-Please tell us about the time you formed.
Ken Morioka: At first we were in a 5 member band named "Volaju." After it became the 3 of us and we carried on as "Soft Ballet". That was 86'.

-Why did you end up with 3 members?
Ken: At last it ended up with the three of us making the sound, and then it was easier to move forward like that.

-And what was the incentive for starting with the electronic sound you have now?
Ken: The music basically hasn't changed much since the time there were 5 of us, but it's not that we were specifically aiming for it. This is the sound we had from the time we started, and simply put we liked it. Right?
Ryouichi Endo: Yeah, the 3 of us are together on that.
Ken: Of course in regard to that field our skills are all separate though.

-What's the band's average age?
Ken: 21...I guess?

- At first glace I thought of YMO's "Senrei" but what do you think of them?
Ryouichi: Well, I did like it...
Ken: I imagine we're each different, but I liked Gary Newman. He was a huge influence.
Maki Fujii: More than electronic Noise, things like Nocturnal Emissions and the early SPK.

-What about TG?
Maki: Ah...Um, I was also an original member of Berugeruta. Before they were known.

-What!? REALLY?! How did the three of you end up meeting?
Ken: In the beginning it was just night ravers. Like we liked the same things and going to the same places (laughs). We met at a club.

- You three were night ravers? (laughs)
Ken: We all had our different things we were into but yeah (laughs).

-Clubs? Around where?
Ken: It was 5 or 6 years ago, but Tsubaki House or Nichome.

-How do you go about with song composition?
Maki: I do it all by myself.
Ken: I do it myself until it reaches a certain level of song...

- Right now the "Rock" movement is mainstream. When you're made your album were you aware of that?
Ken: In the end we did intend to make this album fit in a little with that.
Maki: Because with Soft Ballet about 90% of the song-writing process is already decided before we enter the recording stage, and because we've got a pretty clear image, we really weren't thinking too much about that.

-When did you pick up the synthesizer?
Ken: I guess it was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. At that time it was things like the Jupiter 4 or Mono Shinse's SH.

- Ones that can't make an eastern sound?
Ken: Right. My Dad was in the music industry and that's how I picked it up. After that I was always playing the piano and the like but I thought the synth was more interesting.

- You don't use a computer?
Ken: I use it in making the songs, but other than that Maki's the only one who does anything on it.
Maki: I don't use it for video games!
Ken: (laughs) You mean you're not in the Legion of Otaku?
Maki: I'm not a gamer so no.

- You create software?
Maki: I did that kind of otaku stuff long ago. Well...more than playing around on the computer...if you ask what I do, I guess there are some pretty strange things. Normally I use hte computer in writing songs, and after that I play around and make noises, etc.

- Is "Electric Body Beat" a catch phrase that you had in mind from the time you started?
Ken: It's something that Maki proposed about two years ago, but it's not that we'd always chosen the naming with a genre differentiation in mind. It was more like, "Well, what should we call the music we make anyway?"
Maki: It's got some parts people'd like to say are techno and electro-pop, and it's not really industrial. And so I fretted over it and we never really had anything to describe it. That's the sound concept.

- Aren't you aware of WAXTRAX type music?
Maki: There it is. That's it, isn't it. But I want to say here that they're different from us. It's just that the place I'm personally aiming for is a little different than the popular wave of industrial music. And I do want to aim for that, but it has nothing to do with "Electronic Body Music." So Soft Ballet's "Electronic Body Beat" is one notion that we'll have to manifest and gradually build up.

- I get the sense that the word "body" is a key in this. More than being sensious, is it that it's going to become entirely machanical-like and cold?
Maki: We're not introverting it and turning it upon itself; it's what's on the outside.

- The lyrics weren't in Japanese before though.
Ryouichi: Yeah. I guess we wanted to bump up our degree of persuasion.
Ken: In terms of the lyrics, the psychological side is correspondingly strong.
Ryouichi: So for example at lives and stuff you can have a good time dancing as a corporial reaction to the sound of the music, and then you can contrast that to the lyrics, think them over, that inverse side to the music might be interesting.

- Going by the album title it seems to be about the current issue of environmental destruction...
Ryouichi: Ah, I'm not following that. The lyrics're on a thoroughly individual emotional level, thing's that've come to mind while I was watching the sky and the like. It's not like I was thinking this or that problem over and decided to write about it..
Ken: Hmm, but in that regard I think they're tied into a lot of different things, so I have a feeling there are definitely a lot of people who feel those kinds of things right now, even if they're not really aware of it.

- So then, I think the kind of Western music you're all been influenced by is often referred to as fairly ephemeral or pleasure-seeking...
Ken: Yeah. Rather than saying it's "pleasure seeking", it's more that I've always been fascinated by the joy-like feeling in degradation and decadence, and I think that's something everyone has in common. But then it changes depending on the person, and I've come to favor a "paradise" more than anything else myself.

-And is your interest in the club scene still as strong?
Ken: In terms of our sound element we want to keep on the forefront of the club scene, but that in itself is superficial, and perhaps my honestly there's not much of interest to me in the fundamentals of the movement itself. I think that in terms of modern music the club seen definitely reflects the times more than the so-called rock movement. In that way I don't think it's something that can be ignored. So we're going with it. But that's not to say we're going to be swayed by it on the fundamental level. Of course there is a sense where we'll incorporate one element of it as a nuance and so such though.

-Electronic bands have a tendency to be prejudiced towards studio work, but Soft Ballet has put on a lot of lives too. What can you tell me about the lives?
Ryouichi: I guess with this kind of band we don't think it'll get boring if we do the lives and recordings together the typical way.
Ken: Right. In supporting that aspect it's not the appeal of the members we rely on. We'll defer to a different aspect or something, like we'll add in dancers, and if we're just using them for support it's okay but we don't want them to end up the main focus. In the end it definitely absolutely has to be that wthe 3 of us appeal to people as performers.

- When I saw the stage I thought of how you were the weirdest one Ken. Is that because you were thinking of that visual aspect?
Ken: Ah, well...(laughs). A large part of that comes from where I'm a narcissist and I'm all like "Lookie, lookie! Look at Meee!". And then there's the part of me that really loves and adores appearing to move in a state that's transcended gender, so I suppose that's where I'm coming from....

-Meaning?
Ken: It's that I've gotten a lot of influence from various people, but I've been like this from a long time ago. I really wanted to become a woman, and I never really thought to deny that feeling. It doesn't mean I'm gay though. There's a sense that I was building up and developing my own preferences.

-When you really want to relax and have some time to yourself, what's the one type of music you'd devote yourself to?
Ken: These days I've been listening solely to acoustic stuff.
Ryouichi: I like quiet ones best.
Maki: Recently? It's De-Forum and the like...

Tsubaki....*lol*
~saku saku saku saku~
I think that's the entire interview (my friend emailed it to me)

If I didn't like being a girl I would probably wish I were a man, just because it seems easier to have an electronic band if you're a man who hangs around Nichome.
In fact, I think I did wish that once.
But in the end I imagine being a man would really suck (laughs) So I'm good as I am.
...though I would like to be thinner....

On a foppy anthropological note:
I like how Moriken predicted the rise of club culture, and the apathy and escapism that would manifest themselves in Japanese culture after the burst of the Bubble Economy.
I also like Mr. Fujii's taste in music. This was a good interview, and probably the only one out there that's in English so WoOtz~ it's from 1989 I think.