This is an extract of the most meaningful questions included in this interview. It was made for the release of Thank you My teens. It goes deep into the early years of her career and the importance of Hisashi Kondo in this early stages.
(I cry everytim)
CD Data April 2007 Edition 4
Translated by knightwalker
This time, in your new album “CAN’T BUY MY LOVE” there’s a song recorded called “Thank you My teens” isn’t it? Then, I’d like you Yui-san to remember your teens since you’re becoming 20 years old on March.
“My teens were really difficult. My feelings were all jumbled together and inside me two different feelings were constantly clashing and ragging wilfully, and I was really tired. Before encountering music I found myself into a desperating situation.”
When you started singing and playing without accompaniment was around the time you were 15 year-old right?
“First of all singing was fun. Then I went around Bianconero lives and stores and helped handing out goods and flyers and they let me do their opening performances. I think that was when I had just become 16 year-old.”
After that, you succeed on the audition and inmediately enter in the preparation process for the debut right?
“I made my debut with 17 years, and till the release of the first album “FROM MY TO YOU”, I’d say it was a year of fumbling, conflicts, trial and error and exploration. All along I was on a situation of not knowing what was what I didn’t somehow understand. I remember it as a period when I composed songs and tried desperately to get coverage by the television, radio and magazines.”
What was the most memorable event?
“At the end of the summer, when the recordings were over I went outside, and the night air was fresh. I remember dearly the way home on summer nights. But at that time I was fulll of problems and always thinking about this or that so I was afraid of going outside too (laughs).”
Were you afraid of the city of Tokyo?
“I didn’t know the place at all, had few acquaintances and didn’t know how much dangerous it was. Without having made a change of pace, I keep repeating going and returning home and studio. However, since I didn’t know what I was looking for, in which situation I was and what was what I didn’t somehow understand, I look at people with strong wariness. I was told by a person that has known me before and after my debut that ‘I looked like a cat bullied by someone’ (laughs).”
Didn’t you feel happiness because your dream had come true?
“At that time there was a program where I was asked ‘What’s a dream’. I said in a little sharp mood ‘Have you looked up dream on a dictionary?’ ‘A thing that you think that cannot become true it’s a dream’ I said. Now remembering, I think I was really sharp and offensive but that was definitely not a dream right? Instead of saying that was a dream, I thought realistically that I had no choice but to continue living by means of music. I didn’t afflict myself because I knew there was a lot of ways, I really had nothing left but music. That’s why I think I have been able to do this feeling strongs until now.”
Once you became a pro singer, the relation between the songs you wanted to sing and the songs you sang at any time changed?
“Singing at Fukuoka was fun and being there distracted myself from the loneliness. I feel myself that I was rescued by the music so I’d say I understand the music, I considered it like something close to myself. But now as I and the music keep on overlaping each other, I have become able to feel the music in a lot of ways different to then, and I have a feeling that I have been knowing more more her.”
What do you mean by feeling the music in a different way?
“It’s the fact that the fun for wanting to let music to entertain me increased? I felt confused because at the beginning I didn’t think music could make me have fun but when I became aware of the happiness music gave me on letting me have fun, singing became fun again.”
So that means music was becoming a tool to communicate with people?
“As I’m very shy I feel like there’s still way to go from now on, I have still way to go but I expect to open myself up and have fun”
So from the meeting with whom did you receive a big influence?
“The first was without doubt the director. Often I was about to go off, about to stop and while I was about to escape he stopped me. There were things about I wanted to be wrong on purpose but still he was there throughout and teached me a lot of things. I respect him very much”
Have you ever thought you don’t want to sing anymore?
“I have. Having just debuted, as I didn’t understand the sense of singing there were too ocassions when I sung feeling hollow. Signing on that state, was a disrespect to the people who were there to listen to me, a disrespect towards music too and made me feel tired of myself too. On that moment I thought I couldn’t sing with that disrespectful feelings but, I remembered the feelings I had when I came to sing, and became able to considerate the state in which everyone came to listen to me and then singing was becoming gradually more fun.”
How was the experience of the film on your second year (of career)
“I think it was really great. The world of films was completely different to the music’s, without being myself I had to go deep into a transparency state not to live mine but Amane Kaoru’s life. I knew you have to use your body and express yourself on films, but it was very difficult to stand up again after I had crumbled completely. At this point, I want to enter being myself, want to see a lot of things, and I expect to store all these experiences inside me, that was something I couldn’t allow to myself before.”
When was the moment you looked around you again? You’ve said anywhere you went you ended up wanting to be left on your own
“Lately. Anyhow I have become a person brimming with curiosity and want to know a lot of different things, and must experience a lot of things too. If I could go to to another artists’ live I’d go everyday (laughs). Now, I think my true nature has came out.”
What’s what went under more changes?
“It was the fact to know that there’s a lot of different ways to climb up music if we compare it to a mountain. My old myself didn’t know but one way to the summit so I was climbing up a tough path without reason. But now I’ve learned that there are another gentle paths, and that I can enjoy the landscape while climbing up. To could watch the landscape I think I can feel more honest about myself more than before.”
On the countary, what’s the thing that hasn’t changed?
“I wonder what. Definitely, it was to resolve my sadness feelings due to singing. It was relieving that my feelings were not clashing in the wrong direction and that they were erased by the music. I suppose to face people would make me feel more sad, and I would end up loosing the important people around me. That’s why I think music was necessary for me”
Your feelings towards music haven’t changed?
“My feelings towards music for having rescued me haven’t changed. I guess I really couldn’t live without music, that on a good or bad sense haven’t changed even now. Then, habitually I think just about music, want to know and compose a lot of songs, and unawared I have fun humming them too. The simple feeling of liking music hasn’t changed, I think that’s the only thing that won’t change from now on”
Interview by Nagahori Atsuo
Source: Akabaneouji
