Interview Keigo Oyamada & Takeshi Osumi -Yuichi Yoshii （WAVE / MISTERGENTLEMAN）

——Yoshii and Osumi both love music and I heard that Mr. Koyamada's existence was quite large. First of all, please tell us about the impact of the artist Keigo Oyamada on their creations.

Yoshii: "I'm a fan who has been pursuing activities all the time. That's why I know that I hate talking about it (laughs). I was watching in real time when I was asked a boring question and looked at the interviewer in a TV program during my early activities. It's on TV."

Oyamada: "That's because I was young (laughs). I'm embarrassed now, and it's okay! How old is Mr. Yoshii?”

Yoshii: "I'm 49 years old."

Oyamada: Then I'm one year younger. How about Mr. Osumi?"

Osumi: I'm 46 years old.

Oyamada: "It's pretty low. You both have a brand, right?”

Yoshii: That's right. This is the seventh year.”

Oyamada “Do you think about each design? Or with you?”

Yoshii "The first inspirational transmission came from Osumi, and I often receive it and spread it out. From there, we will continue to do it together.”

Osumi: "Everything I throw is Edited by Yoshii (laughs)."

Yoshii: "I think it's the role of thinking about how this person can actually incorporate what he's drawing (laughs). Osumi draws the first big picture, and my role is to create the foundation from there. But when I heard my age, I was surprised that Mr. Koyamada was one older. Mr. Koyamada has already been on the front line since I wasn't working at all, so he looks very senior. We were accepting what Mr. Koyamada made in real time, and we felt that the times had changed, as if what was happening in the Western music scene had finally begun in Japan. I started listening to music like Japan or YMO.”

Oyamada: Oh, that's right? It's an era when you were in elementary school, when you played a live video of JAPAN on NHK."

Yoshii: Yes. In this way, when overseas fashion and culture became interesting, such works with excellent aesthetic sense began to be published in Japan, so I was thrilled to see them. I couldn't help but enjoy it. Among them, Mr. Kosada was there.”

Oyamada "Isn't Yoshii the same generation?"

Yoshii: "I was holding my finger and watching the same generation wake up a movement (laughs). I feel like I amazed and gelassy and that kind of excitement.”

——What was Mr. Yoshii doing at that time?

Yoshii: "I was a freeter and worked at a coffee shop in Shimokitazawa."

Oyamada: "I used to go to Shimokitazawa often because my school was Tsurukawa and I changed trains on the Inokashira Line. I was infiltrated into a record store called Fifth Avenue and a used clothing store in that building on my way home to school.”

Yoshii "Tsurukawa! My parents' house is Shinyurigaoka!"

Oyamada: "It's a station I went to every day. I also played a lot in Machida. There were a lot of Yankees when we were, right?”

Yoshii: Yes (laughs). You were so close!”

——Did Mr. Yoshii want to create after seeing such a movement?

Yoshii: Yes. I couldn't keep an eye on everything from the appearance of Mr. Koyamada's artwork, and as the sound changes more and more, we're transforming it into an unexpected direction, and that pattern is not one, or the destination that we went to predict the future again. Well, I mean, you're building a culture."

Osumi: "I was listening to hip-hop at the time, but of course I was listening to Mr. Koyamada's music. I'm a little younger, so maybe there was a part that I couldn't see, but Mr. Koyamada seems to be hooked only to the word for "stylish". I'm old when I don't understand whether it's good or cool yet, but I thought, "I have to listen to it because it's fashionable," and when everyone didn't get a CD, I was proud of it as soon as I got it."

Yoshii: "Osty is a bad word (laughs). But that's exactly what it was. Even at the age of my own, I thought, “I have to be the one who likes this.”

Oyamada: "It's like that when you're teens. They will not be able to absorb it, and it will work later.”

Yoshii: Yes. Do you know or know?”

Osumi: "I was exactly the same, so I looked at Mr. Koyamada and thought, 'I had to wear white denim'."

Oyamada "I have to wear white denim (laughs)"

Osumi's "Delkaji, Kirekaji yanakya, like" (laughs)

Oyamada: "It was there (laughs)."

——(laughs). This time Mr. Koyamada is working on the background music of Shibuya PARCO. Can you tell us if you have any image of Shibuya PARCO you have and memories of it that will be the basis for that?

Oyamada: “I lived in Shinsen since about 2 years of junior high school, so I always go around Shibuya PARCO, and I have many memories especially at Book Center. When I was a teenager, there was a space for art exhibitions, live shows, and movie screenings on the top floor of a Seibu-affiliated building called Seed Hall. At that time, Toshinori Kondo's IMA band was playing live there, so I was carrying instruments. It was when illustrator Katsu Yoshida and Georgia O'Keeffe were doing an exhibition."

——Were you planning on that project?

Oyamada: No, it's just a job. It is said that they hold tickets or carry instruments. Shortly after graduating from high school, I worked for about two years while attending Setsu Nagasawa's Set Mode Seminar. I started a band at that time, and when I was 19, the Flippers (guitar) debuted. That's why I was strongly influenced by Seibu culture in the 80s when I was a teenager. We are such a generation, right?”

Yoshii: Yes. That's Moro."

Oyamada: "Shibuya at that time was enlightening about culture. “We were aggressive in new things, and Seibu was especially introducing “culture” such as art, music and movies.”

Yoshii: "At that time, there was a flow of learning about culture through Shibuya. Mr. Osumi was playing Rajikase on the Toyoko Line, right?

Osumi: Well, I was carrying Rajikase (laughs). But I went to the PARCO Book Center and bought books. Once upon a time, I was doing rap. When the Japanese rap came out, there was a rap boom. And when it comes to hip-hop, it was Shibuya, so I went every day."

Oyamada: Yeah, there was also a hip-hop scene. "Pin CAMP"

——At that time, Shibuya was crossed by various cultures.

Yoshii: Yes. In the midst of this, Mr. Kosada exists.”

Oyamada: "No, no, I think it was the older generation that was making the scene on the side I was watching. That's exactly what Yukihiro Takahashi's Bricks-MONO was in Shibuya PARCO. Also, I think Shigesato Itoi and Eiko Ishioka are the creators of Seibu culture."

——You've been handed down. I saw the playlists of the BGM produced by Mr. Koyamada in November and December, but I had the impression that there were many band sounds and there were many lively songs like Christmas.

Oyamada: "Christmas is in my head, and since it's a shopping building, it's not too quiet nor too bothersome, I decided to go from uptempo to middle."

——It means that BGM changes every two months. Is the flow and image of the whole solidified?

Oyamada "I'm going to put in a taste like the former PARCO and the former WAVE. This is the music of the era when PARCO in the 70s and 80s was the best. Also, I would like to include Yukihiro Takahashi's song someday. I would like to include genres and generations all the time, but when WAVE was there, it was my own generation, and I think that PARCO’s culture started from that time, so I think the things at that time will come into basic terms.”

Yoshii: "I'm looking forward to it. How many songs will the playlist be?”

Oyamada "It's a little about three hours, maybe it's going to flow about three times a day. We put four seasons of original music on the playlist, followed by music and time signal from the announcement in the hall, and we also make the light ending of fireflies."

Yoshii: "We also have a shop, so I'm worried about that, but do you feel like the light music of fireflies makes you feel like "Please go home early"? (laughs)."

Oyamada: "Is it over to give out the air that says goodbye-" (laughs)

Yoshii "Because it's time to close, it only flows once a day, right?　Isn't it valuable? There are people who want to listen to it, and there are people who dare to come near closing.”

——Originally, I have the impression that you are recording the sounds of various places in terms of fieldwork, but are you interested in making music that matches the place?

Oyamada: "You used to do that in the past. I don't do it at all now, but I like it. I like not only pop music, but also sounds.”

Yoshii "Is Mr. Koyamada working faster to make songs?"

Oyamada: "Hmm, I've been trained a lot and faster. There's a program called Design A on NHK, and I've been making that music all the time, so I think it's fast when it comes to making such sound design and jingle."

——I would like to ask you about WAVE, but how did you both decide to revive WAVE?

Yoshii: "Until now, I haven't done much of the logo in the show, but I've been talking about trying to put out a logo that would be a keyword linking music and fashion, and it's cool that the WAVE logos were all made in straight lines alone." "When I started to ask who I wanted to use this logo, I started to look at it, and I came to this point without thinking about it (laughs)."

Oyamada: "The day before yesterday I met someone who was working on a label at WAVE. There were excellent buyers at the record shop there, so there are many famous people who are still doing record shops. Los Apson in Koenji Mr. Yamabe (Cage), who is a record shop, is also a famous buyer, and there was always interesting music in Yamabe's corner, so I often bought things from that corner."

Yoshii: "That's how you were buying music to say, 'If this person recommends it.' I was told that my parents were working in Roppongi, and when I tried to eat dinner outside, I was told to stay here until I finished work. I was playing there with my brother. It's about 3."

Oyamada: "There was a bookstore in the building, so you won't be bored."

Yoshii: "I didn't do it on my own, but I vaguely thought, 'There's always something good in this corner.' At that time, my sister was studying in San Francisco and sent me cassette tapes once a month. It contains music that was popular at the time, such as Madonna and Duran Duran. So it was a time when WAVE and my sister’s cassettes learned about Western music.”

——WAVE had memories of her family. Did Mr. Osumi also pass?

Osumi "I've been going to buy rap and black music records all the time since I came to Tokyo,"

Oyamada: "I lived in the neighborhood of WAVE around 1994, so I went almost every day at that time. When Koji Kikkawa appeared in The Best Ten, there was a time saying "I will sing on a broadcast from Roppongi WAVE", and I came down dancing while singing that escalator, but that's still on YouTube. Even now, when I miss WAVE sometimes, I watch the video (laughs). If you want to see WAVE at that time, that’s the video.”

Yoshii: "I didn't know! “What song did you sing?”

Oyamada: "What was it? It's not "You Gutta Chance".……“Goodbye to the Larabai in August?”

Yoshii: "Ah! There was a yugara chance [laughs].”

——How do you both have a vision of developing WAVE?

Yoshii: Actually, I started with the feeling I mentioned earlier, so I didn't decide anything. However, after we released the collection, many people's feelings about WAVE came out."

Oyamada "Oh, that's heavy (laughs)."

Yoshii: "Yes, it's more amazing than I imagined (laughs). So I want to take the time to make sure that you have received your noble thoughts.”

Oyamada "You made a shop in Aoyama, right? If I went through that area, there was a WAVE logo, so I said, "What's it? "I think. So when I meet Mr. Takimi, I have a shopper, so why do you have it? Then I told you about Mr. Yoshii.”

Yoshii: "It was when I did a WAVE pop-up at Mr.'s shop and sold a T-shirt that appeared in the show. If I sold a T-shirt, I really wanted to recreate that shopper and put it in, so I looked for the actual thing at that time with Yahoo Auctions, but no one had it. But Kenji Takimi had it!　It's a strange thing (laughs). I borrowed it and recreated it from the color so that it would be completely the same."

Oyamada: Yeah, you need that much. Wave has a lot of people’s minds.”

Yoshii “WAVE, which is deployed at PARCO, sells T-shirts, etc., but before that, I gathered 400 modular synths to make a wall so that I would like to take pictures and remember them. Also, we put a vending machine along the street to make original WAVE canned coffee using almond milk, which is not animal milk. But that's why I'm sticking to the existence of WAVE to a canned coffee, and I'm surprised if I'm not angry. Eventually, I would like to create a place where music can be purely and expressed, so please consult Mr. Koyamada as well!"

Oyamada "Yes, if there is anything I can do."