Through the eyes of Merry (メリーの目)
Playback Part 4 - "Blind Alley of Life"
written by Tetsu / published in Fool's Mate Vol.258 April 2003 / translation by eurydike
We go back to April 2000. The Last Live of the band I used to belong to was held in Nagoya. I was talking to some people and telling them how tired I was, as suddenly a guy with piercings (who called himself a vocalist) appeared in front of me. According to others he was said to have come from Tokyo only to see me.
"This guy, dangerous...".
I had never thought that I would ever be in a band together with a guy like him – but it was the first punch back then.
First thing he said after we had said hello to each other was "Have you already decided which band you join next?" and I thought that this guy didn’t really know his place. But then we casually got to talk about our mutual vision and decided that we might meet in Tokyo.
A few days later, we had already made a definite decision and met. This might seem rushed; if relations between band members aren’t smooth, I think things won’t go well. That’s why I have a policy: as the bassist, I have an important position, I’m the silent one with the long hair – as for the members, I try to use my gut feeling and to just observe in the beginning. But because I really enjoyed this unexpected talk, I was convinced everything would be fine – I don’t remember what we talked about exactly back then though. What I do remember is that I went to the vocalist’s house afterwards, because we had found a kindred spirit in each other...
But honestly, I was still puzzled. Even though I wanted to keep up my bass playing, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it in this genre and this business. But I had to decide when it came to the point when I was about to go to the studio and meet them all. And as soon as I heard their sound...it blew me away. The first big impact were the drums. They were huge and the (drummer’s) sweating was tremendous. The deafening roar overpowered every other sound in the narrow studio. The guitar was also to my taste. It didn’t sound weak and monotonous at all. And then, the voice. I always thought that if a good singer doesn’t radiate, a band isn’t complete, but here I had no objections, the singer had such a great husky voice.
"We don’t want to relate to a certain genre. Something amazing might evolve from our potential."
In this very moment, I got convinced...