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airenyah · 11 months

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TinnGun Aquarium Date: Where Did Tinn’s Sharks Suddenly Come From and How Are They Connected to Liking Gun?

So in episode 7 when TinnGun go on the aquarium date with Yo and his girl there is a bit of dialogue that really confused me back when the episode aired. And maybe it confused you too. So now I’m here to share some background information with you.

I’m talking about this specific line:

Back when the episode aired I just didn’t understand why Tinn was suddenly talking about sharks when he had just been referencing their date. Where did that thought suddenly come from? What’s the connection between those topics, how did Tinn get from their date to sharks and biting to liking Gun?

Well, you see, I wasn’t able to follow because I had completely forgotten about one key element here: ฉลามชอบงับคุณ (= “sharks like biting you”) is a song by Bonnadol ft. IIVY B and Tinn is directly quoting the first line of the chorus to Gun. Cue the ensuing jokes about sharks and liking and biting.

Now you might see this and think “Ohhh so it’s a song reference and that song suddenly popped into Tinn’s mind so that’s why he’s randomly changing the topic. Plus, the song talks about sharks and liking so that’s how Tinn made the mental jump from ‘sharks may bite you’ to ‘I like you’. Got it, thanks.” and, well... yes. That’s the short answer. However, there is more to discover in this scene and more word play going on in Thai.

So come with me on a deep dive into the dialogue of this scene and find out what exactly is happening here in Thai.

We’re gonna take a closer look at Ep7 [3/4] from 10:10 onwards till pretty much the end of the scene. The given English translation of the dialogue goes as follows:

Tinn: Sharks, they may bite you. But I like you, no bite. Gun: Are you flirting or what? Here. Let me tell you something. If you want to hit on someone, use your own line. (laughs) Sharks, they may bite you. (Tinn steals Gun’s snack) Tinn: Sharks, they like to bite. I do too, but only the one I like. Gun: Bite, my ass! (laughs and shakes his head) Tinn: Look at you now. I bet you like the one that bites you.

Before we go and take a closer look at what is hidden in the original Thai lines, let me give you a quick vocabulary lesson, though:

ครับ [kráp] – often also transliterated as krub. If you’re an experienced thdrama watcher you are likely familiar with this word. But if you’re new here: ครับ [kráp] is a particle that is added at the end of a sentence to make that sentence formal and polite. ครับ [kráp] is typically used by men, while women typically use ค่ะ [khâ] instead. (You’ll also hear this particle as an answer to or confirmation of a statement/request/order/etc., but this isn’t relevant for the scene we’re about to discuss.)

ชอบ [chôp] – to like. If you’re an experienced thdrama watcher you’ve also heard this one a lot. However, what you might not know is that this word can also be used to talk about a habit or about what someone/something tends to do. Earlier I translated the song title ฉลามชอบงับคุณ [chà-lăam chôp ngáp kun] as “sharks like biting you” but it could also mean something like “sharks tend to bite you”. (word for word the title makes shark(s) – like/tend to – bite{cute} – you{formal})

ผม [pŏm] – formal/polite first person pronoun for males (I)

คุณ [kun] – formal/polite second person pronoun (you)

งับ [ngáp] – cutesy word for “to bite”

Part 1: The Song

Now with that out of the way I want to take a look at the first line of the chorus from the song:

ฉลามน่ะชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [chà-lăam nâ chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp]

So this line is made up of two sentences:

ฉลามน่ะชอบงับคุณ [chà-lăam nâ chôp ngáp kun]: This is the first sentence and translates to “sharks tend to bite you” or “sharks like biting you” which is also the song’s title.

ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp]: This is the second sentence and translates to “as for me, I like you”.

So here we can immediately see how talking about sharks and biting leads to talking about liking someone and it’s through the repeated use of the word ชอบ [chôp] aka “to like”. First the singer talks about what sharks like (biting), then the singer talks about what he himself likes (“you”).

But there’s more!

Maybe you’ve already noticed that there is another word from our vocabulary lesson that is repeated in both sentences:

ฉลามน่ะชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [chà-lăam nâ chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp]

Yes, the word งับ [ngáp] gets repeated as well. Now you might be a little confused, because I just told you that this translates to the verb “bite” and I also just said that the second sentence translates to “as for me, I like you”. How does the biting fit into this sentence?

Well, so the thing is… Remember the very first word from our list? Remember ครับ [kráp]? Maybe you’ve also noticed that I put it on the vocabulary list, but then it doesn’t even show up in the song lyrics at all...

Except, it does! It just doesn’t look or sound like ครับ [kráp]. It sounds like งับ [ngáp], aka the word that I just pointed out that also gets repeated in both lines.

So, as you might have guessed by now งับ [ngáp] can either be a cute way of saying “to bite” or it can also be used as a cutesy word for the polite particle ครับ [kráp]. Tinn has already used งับ [ngáp] in this sense on Gun back in episode 2 when he was pretending to be Lion, like we can see here for example:

ลองไปที่นี่ดู แล้วพี่จะรู้เองงับ [long bpai tîi nîi duu • láeo pîi jà rúu eng ngáp] try–go–to–this–see • then–older sibling–will–know–self–[cutesy polite particle]

Now let’s go back to the second sentence of the song and take a look at the pronouns: ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp] (= “as for me, I like you”).

The singer here uses the polite first person pronoun ผม [pŏm] when he refers to himself and the polite second person pronoun คุณ [kun] when he says “you”. These are pretty formal pronouns that usually also come with a polite particle. So technically the sentence “I like you” with these formal pronouns should go ผมชอบคุณครับ [pŏm chôp kun kráp] – literally “I like you krub”. However, the singer wants to be cute, so he switches the polite particle ครับ [kráp] with the cutesy form งับ [ngáp] and sings “I like you ngáp” instead.

(On this note, some interesting tidbit: according to my Thai friend who I discussed this scene and song with, in his words, it’s mainly “lesbian tomboys” who use งับ [ngáp]. He said men might use it in writing but don’t really say it.)

Anyway, now that we know that the song lyrics make “Sharks like to ngáp you. As for me, I like you ngáp”, let’s see what they do with it in MSP.

Part 2: Tinn and Biting

The dialogue starts out with Tinn saying “Sharks, they may bite you. But I like you, no bite”. At least it does according to the English subtitles. What he really says in Thai is this:

ฉลามอะ ชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมอะ ชอบคุณงับ [chà-lăam à • chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm à • chôp kun ngáp] shark(s)–[particle] • like–bite–you {formal} • as for–I {formal}–[particle] • like–you {formal}–[cutesy polite particle]

Here is the line from the song in comparison:

ฉลามน่ะชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [chà-lăam nâ chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp] shark(s)��[particle]–like–bite–you {formal} • as for–I {formal}–[particle]–like–you {formal}–[cutesy polite particle]

As we can see, Tinn is pretty much directly quoting that line of song to Gun. So a more literal translation of what he’s saying here would be something along the lines of “Sharks like biting you. As for me, I like you”. Or rather, if we remember the word play with the word งับ [ngáp] = to bite and งับ [ngáp] = cute form of ครับ [kráp], what he’s saying is actually “Sharks like to ngáp you. As for me, I like you ngáp”.

This makes Gun laugh and he says “Are you flirting or what? Here. Let me tell you something. If you want to hit on someone, use your own line.”

Now that we know Tinn quoted a line of a song we also understand that Gun recognizes it as such and that when he says “use your own line” it’s actually him calling Tinn out for quoting a song instead of coming up with his own original pick-up line.

Gun then turns away and repeats the first part of the song lyrics to himself, still very amused: ฉลามชอบงับคุณ [chà-lăam chôp ngáp kun] (= “sharks like biting you”).

Tinn was just scolded for not being original in his flirting and what does he do? He “bites” Gun and then, according to the subtitles, says: “Sharks, they like to bite. I do too, but only the one I like.”

Now let’s once again look at what’s happening in Thai. What Tinn is saying here is this:

ฉลามอะ ชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมอะ งับคนที่ชอบ [chà-lăam à • chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm à • ngáp kon tîi chôp]

Let’s bring up the song lyrics again:

ฉลามน่ะชอบงับคุณ ส่วนผมน่ะชอบคุณงับ [chà-lăam nâ chôp ngáp kun • sùuan pŏm nâ chôp kun ngáp]

We can immediately see that Tinn is once again directly quoting almost the entire line of the lyrics to Gun. He repeats the whole “Sharks like biting you. As for me…” part, but then he unexpectedly changes the last part. This time around he doesn’t end the sentence with “I like you ngáp” (ชอบคุณงับ [chôp kun ngáp]) like the song does, instead he ends it with:

งับคนที่ชอบ [ngáp kon tîi chôp] bite–person/people–that–like

Since Thai doesn’t have plural forms, this can be translated as “I bite the person that I like” or “I bite the people I like”. So what’s happening here is that after being scolded for being unoriginal, Tinn then quotes the song again but decides to prove that he can indeed think of a line on his own by changing the second sentence from “as for me, I like you” to “as for me, I bite the person/people I like”.

What’s kinda interesting to me here is that the second sentence from the song talks about คุณ [kun] (= “you”) and Tinn in his own continuation talks about คน [kon] (= person/people). I find it interesting, because these two words sound very similar. In fact, when I tried to transcribe the Thai lines I actually wasn’t sure whether Tinn was saying คุณ [kun] or คน [kon] here. It sounded like งับคน [ngáp kon] (= bite person) to me, but I was a little unsure since the song itself talks about งับคุณ [ngáp kun] (= bite you). I played it to my Thai friend and he too had to listen to it a couple of times before deciding that it must be คน [kon] as that would make more sense.

Alright, moving on. So Tinn has just quoted the song again but with a changed ending: “Sharks like to bite you. As for me, I bite the person/people I like.” Gun doesn’t know how to response to this, so after a moment of consideration he comes up with a witty comeback: “Bite, my ass!”

(Fun fact: the expression he uses here that was translated as “my ass” in English is พ่อมึง [pâaw mueng] which literally translates to “your father”. If you’re a German speaker: it means Gun is essentially saying „Deine Mutter!!“ in response lmao. Brilliant comeback, really. Extremely witty. Good job, kiddo.)

Unfortunately for Gun, Tinn’s whole flirting tactic, as silly as it was, has in fact worked on him and he can’t help but laugh again in an “I can’t believe this is the man I have chosen to love” kind of way.

Now it’s Tinn’s turn to call Gun out for it: “Look at you now. I bet you like the one that bites you.” That’s how the subtitles put it. But one last time I wanna take a look at the original Thai lines.

Tinn says two sentences here and the second sentence is more relevant for the whole song reference/word play thing, but since you’ve made it all the way here I assume you like languages and would be interested in knowing the literal meaning of Tinn’s words where the subtitles go “Look at you now”, so I’ll just tell you that too while I’m at it.

So all in all Tinn says:

อาการแบบนี้อะ สงสัยชอบคนที่งับ [aa-gaan bàep níi à • sŏng-săi chôp kon tîi ngáp]

That first sentence (อาการแบบนี้อะ [aa-gaan bàep níi à]) is a little difficult to translate for me because I don’t really know what to do with the first word, but the แบบนี้ [bàep níi] part means “like this”. The first word is อาการ [aa-gaan] which can mean “symptom” or “condition”. According to thai2english.com other meanings also include “expression” or “manner”. All in all, what Tinn is essentially doing here is pointing out Gun’s reaction, so I think to make it sound more natural and not too weird in English we could maybe say something along the lines of “A reaction like this...” for this line.

As for the other thing Tinn says, it’s this:

สงสัยชอบคนที่งับ [sŏng-săi chôp kon tîi ngáp] suspect–like–person(s)–that–bite

As I said earlier, Thai doesn’t do plural forms. Nor does it do articles. And yet another thing that Thai often doesn’t do is pronouns, meaning pronouns are often left out of the sentence entirely. Such is the case here, so this sentence could mean one of the following:

I suspect you like a person that bites.

I suspect you like the person that bites.

I suspect you like the person that bites you.

I suspect you like people that bite.

I suspect you like people that bite you.

Now what’s fun about this line is once again the word play and the reference to Tinn’s line from earlier when he said “I bite the person/people I like”. Let’s do some more comparison.

So this is what Tinn says to Gun right after he steals the snack by “biting” Gun:

ส่วนผมอะ งับคนที่ชอบ [sùuan pŏm à • ngáp kon tîi chôp] as for–I {formal}–[particle] • bite–person(s)–that–like

And this is what he’s saying to Gun now:

สงสัยชอบคนที่งับ [sŏng-săi chôp kon tîi ngáp] suspect–like–person(s)–that–bite

The reason why this is fun is that Tinn switches the words งับ [ngáp] and ชอบ [chôp]. Where first he said งับคนที่ชอบ [ngáp kon tîi chôp] (lit. “bite–person(s)–that–like” = “[I] bite [the] person/people that [I] like”) he now says ชอบคนที่งับ [chôp kon tîi ngáp] (lit. “like–person(s)–that–bite” = “[You] like [the] person/people that bite [you]”).

Let’s look at it again side by side to really see how delightful that is:

งับคนที่ชอบ [ngáp kon tîi chôp] bite–person(s)–that–like

ชอบคนที่งับ [chôp kon tîi ngáp] like–person(s)–that–bite

What’s more, Tinn switching around the words is reminiscent of, if not a deliberate callback to the word switch from the original song lyrics that started it all:

ชอบงับคุณ [chôp ngáp kun] like–bite–you {formal}

ชอบคุณงับ [chôp kun ngáp] like–you {formal}–[cutesy polite particle]

Part 3: Summary

Since this was an overwhelming amount of information in one go I’ve put all the dialogue into a table so you can look at it again side by side:

As you can see, I’ve also included the official English subtitles for those who are curious. However, I wanna stress that this isn’t to imply “the eng subs suck and I did it better!!!1!11”. I’ve put my own “literal” translation into the table mainly because the word-for-word translation of the Thai lines can be pretty confusing and I wanted to put it into a more natural sounding English so that it would make more sense.

You’ll also notice that I’ve put some of the pronouns into square brackets. That is to signify that the Thai sentence doesn’t include any pronouns there, which is relevant mainly for Tinn’s very last line as the English sentence could work either with or without the second “you”.

As for the curly brackets in the Thai column, those indicate the level of formality or the connotation of a word, especially of the pronouns.

The red text marks every time when the song lyrics are being quoted.

In Conclusion

All in all, what is happening in this scene is that Tinn quotes a line of a silly little song that includes a silly little pun and then when Gun scolds him for being unoriginal Tinn goes and takes that silly little word play even further, turning it into his own thing. And the most delightful part about it is that it absolutely works on Gun, as much as he may hate to admit it.

#my school president #tinngun #msp #msp ep7 #airenyah explains thai #adrm #no but my thai teacher has a habit ending his classes by playing us a thai song #and weeks before msp was even airing he ended the zoom session with ฉลามชอบงับคุณ #and then i just. totally forgot about it... the song was completely wiped from my memory #that's why this post is so late!! i'm really sorry!! i just really didn't remember this song at all when msp was airing #and i got so puzzled about this scene here bc Tinn's line seemed so random like #why is he suddenly talking about sharks and biting where did that come from #i mean ok sure they're at an aquarium so sharks aren't THAT strange as a topic but still #something about it just didn't sit right with me #until a while ago it just suddenly hit me out of the blue #i was just going about my business when suddenly my brain goes #WAIT DIDN'T WE ONCE HAVE A SONG ABOUT SHARKS AND BITING AND LIKING IN CLASS #and i'm just standing there like oh my god???? it's a song reference???? and i could (aND SHOULD) have known all this time????#a very random but very eye-opening experience #everything about this suddenly made so much more sense #anyway did i write this instead of writing my bachelor's thesis? yes i did :)))#which is ironic considering my bachelor thesis is about the thai language as well

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turtleations · 7 months

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Interview with Sugizo (Luna Sea / G) (summarized)

Published in the hide BIBLE (by Akemi Oshima) 2008

Note: Still not good at Japanese, but I like to delude myself that I am gettling slightly better. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about something anyway.

I have changed the format of these "summaries". This is as close to an actual translation as I can currently make it, and in many places it is an actual translation, just moved from first to third person. You can often tell where from the awkward English.

I also included the prompts of the interviewer to make it flow more naturally, though I often paraphrased them.

Sugizo's thoughts on hide as a guitarist after X JAPAN’s reunion live

There isn’t a lot of talk about hide as a guitarist, with there being more attention on him being an expressive support or a unique performer. Sugizo thinks he was actually a quite technical player. X’s songs are rather difficult – especially the ones made by Yoshiki deviate from so-called normal rock, and it’s not easy to find players suitable for that. Remove even one nuance from it and the whole construct becomes unstable. This goes especially for the precise guitar harmonies and arrangements, as Yoshiki’s approach to writing music is close to classical compositions. Sugizo once again realized that with the reunion. In classical composition, every last note is planned and to tamper with even one of them is a sacrilege against the composer. Every note is intentional, a part of the composer’s soul, and the player had to protect that intention before anything else, like expressing their own individuality. Sugizo now came to understand how close X was to that way of composing. His own intention was to play hide’s parts without tampering with them. How could he put his own nuances in there, when by staying faithful to the original, he believed he could show his respect for hide and also for X JAPAN? He wrestled with those feelings and couldn’t relax while playing, finally understanding that during X JAPAN’s lives, and especially Yoshiki’s songs, you couldn’t move much because you had to concentrate so hard. It wasn’t just about looking cool – you don’t move because you can’t move.

Is that so?

Of course you also have free parts, and parts where you interact with the audience, but most of the time it’s so tight and you have to focus so hard you can’t move.

Nobody moved during “Art of Live”.

The same goes for “Blue Blood” and “Silent Jealousy”. Sugizo played with them himself now, but X JAPAN is at the top of the Japanese heavy metal bands that came up in the 80s. They set the precedence for how far a performance could go, how high you could sing, how offensive you could be, how difficult you could make it, how flashy you could look. X has pushed forward all the elements of the metal scene and was the first band acknowledged by the general public. Therefore, the peak of the metal scene was the start of the new visual scene as seeds sown by X. That said, Luna Sea’s methods and musical structures are completely different from X. He thinks that X’s way of expressing themselves was the final form of all the metal bands. Maybe there isn’t as of yet any other band in Japan going that far, that high, that flashy. One needs a clear stance to realize a clear standard. If you don’t diligently research them, you can’t play X’s songs. On the contrary, you have to bring this degree of understanding. And now Sugizo has become an X-music-critic (laughs).

With Sugizo chasing after X, being used to a different system, how has he decided to support them?

A long time ago, Yoshiki brought it up with Sugizo. But back then he said, “Impossible. No one can fill the hole left by hide-san.” There is no person whose existence is that big. At first, Sugizo was quite negative towards the idea, because the fans would kill him. He knew he would be drowned in criticism, and that was a difficult thing to take on. And he didn’t quite know how he felt about it himself. But when the reunion became a more concrete concept, Yoshiki asked him again and he started thinking about it objectively. He had been active at the same time as hide, but could he do this for three hours on stage? Of course, they could have done without someone on stage, but there are limits to what you can express without a live human player, and out of everyone in the current Japanese scene, Sugizo felt he was the only one who had the necessary meaningful and existential connection to hide to take over this part. No other reason. He did it out of respect, and because it wouldn’t happen if he didn’t help out. Even if he feared criticism, he needed to do it for his irreplaceable friend and for his respected seniors. He meant to support them and express hide’s existence through his own play as closely as possible. He wasn’t really at the forefront, rather, he became a medium. If he could channel hide’s dying wish into sound through himself, he would consider it a success.

About I.V.

I.V. had a completely different feeling. Here, Sugizo could do his own thing – in fact, Yoshiki, the creator, told him to. Not just that, but the intention of hide was transmitted through Sugizo’s fingertips. So even with criticism and attacks, in the end he was grateful and there were a lot of positive aspects to it.

On the impression he had on being on a really big stage with X

Such a giant band in every sense: The scope, the size of the stage, the amount of time by which the performance was delayed (laughs). The scale was too big; this isn’t a normal rock band anymore. The size of their existence and the showmanship with which they entertain everyone. Luna Sea is a normal band in comparison, just a small fish. Sugizo felt lucky that he got to experience that – that he got to exist in the whirlpool of those two bands is a precious experience. And one more thing: The affection of the staff was amazing, and he understood well hide’s part in it. He understood well that without hide, there can be no X JAPAN. And thus, this X without hide was stuggling. Not just from the outside, but from the inside as well. Sugizo came to realize just how important hide’s role within the band had been. They started out started wobbly, but ascended on the third day – this band is truly divine. It felt like he was diligently playing guitar with hide, and competing with him musically, for the first time ever. Although they have been close like brothers and often went drinking together, Sugizo had never experienced hide on guitar like this before. Nearly twenty years after meeting him, this was the first time he really felt like they were together. It was an amazing experience. Sugizo’s close friends Wes (Borland, ex-Limp Biskit) and Richard (Fortis, Guns & Roses) were also stuck by admiration for X JAPAN’s greatness and hide’s awesomeness. In any case, for Sugizo it was a very valuable experience.

The impression hide left on Sugizo

Thinking about it now, he was a person like Mozart. Someone who was like a force of nature until the first half of his thirties, went all out, caught everyone around him in his inescapable nexus, and then died. The people who survive, like them, grow tattered as they reach old age, while experiencing the sorrows and the joys of aging people.

About their first meeting

Sugizo doesn’t remember it well because it was a messy time. But drinking places come to mind. At that time, Luna Sea had only just formed, and X was already at the top, but they drank at the same Issakayas. At first, that was scary, but while drinking with hide, Sugizo soon found out that they were very kindred spirits and they unexpectedly became friends. So, he can’t remember where and how they met for the first time. But it was certainly in Meguro, close to Rokumeikan, at a normal Izakaya like Tsubuhachi or Shoya.

His impression of hide back then

Like someone out of a magazine. It felt like, “Oh, there’s a person from a magazine right in front of my eyes.”

Wearing a hat and sunglasses?

This was hide in a private setting. At that time, when going out in front of people in private, he wore a big black hat and cats eye sunglasses. He must have worn something like that, which is just what Sugizo imagined people from magazines would look like. While they drank, their talk suddenly turned to music: “I like JAPAN” [British punk and pop band active from 1974-82 , and in 1991], and they found a connection. “Fast, that’s good!” – “Fast music is the best!” – “But, I hate the later period.” – “No way! I love the later period just as much.” – “Looks like we have different tastes,” and such (laughs). “Who’s your favourite guitarist?” – “I like Frank Zappa the best.” – “Zappa, huh? I don’t like him at all.” He remembers well how they went back and forth like this.

This was before Luna Sea signed up with Extasy?

Before. But they were active at Rokumeikan, so inevitably, someone knew someone who had a connection. At that time, there weren’t many other bands with their kind of sound, so they were pretty isolated. Hide must have thought that they were “weird and interesting”. Hide and Sugizo’s aesthetics matched, they took a similar stance on expressing themselves, and so they became good friends. Around them, there were a lot of artists in the style of previous generation metal or hardcore bands like VIRUS or AION, but Luna Sea was different from those and something new. Sugizo thinks they were in a similar vein as D’erlanger or ZI:Kill, but you could also see it differently.

Their motivation for joining Extasy

On top of being friends with hide, Yoshiki came to see their live at Rokumeikan. They came and went at Extasy drinking parties, and in the autumn of 1990 it was decided that Extasy would bring out their album.

Did hide recommend them?

Probably. Sugizo thinks that hide said to Yoshiki, “There’s an interesting band,” even though he never directly told them that he was the one making that introduction.

The impression was that hide was advertising Luna Sea to a lot of people.

In that regard, hide didn’t change until the end. He was always looking for new sounds and new images. No matter what their career level was compared to his, hide always had his antennas out for new, exciting, interesting artists. And then he would continue to socialize with them. A very hide-like thing.

That’s how LEMONed came to be.

Right. Luna Sea was probably the first band where hide said, “That’s interesting, let’s do it!”, and mobilized for them. But that time was a muddy mess.

Meaning?

The drinking parties were messy. At the establishments, artists, fans, people from the media were all jumbled together. It was great fun, but Sugizo has quite enough of it (laughs).

Lack of stamina?

Since Sugizo had been in his early twenties, that had not been a problem. He drank to the point of collapse, had violent fights with anyone and anything, and work up the next day with wounds all over his body.

His memories of hide from that time

He has countless of those, since they hung out together so much. Over the course of maybe two years, they were drinking together every two to three days. They drank until morning, went to the onsen, did radio gymnastics with everyone else, were in a fight in Asagaya. When they were drinking in Asagaya together with Ken and Kyo from Zi:Kill, they got into a big fight with some guys who looked like college students. At some point in the middle of the fight, Sugizo became aware that hide was nowhere to be seen. A few minutes later, hide came back wielding a dustpan and yelling, “You assholes!” He was the kind of person who would go and calmly search for an effective weapon while they were all hitting each other with fists. In the end, they all got banned (laughs).

But that effective weapon was a dustpan (laughs).

Ken was hitting his opponent with the shoes he took off, but suddenly realized that those were the slippers provided by the place they were drinking at and didn’t do any damage whatsoever (laughs). He wanted to hit his opponent with his boots or whatever, with all his strength, but he didn’t hurt him at all. It was terrible when everyone had to laugh in the middle of the fight. They rarely suffered serious injuries, in any case.

Small injuries?

Scratches and stuff. Sugizo doesn’t really remember, but when he got really mad, he got stopped by his friend George from Ladiesroom in the beginning (laughs).

That happened?

Hide also stopped him. When Sugizo went off and had a hard time, hide would come and have a drink with him. He was always looking out for him. Even though they raged a lot, there was never an intention to really hurt the opponent. It was violent, but it was fun.

Everyone says that.

Even after violent fights, everyone joked about it the next day. Also, hide loved messing with people. When they went to an onsen in Hakone, hide hid all of their clothes in a crack (laughs). Since it was dawn and there was no one around, it wasn’t a problem and it was never worse than silly mischief. Sugizo looked around, but there was nothing to wear except the noren [cloth sign at the entrance], so he spontaneously made the executive decision that that would serve as his clothes. He likes onsens, but to exchange the yutaka [light kimono, usually provided by the onsen] with a noren… (laughs). Further, hide ate a lot in the morning. Since they fooled around all night, the others didn’t want to eat anything, but hide enthusiastically gulped down everything on his own. They would ask him how he could eat like that, but he would explain that he’d get in trouble if he didn’t eat in the morning and devour like 3 bowls of rice. Then they’d got to an amusement part and slide down a grassy slope in a cardboard box, playing like children.

Adults don’t usually play like that.

Hide had a driver’s license but never drove. When asked why, he explained that he had once been in a collision accident. He couldn’t forget the feeling of the car hitting a person and so, he didn’t want to drive. Sugizo understood, but he thinks that hide’s power of imagination was too strong. When talking about going to the shooting range in America, hide asked, “Sugizo, did you ever shoot a gun?”

“Not yet, but I would like to try it.”

“You’s better not.” At the shooting range, hide would suddenly think, “What if I turned now and shot the person next to me and their blood splattered everywhere,” and just be horrified. Once he started thinking like that, one thought would lead to another and he would become terrified. So he didn’t shoot, and he didn’t drive. Sugizo understood that, because he, too, had an overactive imagination since he was a child. He doesn’t eat a lot of meat anyway, but when he thinks about the time when those creatures were alive, he feels bad. When he thinks about how they are roasting the dead body of an animal, he has to imagine their dying wails of agony. Both he and hide are people with an extreme power of imagination.

They can make their music come alive through that.

It’s great when it comes to music and expressing yourself, but when it comes to your normal life, it’s very inconvenient. When it comes to creating, one thing Sugizo often remembered later was one time he and hide went drinking before hide had a contract for his solo activities. He talked about wanting to do solo work but having doubts about it. Sugizo told him he should definitely do it, because solo-artist-hide would be interesting. A few weeks later, hide said, “I mostly decided on a solo contract, but Sugizo, I was surprised.” – “Why?” – “Can’t tell you yet.” And then he didn’t. Turns out, he ended up with the same record label as Luna Sea. Sugizo remembers well how often they talked when hide first started his solo activities.

Did they talk about what they wanted to do?

Sugizo doesn’t remember the contents of those conversations well, but hide talked about wanting to do pop. Since his starting point was KISS, he probably originally liked rock with big shows. That was 15 years ago. It makes Sugizo feel nostalgic.

What did hide say about Luna Sea?

Sugizo doesn’t really remember him talking about musical things, only drinking and having fun. But he liked their early pop songs like “Déjà Vu” and “Wish” and told them they should do more like that. “Believe” was their first single. When hide saw the PV, he said, “You should have related a pop single like this sooner.” They had the same hair and make- up artist, Okayama Tetsuya, and they often went to his place to drink.

Hide often came to Luna Sea’s lives.

Hide said that Luna Sea’s sadness was unbearable. “It came with a bang,” and “Deeply moving like Dinosaur Jr.”. Sugizo doesn’t understand that at all (laughs). Sugizo likes Dinosaur too, and got a melancholic feeling from them, but he thinks this was an impression specific to hide. “That feeling tightening your chest is nice, but there are no such elements for me.” Maybe he saw such tones in bands like Luna Sea or Zi:Kill.

He also often went to see Zi:Kill.

Hide liked Tusk. He also had a close relationship with Ken, but if pressed, Sugizo would say that Ken was being messed with (laughs).

He was often made fun of. (laughs)

But maybe hide and Sugizo were opposites when it came to their personality. Hide was blood type AB, and there are aspects of AB-types that Sugizo can’t understand. There are things that are normal for AB-types, but mysterious and incomprehensible for O-Types like Sugizo. Hide was no exception. “What is that guy saying so quickly?” Sugizo often thought. It was not a problem, because hide was in a position of seniority to Sugizo, but if they had been of equal standing, they would probably have fought if spending a lot of time together. Actually, their way of thinking and their interests were so different in hide’s last years that, while it never got to the point of fighting, they had a lot of disputes.

Conversely, that was the extent of the relationship they could have.

Sugizo wonders about that. At that time, X JAPAN set up base in L.A. and only had activities about once a year, so hide was rarely in Japan anymore. When he was home, they occasionally met for drinks, or they ran into each other at the “Music Station Special” and went out drinking afterwards, but that was the extent of it. Sugizo worked from London at the time but was never in L.A., so their points of activity were just different.

Sugizo also did his solo recording in London.

Nowadays, Sugizo often goes to L.A. and hangs out with Yoshiki, but the last one or two years before hide died, there was some distance. Nevertheless, whenever they were both in Japan, they met without fail. In the 90s, Sugizo was in L.A. not even once.

Is that so?

The first time he went to L.A. was in 2000. Since then, he’s been there almost 30 times. At first, it didn’t fit the image of hide’s L.A. The feeling was a little darker. But it matched, thinking about hide’s roots.

In the beginning, hide said he didn’t like L.A. very much.

KISS is an American band, though. And hide made Zilch in L.A. Zilch was great. But now [Paul] Raven has also passed away… Sugizo was close to the members of Zilch, somehow, they were all connected.

Did he hear stories about Zilch?

Yes, he did. “I’m not going to produce, I want to focus on performing,” hide said. “It’s going to be mainly in English, so I’ll focus on singing and playing the guitar. We’ve got a good producer.” The producer in question was Ray [McVeigh]. Sugizo thinks hide and Ray met because Ray was producing Oblivion Dust. Sugizo heard about it about one year before Zilch really started.

In his solo works, hide did everything on his own.

He probably wanted to relax and take a different approach to music. Sugizo remembers, there is a song called “Drink or Die”, that hide came up with when they were drinking together. “I want to make a song about ‘drinking or dying’.”

“About drinking until you die…?”

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s the song I’m going to make.” (laughs)

He swiftly wrote down the lyric on some paper right there in that place.

He did. The group they always hung out and drank with was called the “Legion of Hell”, and he said he wanted to make a theme song for them. “Legion of Hell” was of course a KISS reference. (or was it?) When he drank, that guy often went wild.

Him, too?

When the others went into s drunken frenzy, hide would, too (laughs).

Sugizo didn’t?

Sugizo doesn’t frenzy (laughs). Sugizo doesn’t change when drunk, but hide could change completely, as if a switch was flipped. It would go into a fun direction, or he could play too hard and get injured. He’d mess up and break his bones. One time, he ran off with joy and didn’t notice a wall in front of him until he ran into it face first. After that, he was down for a day (laughs).

Referring to their shared photo session?

They were photographed together in connection with a magazine interview, but hide managed to run into a white wall so hard his make-up left the imprint of half his face on it (laughs) He was in high spirits, got injured, and went down. He was an entertaining guy. He could change completely from one moment to the next, get silly or start fighting. Then, suddenly, he’d give a lecture.

Lecture, in what sense?

He was a guy who would suddenly lecture you if he was drinking. Sugizo got those lectures, their other buddies got them, too. For example, both Sugizo and Yoshiki liked the word “art” and probably used it a lot. Hide, on the other hand, hated that word and would tell him, “Sugizo, don’t call every single thing you make art.” And, “What I do is also often called art, but that’s not what it is. It’s simply me doing things I enjoy. Those on their high horse speaking of “art” can go fuck themselves! Listen, Sugizo! Don’t say shit like that.” (sour smile)

He certainly wanted to emphasize that.

Hide had a lot of particular views, and if you went against those, it rubbed him the wrong way, Sugizo thinks. Anyway, the talk is all over the place. They spend so much time together, but hide has been gone for ten years, and the chronological order is all messed up. In those ten years, Sugizo changed a lot. In any case, in that time, he wanted to talk, to drink, to mingle with a lot of people. In that, he and hide matched perfectly. Nowadays, Sugizo wouldn’t be able to spend his time like that anymore. That said, he also doesn’t spend a lot of time peacefully at home.

He often got summoned.

Very often (laughs). He’d suddenly get told, “Come over now.” He did it, too, which is strange. They should have been very busy back then. How did they have time for that?

No cell phones back then

None whatsoever. How did hide manage to contact him? Sugizo didn’t have a cell phone until 1995. The time when they were constantly hanging out was around 1992, 1993, so there shouldn’t have been any cell phones available in the beginning. If Sugizo was in the studio for something, hide would find out about that, too, and contact him there. His talent for research was astonishing (laughs). Since he got along well with everyone in the office, he always got info on who was where and did what. Sugizo still can’t believe he was that informed in a time when cell phones weren’t a thing yet. Speaking on which, after drinking in Roppongi one time, they all went to eat ramen. While eating, hide asked if those ramen were tasty or not. “I honestly can’t tell the taste.” (laughs) He asked them, “Because I don’t know if they are good or not, tell me.” They then told him, “They’re good,” and he said “Yay!” and ate happily. It was one of those times where Sugizo thought he was weird. (laughs)

Hide’s lacking sense of taste is a topic within his circle of friends.

Between Yoshiki and hide, they also fought, each accusing the other of being taste-blind. It was pretty ridiculous. Also, when Luna Sea were still indies, when they were visiting hide’s place to drink, it happened that when morning came, hide would suddenly prepare a meal for them. He could cook, that guy. Suddenly, at six AM or so, he would go and make fried kimchi or something. He was a strange guy, but he was also a bundle of affection. Sugizo thinks he just loved taking care of people. “Come to my place and I’ll feed you!” He gave them lectures, chased them everywhere (laughs). Sugizo always responded to that affection, because it made him really happy. Above that, he always rushed to respond, because he wanted to be seen as someone who always came quickly, no matter what was going on (laughs).

Even if the other members couldn’t come, Sugizo always did.

Thinking about it now, Sugizo really went for it. And there was the “salt incident” that was really fun. Whenever Sugizo used the phrase “Did that have the right amount of salt?” [Meaning something like, “Did that match your expectations?] on some grandpa or someone in some town, and hide laughed his ass off. “Young people don’t talk like that these days. Can you also ask the audience at Luna Sea’s live if you gave them the right amount of salty flavour?” So Sugizo said, “If the opportunity come up.” (laughs) Thus promised, several days later, Sugizo addressed the audience at an outdoor concert in Hibiya with, “Did that have the right amount of salt, you fuckers?” and hide lost it again (laughs).

Before that performance, hide excitedly wondered if Sugizo would really do it.

The strange thing is, hide was bad at dirty talk. One day, he askes Sugizo, and seemed to struggle with it, “The boy’s bit, ca… can you say that?” Sugizo thought he asked weird questions. And when he in return asked, “Do you mean ‘penis*’?”, hide was excited. “Amazing! You can say it! So manly! I admire you!” It was a great commotion. “None of the X-members can say it.” So Sugizo said, “Ours is a band that makes a lot of dirty jokes. So, it’s okay for you to give it a try.” And hide tried, “Pe… pe… No! I can’t say it!” and hung his head (laughs). Sugizo thought he was weird, but Yoshiki can’t say it even now (laughs). But, after starting his solo activities, hide managed to yell the word “Penis!” on stage. Sugizo thinks it was their influence, pulling him down to their level (laughs). In the beginning, he was above such things.

[*) Ironically, the word is censored throughout the text.]

His mental state changed (laughs).

For the sake of showmanship, he knew no shame. After the performance, they told him, “hide-san, you changed. Now you can say the word “penis” on stage with all your might!” and hide was super happy because he, too, had become a grown-up (laughs).

He grew up, right. (laughs)

Sugizo thinks that hide was such a great person thanks to his amazing family. Both his father and his mother were very warm people and thus able to raise a person like that. Sugizo was quite jealous of the good relationship hide had with his parents. It’s well known that Luna Sea is a band where everyone came from a broken home environment, so the warmth of a household, the affection of father and mother is something they barely experienced. That’s why hide was such an incredibly warm guy himself. The Luna Sea guys were all rebellious, messed up people. Even though they are now in their late thirties and have mostly left their childhood traumas behind, in their twenties it was still very present. The still dragged their childhood environment and traumas with them, had trouble with their personal relationships, didn’t express themselves well – there were all sorts of issues. To Sugizo at that time, hide’s family was something he envied him for. Even now hide’s parents are wonderful to him. Whenever he meets them, they invite him to their home. “Pata-chan comes often, so, come with him.” They are so full of affection, it’s amazing.

Has he ever done a session together with hide?

Yes, at the power station, when Sugizo was still indies. Hide sang, Sugizo played the guitar, Shinya was on drums, and on bass was Sexy Rose Harry. They played songs by Damned and Ziggy Stardust. Nostalgic. That was in 1991, a long time before hide started his solo activities, but Sugizo wonders if he wasn’t developing a vision for that back then. The way he sang changed a lot. He got serious about it. If he had to sing, he abstained from alcohol, went to bed early to stay healthy. He said to Ryuichi, “Singers are really respectable. I’m not there yet.” And then he worked hard to get there.

Did he see Sugizo’s solo activities?

He probably did, but since that started just before he died, they didn’t discuss it much. Luna Sea started their solo activities when X was in the process of breaking up, so hide was dealing with his own problems. He talked a lot to J, who was based in L.A., but didn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk to Sugizo or the others. But Sugizo hung out with the members of Spread Beaver, since he’s friends with all of them. In the year before hide died, they only met a few times and didn’t get to talk about their solo music much. If they had, Sugizo imagines it something like this: hide would have asked him if he was still playing with “art”, Sugizo would have insisted on going with that, and then hide would have told him not to, and they would have gotten into an argument (laughs).

Is there anything he would like to say to hide?

The things hide did have now blossomed to their full meaning. Hide and the things he wanted to express are now loved throughout the world. Sugizo wants to say, “Congratulations!” The distance between the countries is disappearing and hide’s music is now going out into the world. Some people had problems because CDs are not selling anymore, but there are now other ways for music to be distributed. Sugizo often wonders what hide would be doing if he were still alive in this time. He would probably be at the forefront of some brand new thing. When he thinks about such things, Sugizo wants to say, “It was too early, hide-san!” If you live a long life, various people are going to die before you. Those who die young are eternally beautiful, those left behind are, struggling and shining, growing older day by day. Sugizo, for his part, plans to keep doing music with all his strength until he goes to the place where hide is. He wants to keep doing music to the point where he gets as far as hide has gone.

#hide #hide bible #x japan #Sugizo #Luna Sea #interview #summary #this took forever #it was very interesting #but for now I'll be happy to not touch another interview for a while #funny thing: there was one part I didn't understand at all #and then while editing this I happened to come across a fan comic about the very incident Sugizo was talking about #and suddenly it all made sense

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