Released on the 16th of this month, Perfume have set a record for themselves with the #3 opening ranking of their new single “Baby cruising Love / Macaroni” on the Oricon daily chart (dated January 15th). Last year, tickets for every one of their solo shows — ranging from Daikanyama Unit in July, Ebisu Liquidroom in November, and Zepp Tokyo, the largest live house in the country, on New Year’s Eve — were completely sold out. They even achieved a slot at the huge rock festivals Summer Sonic and Countdown Japan, becoming an exception among idol units. As that shakeup in the circumstances surrounding them continues, we set out to conduct our second long interview with these girls at the center of the maelstrom.
―― As the VTR at your New Year’s Eve concert “Perfume’s Surprise Countdown!? ~Revisiting That Night at Li**idroom in Zepp Tokyo~” demonstrated, 2007 was a year of great upheaval for Perfume. Nocchi: Even when we perform, the live houses we’ve booked have gotten bigger and bigger, we’re getting more interviews, and we’ve started getting invited to music programs and TV shows, so everything really did change.
―― Your latest release “Baby cruising Love / Macaroni” features a piano sound not unlike “SEVENTH HEAVEN” from your previous single with a melancholy tone that resonates strongly in this season, and more so than cute, it gave me the impression of a grown-up Perfume, but how did Nakata Yasutaka-san (capsule) originally pass this song to you? Nocchi: There are different patterns — sometimes he gives us the lyrics and music to listen to at home, and other times we go into Nakata-san’s studio where we hear it and memorize it right there. This time, we were given a CD with vocals by Koshijima [Toshiko]-san (capsule), and we memorized that at home.
―― Does Koshijima-san often sing your demos? A~chan: Rarely! Nocchi: This was the first time. Kashiyuka: It felt sort of like it was already a capsule song. Until now, the demos Nakata-san has given us have always been all guide melodies, just like a kind of electronic sound on the keyboard, so hearing Koshijima-san’s voice, I thought, “What happened!?” (laughs) Nocchi: There was one where Nakata-san sang once before. Kashiyuka: That one was a shocker, too. Nocchi: For “Perfect Star Perfect Style,” the first track on our album Perfume ~Complete Best~, Nakata-san manipulated his own voice to sound like a completely different person and sang the vocals that way, so that was what we listened to and followed along with.
―― Do you remember the first impression you had of “Baby cruising Love / Macaroni” when you heard the demo CD? Nocchi: The way it opened like “*koi no unmei wa~ ai no shoumei wa~*♪” made it a pretty easy song to remember, so I thought it was really catchy. Kashiyuka: I thought we’d avoid breaking the mood that “Polyrhythm” set by gunning for an even greater out-and-out techno track and aiming for an appeal like “We’re techno!” all the more, but then we got this really midtempo number, and one that could even be perceived as a love song at that. The costumes, PV and lyrics were all done with a sweet feeling to them, too. It’s really rare for Perfume to go so totally, straightforwardly sweet, so I didn’t expect it. It was like, “Huh!? Will this really be enough?” “Polyrhythm” was what introduced us to so many people around the world, so it’s really worrisome for our next song to be so midtempo.
―― W-worrisome…? Kashiyuka: “Polyrhythm” has had a lot of momentum, so I think everyone probably has an impression of us like, “Oh, these people sing this kind of music.” Then when they hear that we have a new release out and it’s this one, they’ll be like, “What? This melody is completely different.” I’m worried about it turning out that way. A~chan: It was some time ago already, so I don’t really remember what my first impression of it was (laughs).
―― When was it that you first heard “Baby cruising Love / Macaroni”? A~chan: At the end of October. We were doing concerts around the countryside with the last one scheduled for November 8th, and it was right in the middle of rehearsals for that stretch of live events, so it was a really busy time for us. We had a lot going on with “Polyrhythm” and our concerts on top of school, and it felt like everyone was holding out and working hard then (laughs), so we had gotten to our utmost limits. There was no time to consider the songs; I just put my focus on memorizing them.
―― After completing your two-day performance at Daikanyama Unit and before your concert at Ebisu Liquidroom, when I asked you where you wanted to go next, you answered, “We want to try doing Zepp Tokyo!” I said that I thought you’d be able to pull it off before long, but it really did come to pass. Nocchi: We thought it was a much more distant dream than that, so we never imagined it’d come true so quickly! It wasn’t even really something we could confidently call our dream, so it surprised us as well.
―― With rock bands, no matter how big the stage is, there are people who stand firm in the center of the stage for the whole show. But as your stages get bigger in places like Zepp Tokyo, is there anything you’ve been worried about regarding that? A~chan: In order to change the formations between the three of us, there’s a certain width that they have to be. We’ve always done them that way, and while we are able to manage in small spaces, larger ones have been rather difficult for us. We generally kept most of our songs the same, but we tried to have moves that we could all do together to get everyone hyped up and points where we could go to the edges of the stage so we could get the maximum use out of it. That was the only thing we thought of when we did it, but we probably weren’t able to get a good handle on that (laughs).
―― I’m sure there were a variety of reactions to “Perfume no Okite,” but how did you originally come to implement that? Nocchi: We’d come up with a corner like a “sparkling song special feature” where we sang other people’s songs during our last round of concerts, but when we started thinking about what we could do to replace that, our teacher who’s always done our choreography was in New York studying stage production, and she said something to us like, “What would it be like if Perfume put on some kind of stage production? Would you let me make a little corner for you?” We looked around at a bunch of stuff wondering how it’d turn out before we finally decided to ask her to try it, and then “Perfume no Okite” was born.
―― Throughout the songs, you say lines like “Due to legal circumstances…” and so forth — did you come up with that yourselves? A~chan: It was all done by our teacher. There are areas where we put in our own views, though. It’s so different from what we normally do that we didn’t want it to be the only thing that stood out. So we really, really considered whether or not to do it, and then we started thinking that trying it might be a plus for us, so we were allowed to go on with it. But it seems like it was received rather well. We were really uncertain about it, but maybe it was worth doing in the end. Nocchi: It was a real challenge and not like the usual Perfume, so I thought it was all right for there to be some pros and cons.
―― Had you been doing dances that were more cool than cute like the style of “Perfume no Okite” since before then? A~chan: We were always doing that sort of thing in school, so I really, really hated that feeling of “We did our best and pulled it off!” like our recitals. When we were in Actors School, we diligently studied singing as well as dancing, and while there were some parts of our recitals that were only dance, there were also some performances where we went really hard in both dancing and singing.
―― There may have been a number of people who were shocked to see that for the first time, but for Perfume, it was one more part of you. A~chan: You’re right. But recitals are less about putting on a show for an audience and more about self-satisfaction, really. You do get your choreo uniform with the others and sing your songs more skillfully and things like that, sure, but there isn’t a single part of it that involves the audience or is very conscious of them — it’s all a one-sided display. The audience isn’t treated as necessary so much, like an exhibition. I think circuses and those sort of things work fine as a “show” like that, but this is different, and I don’t believe there’s any point if we can’t have fun alongside the audience. We put a lot of thought into “Perfume no Okite” this time, and there were a bunch of people around us who said it was really great, but… I wonder if there were also people who didn’t think so? Nocchi: I think there must be. Kashiyuka: Probably people who couldn’t accept it, too. I think there aren’t many things out there that everyone would love. A~chan: But! We didn’t do it because we thought everyone would like it — we tried it out as a challenge. Still, I’m glad we did it!
―― I do hope Perfume will stay that kind of unpredictable unit, going against people’s expectations in a good way. A~chan: Me too. I think it’s best to give a surprising or interesting concert each time.
―― The topic of Actors School came up, and I asked you about your initial impressions of each other last time, so would you mind telling me what pushed each of you towards this industry before the three of you became Perfume? A~chan: I think everyone’s start was probably different, but when I was about four or five up until around my first year of elementary school, I did something a little like modeling for a nearby supermarket. Apparently, I really liked having cute clothes and things put on me and getting pictures taken (laughs). Something like “I wanna be a cute model!” was what got me started. Then I came to really love SPEED, and singing as well, so my mother said something like “Well, why not join?” and I enrolled. Kashiyuka: I have an older brother, but he looked up to Fukuyama Masaharu and said he wanted to sing, so I’d have nothing to do while he was taking all these hands-on lessons at the school and just sat there in a daze. My mother said “Why don’t you take some with him?” and so I went as an extra. That was at another school, but we saw on the news that they were going to open an Actors School Hiroshima, and my mother told me to go there with my older brother. I didn’t really think anything like “I wanna be a singer!” or “I wanna be like this person!” all that much.
―― Did you ever learn any kind of instrument? Kashiyuka: Never! I did swimming for eight straight years. It hasn’t been useful for anything, though (laughs). I enrolled in the Actors School in fifth grade, but I went to Actors on weekends and had swimming practice a handful of times a week, so it got very stressful and I felt like I didn’t have the physical strength for both. I thought, “If I have to pick, which one should I choose?” Then when I was doing swimming, I started thinking, “It’s not like I really want to be a swimmer or anything, so enough of this.” I begged my mother to let me quit and I left.
―― If anything, then, your initial push was choosing this world above swimming. Kashiyuka: That’s right. Although I don’t quite understand why I chose it (laughs). But once I got in, I really came to find out how fun dance is. My parents like a lot of Western music, so when I heard the music we used in lessons, I found it really cool despite not being able to understand what it meant at all. Humming the lyrics and dancing along, I grew to love dance a lot. The very first teacher I learned dance from is now the person who does our choreography, so maybe that was a really fateful meeting. Nocchi: I’ve always liked to sing ever since I was little. I’d sing Matsuda Seiko songs at people’s weddings and stuff… A~chan: (laughs) Nocchi: What are you laughing about! A~chan: Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. What song was it again, “Sweet Memories”? Nocchi: ”*Meguriaeta ne~*♪” [from “Taisetsu na Anata”] But I sang it when I was super tiny. A~chan: (bursts into laughter) It seems like you were pretty good, though. Nocchi: Yeah! I’d get praised a ton by my mom and other people. So I got caught up in that a little bit and was always thinking along the lines of, “I’m gonna be a singer! I’m gonna be Matsuda Seiko!” And then SPEED was really popular around my third year of elementary school, so I decided on my dream of “becoming SPEED!”
―― You’d “become” SPEED, I see. A~chan: (laughs) Kashiyuka: She’d turn into the people themselves… Nocchi: Right! Then I was accepted into Actors School Hiroshima, and then we all met. I got my dream of “I wanna be a singer!” one level higher. A~chan: You’re kind of incredible, aren’t you? (laughs) Nocchi: I said I was going to be one, so I was able to become a singer (laughs). Kashiyuka: There’s something amazing about that!
―― For instance, I believe you come up with each of your concert titles yourselves, but when it comes time to exchange everyone’s ideas, how do you decide the winner in the end? Kashiyuka: Based on the mood (laughs). Nocchi: But we express our opinions rather properly, like we’re giving a presentation, and if that idea is good, we do that, or if this one is good, then we go with it instead, and everything goes in accordance with that sort of flow. A~chan: All of us are pretty serious, so I think we’re the kind of people who consider everything really, really deeply, even the little things. We say we “just go with it” based on what we feel or whatever, but I think we actually put an unbelievable amount of thought into our performances, you know, between the three of us (laughs). They aren’t wild titles by any means, but they’re full of different sentiments. We really each have our own strong opinions. The people who agree with someone’s views are different every time, and we don’t decide it just on one person’s opinion each time either. Our views may all be similar, though. Nocchi: That happens a lot. A~chan: No matter what we’re discussing, our views agree like “This is like this, isn’t it?” “You know, you’re right!” really frequently. Even if we’re told “Split it up into two against one!” or something, we’re really stumped. Nocchi: If we have something like “this side” or “that side” going on, it’s fairly difficult (laughs). A~chan: We all end up coming together like, “But it’s pretty much like this, isn’t it?” Nocchi: It’s like even if our paths differ, we can work our final opinion out peacefully.