Hibiki Interview on MAHONE's Channel

Mahone: What is a part in the band you’d love to try?

Hibiki: I play guitar as a hobby.

Mahone: I can’t play it to save my life.

Hibiki: Oh come on, you can do better than that. (Both laugh) Guitar is great. And so is singing. Because the drums are in the back.

Mahone: That sucks, doesn’t it?

Hibiki: Isn’t that right.

Mahone: Since I started singing I went to the front.

Hibiki: It’s like that. I’d like to do a part in the band where I can come to the front.

Mahone: (laughs) There you go. It’s like everyone gets to stand where ever but it’s in the front nonetheless. Everyone but the drums.

Hibiki: Well I mean having just the drums in the front is cool too.

Mahone: I think I’d like to play the guitar as well when I have some free time. Guitar solo’s are nasty to learn. There’s always a guitar solo in just about any song recently.

Hibiki: There’s usually a guitar solo.

Mahone: All the time.

Hibiki: When you look at a lot of metal, there’s a guitar solo 100% of the time.

Mahone: How much of Dragon Force do you think is guitar solo?

Hibiki: Well here’s the thing, at this point it’s all already completely made up of guitar solos. I’d like to see an increase in drum solos.

Mahone: You’d like to lead us into a world like that?

Hibiki: I’d like the world to become like that.

 

Mahone: On to the next point. How do you practice?

Hibiki: I set a goal for myself of “what do I want to do?” And that goal becomes the foundation for my practice. If you stick to that goal. If you don’t have this feeling of “I want to drum this” then you’re not very likely to reach that goal.

Mahone: I see, so it’s a really determined goal you set. 

Hibiki: So with that kind of situation, you know how bands like X-Japan, those metal bands, don’t really reach 280 BPM. When it comes to the legs they come to about 200 BPM. But with the so-called Death Metal bands, the BPM is over 300. They’re like reaching new levels.

Mahone: (Imitates the sound)

Hibiki: And I’m like, I want to learn to drum that, and I do very much like that kind of metal, but...

Mahone: You don’t have the passion to put the effort in?

Hibiki: Exactly. I want to be able to drum it but...For instance with X-Japan my feelings about wanting to drum it aren’t even that strong and it’s difficult to get to that level but whether or not I feel that way I still do it. But when you look at the people that drum in this style, every single one of them likes this kind of music.

Mahone: They’re able to become a fan of it.

Hibiki: Yes. But it would be nice to play better than that.

Mahone: It’s the same with singing. Like saying “that’s the kind of vocals I want to produce”. The more you repeat that style that the more you’re slowly going to move into that direction. You’re voice is going to become the voice you want it to be.

 

Mahone: The next question is directed more specifically towards Hibiki. Who is your favorite drummer? Which drummer inspired you to start drumming?

Hibiki: What made me start drumming.. well it’s like I said before. I started veering toward the drums in my high school period. Instead of having an exam, we had presentations, you were free to do what you wanted. It would be fine to just sing by yourself, but everyone wanted to be in a band. So I was a youth who thought he could do this. Of course I couldn’t. But it’s harder to say “I can’t”. That’s the kind of person I turned into. “I mean, I can totally do this, right?” So, In my first term of the year, I was really into EXILE, so I sang EXILE. In my second term I did percussion so I did a tambourin solo. In my third term I could no longer escape the guys who wanted to be in a band. I finally caved in and said ‘’Let’s do dis!” But singing, really, singing it correctly...we did a test round and they told me no. “Do the drums”. I had to do it.

Mahone: But you’re grateful, right?

Hibiki: Yes, I am. At the time I was a bit grumbly about it but.

Mahone: But now you’re grateful.

Hibiki: I continued to practice one song by BUMP OF CHICKEN for a whole month. And X-Japan was the biggest thing, and I watched a cover video of Silent jealousy while I went through that. So why I watched it was because Yoshiki would be in the news a lot because he completely wrecked his drums. And I was like “what?” So when I looked him up it turned out he had done like 1.000 more things than I had expected.

(I then lost what they were saying a bit)

Mahone: So basically your favorite drummer would be...

Hibiki: Definitely Yoshiki. Cuz he’s kind of like a god. The way I play now is definitely influenced by the way Yoshiki plays the drums. And like that, the music I’ve been playing all this time, and definitely the bands I’ve been playing in up till now, most of them have metal as their chore. The second person I’ve definitely been inspired by is Taura Gaku, support artist for Crystal Lake, we’re the same age. When I was in my second year of university, I went to see him at a venue, and thought “what is this!? That’s a human?!” And he’s the same age as me. I thought I should just quit or something.

Mahone: I get that. It’s really important to not get disheartened by such things.

Hibiki: I thought I should imitate this guy.

Mahone: When you aim for it, you can get there.

Hibiki: Yes, it’s like I said earlier. You need an image of what you want to become.

 

Mahone: The next bit is not related to music. What is something you recommend to the people?

Hibiki: My recommendations?

Mahone: The next ones are gonna be miscellaneous things. Up till now we’ve only been doing music related questions, and you’ve told more deep stories, I thought it’s best to lighten the mood up a bit from those stories.

Hibiki: Things I’d recommend. Wgat are those...

Mahone: For me, it would be bathhouses.

Hibiki: Super Sentou? (Translator’s note: a type of more luxurious bathhouse)

Mahone: No, just regular bathhouse. Cheap bathhouses, I like going there by myself.

Hibiki: Those don’t have an onsen, right?

Mahone: No just a bathhouse, I like those.

Hibiki: A regular sentou, I haven’t ever been to a real sentou like that.

Mahone: Really?

Hibiki: I tend to usually go to those neat places like Super-Sentou and rotenburo (open-air baths).

Mahone: I’ve never been to a Super Sentou.

Hibiki: Seriously?

Mahone: Yup.

Hibiki: There are a lot of different kinds of baths.

Mahone: I see.

Hibiki: That you can use. If you see one you like, you just go in.

Mahone: Ah so it’s like an all-you-can-eat kind of concept?

Hibiki: Exactly. Mmh, which bath shall I go into?

Mahone: Ah I get it. I’ve actually been to a place like that I think. Yeah I have.

Hibiki: Where you can enter any bath?

Mahone: Yeah, they’re everywhere.

Hibiki: Aren’t sentou great?

Mahone: Yeah. Say, recently sauna have been really in.

Hibiki: I recommend saunas.

Mahone: Ah, you go to saunas?

Hibiki: Yeah, if there’s one I’m definitely going in.

Mahone: Ah, recently the sauna have been pretty lit, right?

Hibiki: Ahh yeah in that kind of fashion, right. (laughs) Do you take cold baths?

Mahone: I do, for about.. 10...5 minutes? (I couldn’t really catch what he said next, sorry)

Hibiki: Then, do you sleep afterward, or not?

Mahone: well I don’t, I just go home.

Hibiki: So I have a point about that. After the sauna it’s really hot so I dive into the cold bath for a minute and then it’s necessary for me to take a nap. If I just go home without that I won’t get anything done anymore. Then I go to the baths you can lie down in and sleep.

Mahone: People are gonna think you died.

Hibiki: I’m still warm, I’m not cold. (I couldn’t really catch the joke afterward)

 

Mahone: Next up, let’s boast about our muscles. Here’s our deal. (Pictures of their respectful bodies on screen, heavily, heavily edited to distortion.)

Hibiki: Laughs.

 

Mahone: What do you do in your free time?

Hibiki: Ah let’s see.

Mahone: I think You watch a lot of Kimetsu no Yaiba.

Hibiki: I do.

Mahone: You all (the viewers) should watch it too. You have to (,this is not an option).

Hibiki: You can’t not watch it.

Mahone: Yeah it’s super fun. I understand the mindset of not wanting to watch something because it’s popular, but this one is really fun.

Hibiki: If it was me in my middle school period I wouldn’t be watching it.

Mahone: Isn’t that right? I also watched it just because it was recommended to me, so it’s something I watch because it was recommended to me. I was tricked into it.

Hibiki: I don’t usually read manga or watch anime.

Mahone: Same here.

Hibiki: But I’m really into this one.

Mahone: Same, I really look forward to it every week.

Hibiki: I really want to watch it now.

Mahone: We watched Tenki no Ko (Weathering With You) together.

 

Mahone: So we’re at this point in the video now. We got a lot of different questions as well so we’re just filming a one hour video.

Hibiki: (laughs)

Mahone: We’re filming it on the side. We’ve had about ten questions now.

Hibiki: The question corner was fun. I feel like I’m a youtuber now.

Mahone: Right? You have twitter, right?

Hibiki: I have twitter, Instagram, I have about 170.000 people following my youtube channel. I’m doing real bad for a youtuber, I upload cover videos.

Mahone: He does drum covers, the link is at the bottom so please check it out. That’s what he does.

 

Mahone: Let’s wrap up the question corner. You have Instagram. That’s how we first got in contact about the video.

Hibiki: That’s where we started talking about this. “It would be cool to make a video.”

Mahone: I was really glad. For me it’s a first to have an artist participate live like this with me.

Hibiki: You’ve only done covers with artists so far.

Mahone: I have, so because this is a first, I’m really grateful that you participated.

Hibiki: The pleasure was all mine.

 

 

27-3-2020/30-3-2020