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Fresh after their performance at Battle of the Bands at Anime Expo 2008 in Los Angeles, LM.C took a moment to speak with Jrock Revolution about their very first performance in the United States. Read more in this exclusive interview!
JRR: First of all, please start off by introducing each other.
maya: Ok, I’ll be introducing Aiji. He plays the guitar. We are from the same province, and we’ve known each other for a long time. He is a great senpai, and plays wonderful guitar.
Aiji: This is maya, he sings and generally does the vocals, MCs, and guitar as well. On the front end his part is to sing, but he does play the guitar on the backend. He is good at making the senpai buy him lunches/dinners. He is such a—
maya: Cute guy.
Aiji: Rather, he leads a “tanabota” life. Basically, he is a “lucky boy.”
(Group laughter)
JRR: This is your first time here as LM.C, welcome to the
maya: Really? I wasn’t aware of that. We’d love to if there’s the opportunity. We are quite booked this year, but
JRR: When you formed LM.C, did you already taken into consideration that you would like to expand to the international arena?
maya: Yes, we did from the beginning.
Aiji: Yes.
maya: We wanted to start from Asian countries which are closer to
Aiji: We didn’t really think about
maya: We just couldn’t imagine at the time.
Aiji: But we are really happy to be able to come here.
JRR: Now that you are here, how did you feel towards the audience’s reaction at the
maya: We had the impression that the audience was very passionate. But it was slightly different from what I had imagined. They weren’t just making noise for the sake of doing so; they seemed to truly enjoy what was happening. It was interesting.
Aiji: To tell you the truth, I really had no idea what the audience would be like in
JRR: During the
maya: First of all, we’d like to say thank you to her. From the beginning of our performance she had been singing along, we could feel her passion, and thanks to her we had a great time.
JRR: What does “New Century Electrorock” mean?
Aiji: I can’t quite explain it.
maya: Before people knew much about LM.C, we thought, if we were to describe LM.C’s music in words, those are probably what we would use. Not that it describes everything; we want to add to the meaning as we keep on making music, making our history, in combination with our looks. So the term itself did not quite have as much meaning when we originally made it up.
JRR: maya-san, why did you decide to be a vocalist?
maya: It’s not like I’ve always wanted to be a vocalist. When we started LM.C, I figured that it is an essential role to the band so I decided to do it. I’ve never thought of becoming a vocalist up till LM.C, when I thought it is necessary that I do it.
JRR: When you create music together, do you have fun or are you quite serious?
maya: We seriously have fun/enjoy it; we always think positively and never negatively. I think we’re serious. (Turns to Aiji) Aren’t we? (Laughs)
Aiji: We’re serious when it comes to music. We have to present our best and cannot deceive the fans, so we make our music with care and seriousness. Although we mess around in real life, we are honest when it comes to lives and making music.
JRR: When you write lyrics, do they come to you naturally and fast, or do you take your time to think of what to write?
maya: It really depends on the song. For some songs, once we decide on the theme, I go off and “research” on the topic and write. That takes time.
JRR: As for your visual style, you combine a lot of blacks with very bright colors, what do you want to convey through the use of those colors?
maya: Through my past years as a musician, I’ve always just wore what I like; so what we use and wear are just personal preferences instead of trying to convey something.
Aiji: Yeah… just what we like.
maya: It’s not like we have a concept and we try to dress to match that concept; we just put on whatever we feel like.
Aiji: We mentioned this earlier as well, we do not want to present anything negative, so we want to present an image that cheers people up, and also make music that cheer people up. Therefore our image works with what we hope our audience expect of our music – happy and cheerful, and we hope our audience do become happy when they listen to our music.
JRR: Your newest single “88” is the theme song for the anime “REBORN.” When you wrote the song, did you have the anime in mind, or were they completely unrelated?
maya: We already had the song even before we started LM.C; then we received an offer from the makers of “REBORN,” so we presented them with the song “88” and they liked it, so the song wasn’t written for the anime on purpose.
JRR: Since you are here for Anime Expo, if you could be an anime character, what would you like to be?
maya: Ramu-chan? (from “Urusei Yatsura”) Maybe next life time. I cannot become her this life time; I’d have to go through sex-change surgery.
(Group laughter)
We did see some interesting characters [at the Anime Expo]. Is there anything you’d want to be?
Aiji: Hmm… I don’t know. Maybe the Shogouki from Evangelion (EVA-01).
maya: That’s a robot…
(Group laughter)
JRR: Have you watched the newest Evangelion?
Aiji: Not yet.
JRR: If you were to cast the other member in anime, what character would you pick?
Aiji: Maybe somewhere along the lines of Dragon Ball…
maya: Like Yajirobe…
Aiji: …or Kame Sennin…
maya: He likes turtles.
Aiji: Yes.
maya: I really can’t think of any… feels like there must be something we’d go quite well with… It’s kind of embarrassing if I say I’d look good with a cool-looking character, you know…
Aiji: Yeah, if someone else says it it’s ok. (Laughs)
maya: I really have no idea. We aren’t that familiar with all the characters. Actually we’d like to know what our fans think.
JRR: “Sentimental PIGgy Romance” is a very popular PV amongst your fans. What is the inspiration behind the song and the PV?
maya: We’ve had the music for quite a while; it was composed by Aiji, but I never got around to writing the lyrics for the song. Then one day, I suddenly came up with the idea for the song, to have this little pig to fall in love with the lion, an unrequited love that is hard to succeed, a quite simple story. As for the promotional video, we talked about making it into an animation video. It was a double-A side single with the song “Liar Liar,” and we didn’t want to specify which one was the main song. We wanted to make something different, that distinguished one song from the other, and thought “Sentimental PIGgy Romance” would go well with animation.
Aiji: We’ve always thought about doing an animation PV one day, but never had the chance. There was a song that used clay art for the PV and we really liked it. So maybe next time we will try a different animation.
JRR: What was your reaction when you saw maya’s lyrics for the song?
Aiji: My first thought was, Finally you wrote the lyrics! I had composed the song two years prior to that so… I thought the lyrics were genius, and the wording was very maya-ish.
maya: It felt like a MC; not the music itself, but the way that it’s more like a narrative story.
JRR: Do you think you are the piggy or the lion?
maya: Hmm… sometimes I’m the piggy, sometimes I’m the lion.
Aiji: Yeah. We can be either one depending on the situation.
JRR: When are you the piggy and when are you the lion?
maya: Well, I tend to think that I’m the lion.
Aiji: But you could actually be the piggy.
maya: Yeah, to look at it in a way.
Aiji: maya acts like he’s a piggy, but he’s really a lion. It’s quite interesting.
maya: I’m quite the beast. (Laughs)
JRR: Please give a message to your fans at Jrock Revolution.
Aiji: We’ve heard of Jrock Revolution a while back from people and magazines, and finally we have this opportunity to be interviewed by you; we feel like we are now part of the JRR family. There are probably JRR readers who are exposed to us for the first time, and we hope that our music can reach out to those people as well. If you are reading this, that means you are probably interested in us, and it’d be great if you would take this opportunity to know us and our music better.
maya: If there are future opportunities or events, please call out to us and have us come back to perform. Please support us, and we look forward to seeing you again in the near future.
Interview by Misha & Christina
Special thanks to Pony Canyon