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"I Think That Our Music Has A Positive Melancholy" - Cookie Scene, September 2010

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ARTICLES:2010



Title: "I Think That Our Music Has A Positive Melancholy"
Publication: Cookie Scene
Date: September 2010
Writer: Hidenori Itoh & Nakaya Nanami


What exhilaration is this terrible thing! Like I thought of going out, a man who was locked in the room all the time took a step into the broad world while taking a lot of sunshine. Why can bands with more than 20 years of career make such an album like this?

Since the early 1990s, they have crossed over from a huge front with a huge music business. I am putting it in indie music, but of course I also love other music. While you can not settle in the small circle, while you refuse to "tame" to Showbiz, you will never forget to deflect yourself...from "escaping". Such subtle standing position may possibly be a perfect match to the request of this era...even I thought of it.

"Postcards From A Young Man". Even if they had their own actual age, this was exactly the album appropriate for such titles. I listened to Vocalist & Guitarist, James Dean Bradfield.

New album, it is too Great. From the majestic intro of the first song "(It's Not War) Just The End Of Love", I was pulled a lot and I was able to enjoy it all the way to the last. Until now, the most popular work by Manic · Street Preachers is "Lifeblood" (2004)? I thought that this is already the best pop work. Of course, I thought that it was one of the wonderful pop music, including the meaning of strong emotion and poison behind it. I do not know what you impress yourself with the word pop, but what do you think about this opinion?
James Dean Bradfield: The impression itself of "pop music" itself is not a bad thing. There are lots of pop music that I think is wonderful. But as I mentioned about this album, I think that it became a more classic rock album. Certainly this album also knows that it is said to be pop, in the sense that it has more melodies than "Lifeblood". For example "Lifeblood" was a very intriguing album. I divided the musical instruments one by one and recorded it while piling up, so the way of recording was completely different. This album is in a more natural form, everyone recorded in the room while playing. In a sense, I think it was a very rocky approach. Besides that, "Lifeblood" is divided, there are quite a lot of things that you recorded at different times, and the one you made is different from the first image. However, this album was recorded in a natural form, so there was no such thing as the difference between those images. Anyway, it is pop in the sense that the melody is rich, but as a way of making it is that this time it was a rock.

Speaking of classical rock, the title song "Postcards From A Young Man" in the second song is also powerful. From the processing of the first lead vocal · harmony of this song...Please do not get angry, I remembered the queen.
Separately I do not feel bad at all. When I was a child I liked the queen very. It was Queen and ELO that I was absorbed in listening to it as a child when I thought that I like music for the first time. In making this record, that was one of the ideas. In other words, do not be afraid to open and make out what kind of music they have been influenced. There is also a kind of old-fashioned atmosphere. The title of this time is "Postcards From A Young Man", but in reality, the many influences of us who can hear in this record are those we were young. In that sense, I'm convinced that the queen is like that (laugh). Well, I always think that Manny's record had the influence of Queen, I guess it is not so, but I think that there was a song in which the influence from the early Queen was felt before. Well, and also my vocals are often said to have a Freddy-like place (laugh). So, I do not feel uncomfortable even if I take out the queen.

The question creator likes ELO as well. If you tell your remarks, it will surely be a pleasure (laugh).
That's right. We might be a musical soul mate (laugh).

(Haha) But, it seems that he was a little sorry to compare Manny and ELO...
No, but I have been listening to various music from a young age really. When I was a child I first liked ELO and Queen, then Motown, then after a while I was indie kids. On the other hand I also liked Guns N 'Roses and public enemies, and it was also a fan of the crash. When I was a kid, I really listened to everything gradually. Indeed, I continued to like many different types of music.

I think that you tend to get "seriously" from music press. But, in such cases, "seriousness" is actually a background of a band rather than music itself, or a lyric is captured like a "written word" rather than as a "lyric" Is not that much? The album of this time can even feel something like a strong resistance against such a thing. I think that you can understand the attitude that you mentioned before, "Let's open things that were crazy when you were afraid, do not be afraid" and that's why you mentioned the name of the queen (laugh).
Well, aside from musical things, the lyrics are so "manic". For example, songs like "A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun", "All We Make Is Entertainment", "Do not Be Evil" are songs of a maniclike theme that we are constantly taking up. We have been keeping songs constantly that other people do not write. In that sense, we have not changed.

Certainly. This time it may be that it is more explosively popular and matches better with rock music.
For example, in the past, I tried to put a very manic lyrics in such a classic rock format with "Motorcycle Emptiness". This album gave more consistency to that part than that record.

is not it!
And this album is our 10th album. And because I issued "Journal For Plague Lovers", I think I probably could have put out such an album. I thought that I could do something completely different from that that I could sort out what I was caught in the mind for a long time.

Although the word "old-fashioned" came out earlier, recent young people do not send postcards so much, probably. Do you mean you're going to e-mail? From such young people, perhaps there is no danger of getting ridiculed as "old romanticism" (laugh)?
Sure. It's a very strange story, but before Nicky started making this album, Nikki brought out the postcards that were sending each other when we were young and I read it back. When I was just beginning a band, Nicky and Ritchie went to college and I and Sean were left behind. Nikki said that I was reading the postcards that were sending each other at the age of 16, so I also read back the postcards I kept. We kept all the letters, not thrown away. Such letters and postcards at that time were like rehearsals of the band. The exchange with the postcard is completely different from the conversation while looking at the face. A lot of love, hatred, ideas and lyrics on postcards...not just words but art, colors and pictures like collages were drawn. While looking at such things, I felt very close to myself in those days. It was in the year 2009 that such a letter was written around 1987. In other words, I and Nicky have kept such letters and postcards for over 20 years. Can someone imagine saving mail for 20 years? (Laugh)? After 20 years, I think saying "Wow, nostalgic, see this email" (laugh)? Even if I am few, I do not keep mail. We have been losing things for the last twenty years. Both music and art lost something. It's not like taking the form of things actually available. For such things, I also wanted to ring a warning bell. Even if you think of a noisy old by doing something like that (laugh).

(Laugh) Then is it possible to think of Young Man as "yourself when you were young" in "Postcards From A Young Man"?
I can say that, but...that anger and cynicism are different. I think that this era is a time of truly serious cynicism. The anger when we were young was not ironic. More realistic...For example, I was born of something like natural anger to politics. People now do not know how to express anger. I feel so resentful in such a tendency to awaken and awake all at once. Now, even though there is a recession in Britain, everywhere suffering, there is not one band to sing about it. Is not it an incredible thing? There are two wars, and this depression is continuing, so why can you keep going cool? This important question is in front of me and I can be cool without writing it. It can only be said as cynicism. Our generation was angry generation, but now generation is generation of cynicism. Even though there are so many problems.

It is not it! I have thought that it is necessary to catch Young Man, a bit more abstractly. Well, the question creator has long since used to tend to like Scottish and Welsh music from the era of punk which was a child at the end of the 1970s. From this album title, I thought of an indie label called Orange Juice or Aztec Camera, which was postcard in Scotland in the early 1980s, not musical genie. By the way, you mentioned earlier that you mentioned Orange Juice in Favorite. Even in this album, "The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever" thinks that the feeling of horn is a bit orange juice....
I love orange juice. What I particularly like is "What Presence !?" and "Felicity". It's a really nice song. Edwin is playing well for about three years now and his recent album was also very good. There are quite a lot of connections. For example, support members join us on the tour but one of them is playing the keyboard even in Edwin's band.

Oh!
I think Edwin is a very talented person.

That's right. Actually, last night I also interviewed him for a new score.
That's right! Was he fine?

Yes, I was fine. I was glad I seemed to have completely recovered.
Yes. I told you a little while ago, but I last saw his live...about a year ago. Even then I was doing very well. Yup. At that time...I was doing "Do not Shilly Shally". I really like that song too (lol).

It is a manic song (it is released only in single) (laugh). John Cale of the former Velvet Underground is also participating in the new work alongside Ian McCulloch of former Echo & The Bunnymen. I heard that you participate in the 6th song "Auto-Intoxication" with keyboard and noise, how did you get him to participate? How was it with him?
I met him a long time ago and have worked with him several times before. He is also a hero when I was young. As for him, I have an unforgettable episode when I was 15 years old. We were writing songs by ourselves starting with the band, but I could not imagine how we could jump out of Wales to a wider world. There were no examples of successful musicians around, and I felt like I could not do anything with Wales. It was Velvet Underground's "White Light / White Heat" that he listened to by chance. Among them, there is a song "The Gift", although I love that song so much and listening to it many times, I noticed that there is a Welsh accent in the narration that is there. So I knew John Cale was from Wales. oh my god! I was very excited to have someone from Wales in the coolest band in the world. So, we also seemed to have a chance to go out into the world. That was a big turning point. Then I began listening to his solo, especially I liked "Paris 1919". It was a crazy album that I heard. After that, I met with him after 1999 and had opportunities to talk to him several times, so I got acquainted with it. So when I was making this album, I thought that there was one song that was right for him, so I decided to ask him for the time being. But, indeed, I was pretty nervous to ask him to do something like this. Because John is such a person as to be the most respected musician in the world. Sometimes those who make me nervous tense are going into this world (lol).

(Lol) The question creator also seems to think that "Paris 1919" (and John Cale is the best). There was songs like "Child's Christmas In Wales" over there...(laugh). With the popular majesty of "Postcards From A Young Man" which heavily used strings etc., I think that it will lead to some of his works. How do you like it?
Well...I certainly have lots of orchestras. As lyrics I will not go to the left as much as he does. Because he is always a person who expresses beautifully by bringing experimental things to pop field. "Paris 1919" was really beautiful. But he is truly a unique artist, and especially the part that can be compared is not very (sweat). Well, except for having lots of orchestras (laugh).

(Haha) Whenever you listen to your music, there are serious things to everyday life, but I'm grateful that I will try to live with a good laugh. Not all albums, though. So this time it is reaching the climax, is not it?
That's right. I think that our music has something to call even as a positive melancholy. I could have felt like a book I read when I was young, a movie I saw, music, but there is a positive part in the dark. Is it because you are depressed so you can be positive. Some people say sort of thing that seems to fit into the depths of negative as more and more depressed, but as someone else's theme is such a problem, it is not only you who are in such a situation If I think about it, I feel like I can empathize with anything in the world. That's why there is always such a positive depression in our music (laugh). Other than "Holy Bible" and "Journal For Plague Lovers". That two were different. But everything else always thinks that such elements will come in. I do not explain that kind of thing separately. I think that various people will remember empathy.

I'm sorry I've become close to the "serious" question I said earlier, but as I mentioned earlier for this "fukurei" this time (as early as an important member, I had a band in the mid 90's I got missing and reported death.) Since I went to the previous work "Journal For Plague Lovers" which was an album created based on the lyrics left by Ritchie, it seems to be a big part.
That album was something I could not afford to avoid. Someday it was an album I had to make. I feel emotional obligation. But by recording that and recording it, I think I was able to clearly emotionally. I felt like I was finally released from the pressures I've had so far, holding the promise I had to absolutely fulfill with someone who was not there anymore. In that sense, that album is an album that had a great influence on this album. I think that it was a completely different musical freedom from such weight, and it made it a work that caused a kind of escapism.

Last night's abrupt appointment cancellation of NANO-MUGEN FES. Was really regrettable.
I heard that it was a very good festival. I can not go on due to Nikki's stomach problem, but since that, thanks to Nikki I've been abstinent (laugh). I already felt the worst when I thought that the fans were looking forward to it. I'm really sorry.

I am looking forward to the November performance in Japan!
Yes. I will play longer than usual until the minute I could not go to NANO-MUGEN. I hope you are looking forward to it.