’s move on to the second song. Sugizo, you wrote these lyrics.

Sugizo: It’s a sad song, isn’t it? It’s a song about someone who has been left behind.

- I felt that this would be a very important song. Especially the line in the bridge, “Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change/The courage to change the things I can/And the wisdom to know the difference.” I thought these religious lyrics were well suited to the melody.

Sugizo: Thank you. (laughs) These are the words to a well-known prayer that was printed in a wonderful book. I borrowed them.

- Is the theme of the song incarnation?

Sugizo: Yes... there is that aspect. The emotion behind the song is being tangled up in loneliness that would occur if a person were unable to see their soul mate, the person they were meant to meet, again. Also, you can’t enter into the flow of the current era. In a society that is advancing in mechanics and physics, the main character of these lyrics is searching for the spiritual and is being left behind.

- You two are not the only ones thinking like that I believe, there seems to be a lot of people thinking that way in Japan right now.

Yuna: That is certainly true. In this era I think that anyone could experience the sentiments in both “Meguri aeru nara” and “Positivity.” But it’s like if you do not create energy from abandoning irritation and impatience, even when you feel like one has been left behind, then you will not be able to escape from that and move in a happier direction. Because I too waver from day to day, both these songs are very realistic.

- You waver, Yuna?

Yuna: Yes. For instance, before the summer tour, to get in shape I went to the gym and the pool everyday and was exhausted. One night, I was coming home on my bike and I went the wrong way down a one way street near my place. The guy who lived there got mad at me and I was like, “You don’t need to get that worked up about it,” and we started arguing. But I quickly realized, I can’t do this. This is just like small war. A guy like me who is promoting love and peace should avoid these kind of emotions.

- What did you do?

Yuna: I apologized. But I couldn’t sleep for a long time after that. I was like, I apologized but I didn’t look at it from the other person’s perspective. I created an aura that went completely against the creed that I profess. While trying to decide what I should do, I happened to meet that guy at the pool three days later. I went to apologize formally, but in that instant he suddenly shook my hand. (laughs) He was very happy that I apologized and we were instantly friends.

- Now for the third song. You played it as an encore at one show.

Sugizo: This song is an old American folk song that even I had forgotten. It seems like a song that hippies would get together and sing. It isn’t on any album. I heard it because Simon and Garfunkel covered it on their first album. The title is, “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.”

- So that means that, “Kino mita yume (Last Night I Had a Dream)” is the correct translation?

Yuna: Yes. We didn’t find this song by ourselves. Sashiyama-san who took the photo of us on the jacket told us, “Don’t you think someone should cover this song?” Sugizo: There was a translation of the version that Simon and Garfunkel did in the 60s so we pretty much just used that. Although we changed a few that just couldn’t be made to fit the melody.

- Because their first album was released in 1964, it was when America was involved in the chaos of the Vietnam War.

Sugizo: The “strange dream” of this song is a dream of a world where everyone has agreed to end all wars. Therefore, if this song originated in the 50s that means that war has continued to close to 50 years at this point.

Yuna: I understand the importance of singing and sharing such a special song, but singing this song was both a happy experience and a sad experience.

- In today’s paper there was an article about 60 people dying in Baghdad from a suicide bombing, but it didn’t even make the front page.

Sugizo: The war really hasn’t ended in Iraq, has it. Over a thousand Americans have already died. Even for those who survive, the emotional conflict and friction cannot be stopped so there will be a great deal of damage inflicted on hearts.

- I think that it would be nice if The FLARE continued to not only produce original works but also served as a medium to introduce people to other good stuff, don’t you?

Yuna: That is what we would like to do, I think.

Sugizo: If you’re talking about things of that nature, I think there was meaning in the performance I did on Earth Day yesterday. There were 110,000 people there.

Yuna: This is something I thought during the show, but I think that it was like the hippie movement in the sixties when people would get together to oppose war.

- And it’s also good when people are introduced to various new things and people through listening to The FLARE’s music.

Sugizo: I’ve been introduced to a lot of wonderful new things over the last year. I discovered that there are a lot of people who share our determination and with people who share a similar vision I can be open from the start. It feels very good to be with people who are spiritually positive.

Yuna: Even if what they are doing is different, even if they are say a cameraman or an athlete, you can get good energy from people who are walking a similar road.

- “Kinou mita yume ~heiwa no chikai~” ends with a sound of bell doesn’t it? I liked the feel of that.

Yuna: I liked the feel of that a lot too. I fell asleep a lot when we were mixing that. (laughs)

Sugizo: That chime is a wind chime that I brought back to the head of our label when I went to L.A. It’s made of agate but the sound is lovely so I’m always borrowing it. (laughs)

- The sound of a chime is prayerful wave that can overcome borders and religions, I think.

Yuna: It calls forth a state of contemplation I think.

Sugizo: I think the sound of a chime is good for when people unify their emotions. From the distant past, in various countries, bells have been used to restore spiritual balance.

Yuna: We discussed this earlier but because living day to day one will inevitably feel some negativity so I hope that as I make The FLARE’s music I am able to purify myself as well. Especially when I’m performing I want to remove my own stains. Also, I want to create new music when I’m in that frame of mind.

It’s been a short two and a half years since Sugizo quit smoking, saying, “It’s a poison and it dulls the activity and purity of the right side of the brain.”

The act of quitting smoking expanded into the project called The FLARE and following Cherry, Yuna, the final piece of the puzzle, entered. Yuna’s exclamation is, “I never realized that getting up in the morning felt so wonderful!”

They can’t do anything big at the moment, but they’ll start with the small things. These two started off with improving their own body and soul.

But because this is also rock and roll, they are walking on a swaying tightrope.

And writing these closing words, the author, who must confess to being a heavy smoker, finds himself in a complex frame of mind. Hmm...