He studied at the Guildhall School in London, England. He has several successful albums, for example Four Seasons. In addition, he teaches classical guitar. He told us this and many other interesting things in the interview.
Starting from the beginning, at what age did you get into music? As part of the first attempts to play a musical instrument and the first music lessons.
It's gonna be a long story, but I think I was 15years old when I first started my guitar. I was like a typical wannabe rockstar. I went to my friend's place and he had an old electric guitar. The guitar with no brand that he got from somewhere, and I just fell in love with it. I begged him if he can sell it to me, because I knew he wanted a proper guitar. That's how it all started, back in 1992.
You gradually worked your way up to studying at the Guildhall School in London, England. Did you get in on the first try or the second?
For Guildhall School, I just went through with the first try with my guitar recorded on Mini Disc which I posted to the school from Japan. I was studying in Japan at the music school for two years prior to that. Entrance exam for the Japanese Music College was a disaster. I even didn't know how to put my classical guitar strings. And I think for the very first song I was asked to play for the exam, I started to tune my strings, but because I didn't put it correctly, it snapped off. I was almost crying, because I didn't know how to put the string and I didn't have a spare string. Somebody helped me, but as I said, it was a disaster. I still remember it. It was a horrible feeling, but for the Guildhall School, I was more prepared! I think we all have that kind of experience. We learn from the mistake, I guess!
What was the experience like during your studies? Either within the framework of teachers or the possibility to develop your own style.
I have a really complicated musical background. I mean, not to mention like Japanese music - traditional and J-pop and rock music I brought up with, but I have many other influences from heavy metal and even Spanish, Indian music. I love Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Celtic music as well and, what else… jazz, and I love blues. I love pop music as well, so I listen to almost everything! When I write music, it's always a mixture of these different styles and influences. I think that makes me unique.
Among musicians and composers, do you have a role model or role models that inspire you in your work?
As I studied guitar and composition at the Guildhall and in Japan as well, I have many influences from classical composers like Johann Sebastian Bach, I love Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin. I am also influenced from Schoenberg, the Austrian composer. Those are my classical influences and I mean, of course my teacher/guru and almost like my father if he doesn't mind me saying, it's Keigo Fujii who is my forever, infinite influence. It’s probably like I learned like everything from him. I mean, they all have a really big part in me, but those are only from a classical side. I like Steve Vai. He's my guitar hero. I love Paco de Lucía, the flamenco god, sadly he passed away few years ago.
I love Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain. They are Indian masters. Well, I can go forever, but these are some of the biggest influences. I love Jascha Heifetz and Vladimir Horowitz. They are classical violinist and a pianist. It's almost like a rather too many, I can't really just list up everything on these guys, but a lot, a lot more than those - John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Victor Wooten, hide (X Japan), Andrés Segovia, Wanda Landowska, Tommy Emmanuel, Michael Jackson, Ed Sheeran, I should stop now!
Separately, for musical styles, you have inspiration from Japanese, Spanish, Celtic, Heavy metal, Jazz music and other styles. What makes them close to you?
Although I like so many genres of music that I'm in love with, and they are almost like... friends, or your girlfriend, or your partner, or something like that. It's like, one time in your life, you met someone, and, well, hopefully, it's like your friend for the rest of your life. Or your family, or whatever. Or even like a food. I love sushi, cheese, pizza, carbonara, fish and chips, kebab, curry and those things, and I will love them for the rest of my life.
And for the same reasons, I love Indian music as well as curry! This applies to Japanese music, heavy metal music, and all the guitar music etc., everything I love. Every music and food I love. I think they're so many, and I hope it will be even more of it. I think they are sonat with my heart or with my mind or with my body (or my tongue!) at some point in my life.
And for that reason, I think I'm still in love with many different music. I love many different foods. Yeah, I don't have many different wives, but I love a lot of different people and music and food!
You have a unique style of music and creation. How does the creation of your songs go? From the initial idea to the final work.
I think I've been working as a full-time musician over, how many years? I think it's nearly 20 years I've been working as a musician. Usually, the inspiration or the idea of the songs pops up in the morning, when it's not raining, and it's warm enough, and somehow you're feeling good and inspired! I think those are the time of the day that quite often I get some nice melodic ideas or the the chord/tone ideas, but to be super honest, I'm a classically trained composer, so if I really want to, I can just pick up some random notes and write a three-minute song without any inspirations. But as you can guess, those songs might not be, like, emotionally attached. So it's probably not really going to be a great composition, but practically speaking,I can write anytime, anywhere!
One of your albums, Four Seasons, is inspired by nature. Where did the idea come from? For example, a location or during a discussion.
First of all, I met this amazing guy, Hibiki Ichikawa, a Japanese guy with a traditional Japanese guitar called Shamsen. I was really inspired, fell in love with its sound, and he also just released his first album in the U.K. So we talked about the possibility of the collab work with me. And luckily he liked the idea and we worked hard, probably just over the year. We developed our song ideas and discussed, if we could do something with not just the sound of Japan, but the sound of the seasons, the time, location, and we tried to put all these different feelings and the emotions to put into the album. It took a lot longer than we thought it would, but it resulted with having lots of many different emotions and different styles and regions of music. Some of them are sad and melancholic. Some of them are super hype. They still excite me.
How long did the work on this album take? Was it difficult to create?
Very! From rehearsing and going to the studio and choosing the right microphone for us - they are very different instruments. He was using traditional Japanese instrument and I was using Spanish instrument. Recording those extremely different sounds, instruments in the same room, in the same studio was very much though to start off with. I mean, I had no experience of the studio recording, I had no experience of the editing works, mixing works, mastering works. I was like, constantly asking questions to the engineers. Yeah I'm sure he was very fed up with us! I mean, it's filled with full of good memories, and I think the best thing is that we are still really good friends, and we still play together and it always sounds great!
You like Yamaha guitars. What makes them interesting to you?
It's another funny story. When I started to play in a kind of bigger venues. I needed the guitar to plug into the PA system or the amplifier. Before that, I was using no mic with classical guitar. Just as it should be, always a raw sound. But when I started to play at the bigger venues, then I needed to project more sounds. So I went to a local music shop and grabbed that Yamaha guitar to experiment.
It was the cheapest one of theirs called C40, and then I made a hole with my drills and I installed a separate microphone and the pickup system myself. Somehow managed to connect it to my amplifier! Yamaha guitars are one of the best balanced instruments. At every position, every string you play, it always, almost like a guaranteed to be well balanced and it doesn't do any funny, too loud or too soft spots. I've been using Yamaha guitar for more than 10 years.
What projects are you currently working on? What is their idea or thought?
I'm actually working on quite a few different projects right now. I'm working with this legendary Japanese musician called TSUJI, based in France. Well, he's like a multi award-winning author and a film director as well. I think he published more than 100 books in Japan and some of them in Europe. I'm working with him right now and was booked for a little tours in France in June. That's my biggest project at the moment.
I just released a debut single with my new unit with an Indian Tabla player called Deepak Venkateshvaran. Tabla is an Indian finger percussion instrument. I started working with him as a new unit called Fingers HQ and released a single called 'Jinglevisation' - a jingle or the riff like theme that we improvised and recorded live. That's another project I'm working on.
I'm of course working on my new solo album. That's my main focus, but luckily I'm really too busy.
And I'm also working with the another singer-songwriter called Mojo. We actually released our first album last year called 'Beau Sky' as a unit called 'hide 'n' mojoz'.
And of course, many festivals to go and play again hopefully this year. That's already quite impossible to do all of these anytime soon!
You also offer classical guitar lessons. Who are they intended for? What topics are they focused on?
Actually I teach anyone who is interested in my style of guitar playing. I've been in London for so many years - 25 years now. I do have some students who is like a complete beginner and some young children. I have some students who is over 70 years old and some semi-professionals and people who wants to go to the music college and so on. I'm happy to teach and share ideas to anyone.
I think, because my teacher was so kind to me and he taught me almost everything to me. I appreciate this a lot and I want to do the same to my students, to help them.
I think when I first started my electric guitar with my friend’s old guitar, I had nobody to teach me. And I was just reading the guitar magazines and watching videos. That's how I learned. Learning from Youtube and online lessons are great, but it's even better if you can see and feel and hear it right next to you. You want to hear the real sound, you want to see the real person doing all those tricks. That's how I learnt it and I feel really grateful.
You regularly play at several events, for example at Japanese Days in Ostrava. What makes them interesting to you? Either in general or one in particular.
I was somehow discovered by one of the organisers. She emailed me out of blue, then my immediate reaction was “Yes”. Even though I've been playing in the U.K. for so many years, there wasn't lots of opportunities playing outside the U.K. or even some of the small cities in the U.K. unless you know the right people. Like I said before, I get really excited about meeting new people, listening to new music, trying new food!
I wanted to share my music with new people. I wanted to listen to the new music at the festivals, which is always a great bonus, because I'm invited to play for the festival, but I also get to listen to many different musicians from all over the world. It's like every musician's dream, isn't it? So I love it - all those exciting opportunities and music and food and people and get inspired!
Thank you for your time and for the interview.
