There are so many similarities with BAND-MAID,
it reminded me of the early days.
--March is coming to an end in the blink of an eye, how is the band doing?
Miku Kobato (Gt./Vo.) : Just now in the dressing room, I was talking with the other members about how "three months have passed in the blink of an eye since the start of the year," and it's been a really intense and fast-paced 2025-po. We announced an anime tie-up at the beginning of the year, started our service (live) with a special episode, performed acoustic live shows, and produced music, so I feel like we've had a really fulfilling 2025-po.
--The new song "Ready to Rock" is the opening theme for the TV anime "Rock is a Lady's Hobby" (hereafter "Rock Lady"), which tells the story of a female band, so it's a work that has a strong affinity with BAND-MAID. How did the production start?
KANAMI (Gt.) : We were approached about the project, and we started by reading the original manga together, and then I started writing the song. But there wasn't really any specific request for the song to be a certain kind of song, right?
SAIKI (Vo.) : That's right. I knew about BAND-MAID before I got the offer, and they told me that "BAND-MAID is a perfect fit for 'Rock Lady'," which made me very happy, so it was pretty much "just like BAND-MAID."
KANAMI : I created and proposed two songs, one with nerdy elements and one with a catchy feel. Personally, I felt that the more nerdy song was more BAND-MAID-like, so I was happy that they chose that one. I also felt that I got along well with the anime production team. When I read the original manga, the image I had in my mind was "a work in which the drums and guitars clash and elevate each other," so I wanted to express that in BAND-MAID, and I started the song with a crackling drum and guitar feel.
――As for anime characters, there's Suzunomiya Ririsa (Gt.) and Kurogane Otoha (Dr.).
AKANE (Drums) : That's right. I was completely influenced by Otoha (laughs). Since she's a character with virtuosity, I felt like I couldn't lose, so I threw all my skills into her. I want to emphasize that this is the most technically difficult piece I've ever written.
SAIKI : At first, the time before the drums came in was a little shorter, right?
KANAMI : That's right. The first demo we released had vocals in it, but SAIKI and Kobato suggested that we should make the guitar and drums more prominent rather than including vocals in order to bring out the best in "Rock Lady," so we cut the vocals.
SAIKI : The intro was doubled, so AKANE's amazing drum phrases increased.
Kobato : Because of that, I had to keep the twin pedal pressed down for longer.
KANAMI : The intro was doubled, and the animation team asked us to make the drums more intense than the first demo we sent out.
AKANE : It was difficult, but I wanted to live up to people's expectations, so I did it. I really wanted to beat Otoha (laughs). The strongest feeling I had was that I couldn't lose.
--Misa, how did you plan to approach the guitar and drums?
MISA (Ba.) : The guitar and drums are quite playful, so I thought that if the bass was also playing around, it wouldn't work, so I played it with a solid feel and didn't make too many small movements.I tried to play it so that the bass would come forward a little when the guitar and drums had settled down.
--You're not trying to compete with each other in any way?
MISA : No, I did think I'd compete with you once (laughs).
Together : (laughs).
MISA : When I listened to the song, I thought that was not right. I thought about creating a strong foundation to make the song sound cool.
SAIKI : Otherwise it would end up being too empty.
Kobato : Once everyone goes off to fight.
KANAMI : But it did have a Tamaki-chan (Shiraya Tamaki, the character in charge of bass) feel to it.
SAIKI : That's right. Like, "Dance to my foundation!" (laughs).
- Regarding the relationship between the worldview of this anime and BAND-MAID, did you ever discuss as a band what you wanted to do?
Kobato : We didn't really discuss anything like that, and at the same time, the other members were doing motion capture, so I think each of us was more conscious of the character po.
SAIKI : Yes, that wasn't the case at all. When I was reading the original work, I thought that the drummer Otoha looked like AKANE, and the bassist Tamaki looked like MISA. Among them, the guitarist Ririsa looked like KANAMI the most (laughs). Because of that, I was able to get more into the work, and there was a big gap between their appearances and their personalities, so I think it was natural that we were close because we could empathize with each other in many ways.
Kobato : We also really value the idea of contrast, so we had a lot in common in that area as well, and that's how it ended up that way.
--You mentioned motion capture, but does that mean Kobato isn't included in the character?
Kobato : That's right. We are a four-person instrumental band, so this time I'm just there to support everyone.
KANAMI : But the author of the original manga (Fukuda Hiroshi) said to me, "Next time, we'd like to see something that Kobato can do."
Kobato : I said, "I'm totally fine with playing the role of Hato!" (laughs). I told him I'd do the motion capture for Hato, etc.
--I'd love to see that (laughs). How did you think about this song and approach recording it?
Kobato : When I received the demo from KANAMI, I was also thinking about the lyrics together with her at first po. I decided on SAIKI's lyrics after reading the original work and having my own thoughts about it, but the theme was the same po. I thought she made the lyrics really cool, and when I sang it, I wanted to pursue lyrics that really captured SAIKI's good points, and I felt like I was paying attention to the atmosphere of the original work po.
SAIKI : This time, there is a part in the lyrics where Kotori stands out.
Kobato : For the parts where I'm alone, like "If you don't love me, then you won't get excited" and "I can't stop, I have no choice but to do it", SAIKI told me "I want Kobato to sing these parts". The lyrics were ones I wouldn't have come up with myself, and there were words I would never sing normally, so I worked on them with great care, wanting to sing them with even more emotion po.
--What image did you have in mind when you wrote the lyrics?
SAIKI : When I read the original work, there were a lot of similarities with BAND-MAID, such as the gap between their appearance and their music, and the fact that they are oppressed by people around them because they are rich girls, and it reminded me of our early days. When our costumes weren't yet so unique, there were some people who didn't really accept the gap between our appearance and our music. I felt frustrated at the time, so I remembered that a lot, and while reading it, I thought "Don't give up!" (laughs). With the thought of "Don't give up, just keep believing," I wrote these lyrics.
--In the anime you played the role of Insemi Tina, and in the motion capture you were in charge of the keyboard.
SAIKI : Tina is not at all a "Wow!" type of character. In fact, she's quite shy and has some small details that are similar to me.
KANAMI : Yes, there is! She's pretty sharp in front of people, but in private SAIKI has a cute personality.
Kobato : She's not just strong, she also has a really cute side to her, so that's what I think is so similar to Tina.
SAIKI : I have a lot of switches (laughs). There were some parts where I overlapped with Tina-chan. Also, I think that Ririsa's way of thinking was quite similar to the direction of BAND-MAID as a band in many ways.
--What exactly is that part?
SAIKI : I think we have the same passion inside, or maybe a fighting spirit that we hide, and I really empathized with that. We don't show it that much on the outside, but I feel like we're really fired up.
Taking on the challenge of motion capture, something he had always dreamed of
--Have BAND-MAID been able to show their hidden fighting spirit on stage from the beginning? Or was there some kind of trigger that caused this to change?
SAIKI : The songs themselves have changed a lot, but we've settled on a direction that feels right to us and the number of songs has increased, so the process of "finally finding our own style" is similar to "Rock Lady."
Kobato : At first, many people looked at us like, "It's just a band of girls in maid outfits playing, so it can't be that cool, right?" But we wanted to make them say "Wow!" with our music. I think that kind of fighting spirit was there from the very beginning, and it still is to this day, po.
--In that sense, I think this song in particular will have a big impact on people who are listening to BAND-MAID for the first time. You've put a lot of effort into it.
Kobato : I think you have a lot of spirit (lol).
SAIKI : It's the 12th year and we're still releasing this (laughs).
--Watching "Rock Lady" while comparing it to BAND-MAID's past works seems like it will have an even more emotional feel to it.
AKANE : There is a scene where Otoha says, "Is there any reason to do music other than loving it?" His feelings about music overlapped with my old self, when I first started making music. I felt like it reminded me of the kind of drummer I wanted to be and the kind of music I wanted to make. I also included the twin pedal in the song because I thought it was one of my weapons, and this song brought out my style. I'm always challenging myself, but this time I felt like I'd finally decided what I wanted to do, and it made me happy. It's a song that's full of motivation.
MISA : I realized that at some point, I had already established my own style and rules, and my position as a bassist and the position of the bass line in the song were already solidified. The bassists I like don't have a very active bass, and the music I like to listen to is very simple, but after joining BAND-MAID, I grew together with them, and my bass lines grew and became established.
SAIKI : Compared to the beginning, MISA's bass line repertoire has expanded a lot. It's to the point where you think, "She can still come up with more!"
--Do you feel like you each bring out the best in each other?
SAIKI : That was part of it, but also, the fact that we were recognized for the first time after making our own album, "alone" (released in 2016), gave us the confidence to think, "this is good enough," and we often thought, "we can just keep going like this" in terms of the direction we were going in as a band. For the first two or three years, we were flexible and fluid.
Kobato : We tried out a variety of songs and wondered, "Which part fits our style?" We weren't a band that started out wanting to be like someone else, we started out wanting to establish our own style, so I think it took us about two years to establish that style.
KANAMI : I think it was great that we all had the same goal, or rather, our aim, which was to sing the songs we like.
SAIKI : That's true, we thought the same songs were cool.
Kobato : I think it was a big factor that we all shared a common awareness of BAND-MAID's music.
--Even though we share that common awareness, I was still surprised by "Ready to Rock." When the intro started, I thought "Is this where the song starts?"
SAIKI : I thought the same (laughs). When the intro changed, I thought, "Is that melody going to come right out like this!?" but it fit perfectly. I thought, that's typical of KANAMI.
I'd like to ask again about the motion capture we've been talking about. This is the first time this has been attempted, right?
Kobato : It was the first time for all of us. I guess it was a dream for AKANE.
AKANE : I'm an anime otaku, so I've always wanted to do this. Motion capture has been used quite a lot in anime recently, so I've always wanted to play drums in a music anime, and I was really happy to be able to do that with the other members. But when I tried it, it was really difficult. Sensors were attached to the equipment to capture the detailed movements, but they had to be attached to everything from the sticks to the gloves and cymbals, so it was difficult to hit the sensors without hitting them, but I was told, "It's okay to hit them," so I was allowed to do it with all my might as usual, and we were able to film it without any problems.
--The song you're playing is "YOUTH" by the instrumental band muddy on the last night.
KANAMI : That's right. We received the arranged sound source from the anime team, and we copied it further. It's been a while since I copied another artist's song, so it was difficult. At first, I wanted to copy it faithfully, but gradually my ego started to come out (laughs). I played my own phrases, so it was very fresh. For the keyboard, I played the MIDI notes again, and SAIKI practiced them further.
SAIKI : I practiced for the mo-cap. Of course, I left the recording to KANAMI.
KANAMI : However, I think that unless you actually play the keyboard or piano, there are some parts that you wouldn't be able to understand whether the movements were good or bad, so I arranged them so that they would be easy to play on the piano.
--SAIKI performed "Choose me" on piano and vocals at a live concert at Yokohama Arena in 2023. Did you have experience playing keyboard instruments before?
SAIKI : When I thought about the future of the band during the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought it would be good for the band's future if I could play and sing. But I never thought I would play the role of a keyboardist (laughs). Until now, I had only practiced singing, so I thought that being a keyboardist was amazing. Tina-chan's character is also a beginner, so I thought, "Maybe I can do the role of a beginner band member," and took on the challenge.
KANAMI : She practiced her solo parts and such, and even though she was only a fourth-year piano player (at the time), she had become a proper keyboardist, which was amazing. SAIKI has improved so much on the piano since we did the motion capture.
Kobato : Even at the acoustic performance we did at Billboard Live Osaka, the number of songs in which SAIKI participated on keyboards has increased dramatically-po.
SAIKI : There is a song that has been newly arranged for live performance, and since I played a solo as Tina, I played a solo in that song.
--You both have been inspired by your experience with motion capture.
MISA : I usually play the 5-string bass with a pick, but Tamaki plays the 4-string with her fingers. I haven't played the 4-string bass recently, and I haven't really been doing fingerpicking as much, and the song was difficult, so I practiced hard. I struggled with the recording, but by overcoming that, I gradually grew as a person and became able to play with my fingers better than before. I think that's reflected in the acoustic Oyatsu, because my fingers are now more mobile than before.
KANAMI : I'd always been playing with my fingers, so I had a lot of calluses on them.
SAIKI : I was really surprised. Your fingers had gotten so big.
MISA : For the motion capture, I had to wear gloves that only exposed a little of my fingers, and the sensors were heavy, so it was difficult at first, but I gradually got used to it and it wasn't so difficult.
KANAMI : That's right. We ended up getting really used to motion capture. At first, even when we were putting on the suits, we were like, "Huh, which side is the front?" But after doing it a few times, we got to the point where we could put it on effortlessly (laughs).
AKANE : The performance gradually became more like a motion capture performance, which was interesting.
--How many recording sessions did you do?
Kobato : I think they did it five or six times. I couldn't go to the venue, so I was like, "I wanted to see it!"
KANAMI : When we met at rehearsals, Kobato praised us by saying, "You're all great!", and when we went to Hokkaido to serve food she treated us to a meal, saying, "Leave it to me!"
Kobato : "Everyone's tired-po!? Let me at least treat you" (laughs). I heard that they were doing motion capture and recording for an instrumental piece with a very complicated structure, so I thought the best thing I could do was to show my appreciation-po (laughs).
KANAMI : Thanks to that, I was able to get through it.
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