Shuta Hasunuma and RYUTist staff discuss idol and music post-coronavirus

This interview was originally conducted and published in Japanese by freelance writer Atsutake Kaneko for Cinra. I translated it into English for my own use but also as supplemental reading material for my newsletter readers. Please credit when sharing. Thank you.

Idol group RYUTist, based in Niigata’s town of Furumachi, put out an amazing new song, “Alive.” Throughout the seven-minute musical journey played by Shuta Hasunuma Phil, the four members express the feeling of the current moment with their beautiful harmonies and rich poetry readings. It’s no surprise it’s already getting high praise from the more “music-focused” listeners.

Their new album, Falsetto, is released from Penguin Discs, a label founded through Tower Records by music writer Kazumi Nanba in 2016. Other than Hasunuma, the album includes names like Kan Sano, Satoko Shibata and Pasocom Music Club. Along with Hasunuma and Nanba as well as fan-beloved director Hiroaki Abe, we asked each about their thoughts on idol during the times of the coronavirus while hearing their story making “Alive.”

First, to get to know more about Abe-san and Nanba-san’s relationship, can you go over RYUTist’s activities from the beginning?

Nanba: RYUTist began in 2011, and I started to get more idol-related jobs around then, and I also started to travel. When I made a feature book on local idols in 2012, I also covered RYUTist, and I first met Abe-san when we did an event for the book in Niigata. Even after that, I covered RYUTist on the show I have on Tower Records [The Kazumi Nanba’s 36 Chambers of Idol] and I supported their one-man shows. We worked together closely, and one time, Abe-san talked to me, saying “this is not going to go anywhere even if we keep going like this.”

Abe: That was around the end of 2015.

Nanba: It was half-jokingly, but after talking about how they’re going to get stuck as these local idols if they don’t expand, I said, “then, let’s do this together.” That was what got me to start Penguin Discs.

RYUTist have their own venue in Furumachi in Niigata, their origin point, and they even have their own school. In a way, they have established themselves in Niigata. But Abe-san reached out to Nanba-san because you wanted to branch out even more.

Abe: It’s not just for local idols, but whether it’d be going from junior high to high school, from high school to college, or when you get your first career, there will be a time when you think about where you’re going in life, and you’ll have to think about how you’re going to get over the obstacle, even in the idol business. The RYUTist members were also worried when they were going from junior high to high school.

I don’t think that Niigata is bad at all, but it’s selfish to have them stay as local idols, and I wanted to work together with someone also for them to get noticed more as singers and performers.

It was important to raise their motivation to continue working as idols.

Abe: I think we were fortunate to have what we had around us. There was a local idol boom, and we quickly got attention after creating a group.

Talking about Niigata, Negicco also had a big presence.

Abe: Yeah. I think, because of them, Niigata is a place where an idol is embraced more than any other prefecture. But we couldn’t really see our own goals because of that. Soon, the boom faded away, and with there being a limit in work at a local level, we wouldn’t have been able to figure out a clear goal if we kept going, so I wanted to work with Nanba-san and Tower Records. That brings us to now.

Nanba-san saw potential in RYUTist so you wanted to a start a label, right?

Nanba: I think that’s what it comes down to. And Abe-san is a funny person.

…In what way?

Nanba: …His looks [laughs]. And before I started the label, he had a clear idea of what kind of music he wanted to do. The album that Abe-san and his team made, their second album Nihonkai Yuuhi Line, the songwriters and musicians on there are all locals, and it’s based on the concept of journeying along the Japan Sea horizon. How that idea comes about from him makes it fun.

But, there wasn’t much thought beyond just making good music. The members’ skills, too, were at an amazing level, but there wasn’t much concern to bring that to more people. But if they’re doing something this exciting, I wanted more people to see it. Abe-san’s talents as a producer and the members’ dancing skills as well as their clear voice were very impressive, and I felt potential.

How did you get involved with Hasunuma-san for this album?

Nanba: While I was talking with Abe-san about who would be exciting to call for the album… Last June, when I traveled to New York with my mother, Tortoise was doing this performance in Brooklyn where the band was playing TNT in full. Hasunuma-kun lived in Brooklyn, and he was there at the show.

Hasunuma: It was free [laughs].

Nanba: It was a free show at a park. When I tweeted “I’m seeing TNT right now,” Hasunuma-kun contacted me. We met after the show, and right then and there, I brought up how I wanted him to write a song for us.

After that in August, RYUTist did a show at [Club] Quattro, and they announced they were going to do a hall show in Niigata next June. Not that long after the show, I saw Shuta Hasunuma Phil at Hibiya Open Air Concert Hall, and I was just moved. When we met in New York, it wasn’t that much of an idea, but I thought it would be really moving if RYUTist did a hall show with a sound like that. So I nervously asked Hasunuma-kun if he could make a song that could become the core of a hall show with the Phil.” [laughs]

It’s amazing to have Tortoise come up in our discussion right now. Nanba-san and Hasunuma-san were once part of [record label] HEADZ, so you had interacted with each other before. What did Hasunuma-san think when you got the call?

Hasunuma: He’s asking me, so I thought he wanted to do something different. So I figured I could work freely without thinking about whether or not it fits an idol mold.

Nanba: But you would be like “huh?” if you got asked with Phil, wouldn’t you?

Hasunuma: No, not really. What I was worried about was really the schedule and the budget. For Phil, we fill a big studio and make it all on one go, so everyone has to be there. We don’t do overdubs or post-production, so that part is difficult, but other than that, I didn’t have any problems.

How much did you discuss together about the idea of the song?

Abe: I first met Hasunuma-san last November, and I told him I want to make an epic song that’s about seven minutes long. It’s the same with rest of the album but it’s not RYUTist to have too much of an edge, so having a great melody is something that’s really important. I wanted to make a song where people would like the melody even if the arrangement is complex. I wanted to do something like [Shuta Hasunuma Phil’s 2014 album] Toki Ga Kanaderu.

Nanba: For some reason, you were stuck on the seven minutes. [laugh]

Abe: When short songs are being trendy, it might be stupid to make it seven minutes, but I still wanted to try it. I also asked for some more detailed things like making a part where we can express these feelings more or a rap part.

Hasunuma: Compared to the make-up of having both men and women in Toki Ga Kanaderu, I knew we could definitely make something new with the voices of the four in RYUTist singing over the music. Also, the harmonies in this song are pretty difficult. I thought a more Phil-ish harmonies would be good, so it has these voices that you wouldn’t hear in a traditional pop song, but I’m glad that was accepted too.

For the recording, you took the orchestra in Tokyo and the vocals in Niigata.

Abe: It’s amazing how Hasunuma-kun can organize that amount of people. What was really impressive was that everyone took it seriously. If you’re working in the idol business, you can sometimes get some sad interactions.

Hasunuma: Oh, that’s not great at all.

Abe: Yeah, I try not to get into it, so I forget about it quickly, but there can be some sad moments, so I’m mindful of how I get treated. This time, after we tracked every instrument, Gondou [Tomohiko] asked if he can play it one more time, and I was very happy that everyone got into it even if they didn’t have a lot of time. It was more nerve-wracking because everyone took it so seriously, but I was grateful.

Hasunuma: For this time, I gave the Hasunuma Phil members the score and demo about a week before, and there was no rehearsal prior to recording, so there was this one-shot feeling in the air which might also be why everyone was so serious. I think we were able to get down our best with this nice level of nervousness while checking for these detailed articulations on the spot.

Nanba: Oh, it’s perfect. The RYUTopia [hall] show got cancelled, but it perfectly fits our request to look good played at a hall, and I think it became something beyond what we ordered. For the rap, we couldn’t do raps like Tamaki Roy, so there were talks that maybe it could be a speaking portion. It musically fit with the rhythm, but it wasn’t exactly a rap, and it became a unique monologue part.

Hasunuma’s songwriting style is usually lively and refreshing, but you don’t notice because it goes a bit far, so it still turns out really strange [laughs]. I think that’s what really got me. There was this want to properly do pop but also do something really different, and I think it turned out amazing.

Personally, the claps left a big impression on me. I think how it wasn’t a very regular rhythm represented Hasunuma-san’s style.

Hasunuma: We recorded that together with the Phil and the RYUTist members after we were done recording all the instruments and putting them away. I wanted something in “Alive” that connects the Phil and the members so the orchestra and the song doesn’t sound separate. Those claps really were different, so that might be the “weird” that Nanba-san is talking about.

How much did you discuss the lyrics?

Abe: The past three albums were all works that focused on Niigata. That’s how it was for Nihonkai Yuuhi Line, and for Ryutogeigi, there’s a geiko in Furumachi who’s part of what’s called Furumachi Geigi, and the album was based on the concept for RYUTist to turn into geikos in the sense that they entertain the audience with sing and dance.

But for this album, I wanted to focus on the girls themselves, and I wanted to feature this feeling of youth. So I also told this to Hasunuma-kun, but other than that, I left it up to him. I also want to know how he wrote it.

Hasunuma: I wrote the lyrics when I went to go check out the museum in Kanagawa’s town of Hayama in preparation for an event, and I thought about it constantly while looking at the sea in Hayama. If you stare at the waves, all the waves look the same, but if you look and listen closely, I thought it’s completely different every time. Each one is distinguished from the other, and I thought the same things don’t ever happen twice.

The lyrics seem like it’s singing about the everyday but that really there’s no such thing as the everyday. I didn’t think about us being in the middle of this coronavrius when I wrote it, but I thought about how there’s actually no repetition when it comes to daily life, and I wrote about youth in a radical way with that in mind.

How did Abe-san take in these lyrics?

Abe: There’s a phrase that goes “the rows of cherry-blossom trees are falling in love,” so I really wanted to release it in the spring… But spring became nonexistent, and while the release got delayed until July, I talked again with Nanba-san about what it now means to put out this song.

Nanba: You know how the world split with corona? I really, really felt this feeling of a spring experienced by people where corona didn’t happen.

Connecting it to what Hasunuma-kun said, the same things really don’t happen. The days miraculously become the way they are, and the real spring that we thought we always had disappears because of this little thing. I felt that so quickly, and I thought it was surreal.

Abe: Yoshigai-san [Nao Yoshigai] who made the music video for us was also really friendly. When we said, “sorry we couldn’t put it out in the spring,” she responded “we couldn’t do hanami so maybe it was actually a good thing.” I think it was maybe great to put out this music video as if to provide support after spring just completely falling out of place.

Nanba: You know how people in hip hop are responding to the current situation very quickly and putting up songs left and right on YouTube? That’s where idols are weak. Because a lot of idols don’t write their own songs, they have to go through this process where they ask someone else then record it, so there’s not much feeling of speed to it. And there’s probably people who think it doesn’t match well if they sing about this and that or if the song starts to have some political meaning. But there was also this feeling where I wanted to document this current moment, and “Alive” in the end became a song that fit to the current moment, so I feel that RYUTist was able to express the “now.”

Abe: I’m going to be talking after the fact, but hearing Hasunuma-kun, I think it turned out like that even more.

Hasunuma: I tend to say the same things in my lyrics. The title for this one is “Alive,” and like how I say “the row of cherry-blossom trees are falling in love,” the main subject is a tree. When a row of cherry-blossom trees fall in love, the wind starts to blow, the leaves start to rub against it, and it starts to make noise. People aren’t the only main stars. I always make work from that perspective. There’s a nuance like that with this one too, so I think it can layer with this world where people can no longer go outside.

I also want to talk about “the coronavirus and idol,” but with live shows and engagements becoming difficult, I think a lot of groups are searching for a new relationship with their fans. What do Abe-san and Nanba-san think about this?

Abe: It is really hard. There’s an effort to do cheki events on the web, but I don’t think that will keep going. On the flip side, I feel the music comes across more straightly. We tried to do more in-store lives and variations with engagements, but at the core of RYUTist, we wanted to deliver the music from the start. This sounds obvious, but we wanted to capture the audience through the quality of our output.

Nanba: RYUTist always had the music at the center. From now, we might focus on that even more. Right now, the business model of the past 10 years have been crumbling left and right because this formula to sell CDs while attach something to it was too strong, and it was too slow to adapt. For example, it’s fine if we have to survive based on streaming plays, and we have to work while putting more weight into things like that.

If I can take it positively, corona is the reason for a change, and I think there’s something in a release of an album that’s high quality and with artists like Hamanuma-san but also Kan Sano-san, Satoko Shibata-san and Pasocom Music Club.

Abe: When we got into our taxi after we finished recording, Hasunuma-kun said, “isn’t delivering music seriously what it’s all about?” And I really think that’s what’s important. The idol world became the way it is because we got a fan to buy 5-6 copies of an album, but it’s actually fine if one person got just one copy. I want to focus on music than ever before, and create together a place where the girls can shine as idols.

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