I’m happy to announce that the third issue of Akari Tsushin has been released in English!
As with Issue #1 and Issue #2, the designs for this digital magazine are created by Sakakibara Kaori.
See below for an exclusive sneak peek.
Kadoya: I’m sure each of you are at times amazed by each other’s respective talents. What specific qualities about one another make you feel this way?
Someya: With Nagai it’s what I was just talking about. He’s fundamentally a singer-songwriter, so to me he’s at his best when singing to his own accompaniment. Out of the three of us, he’s the one with the most potential for growth. As for Kaori, her singing was flawless from the beginning, and since around the time she started writing lyrics more frequently for Minuano she even became a good lyricist.
Kadoya: How about you, Nagai?
Nagai: Someya is someone who was always writing songs ever since he first started doing music, and while I used to think that made him a crazy person, at this point I’m just amazed he’s never wavered when it comes to that. (laughs) Kaori has a great sense of music, but also great musical talent physically speaking—she’s got good vocal pitch as well as a good sense of rhythm.
Kadoya: And what about you, Kaori?
Sakakibara: Taiyo spares no effort in accomplishing whatever it is he wants to do.
Nagai: But it’s like to him it doesn’t even feel like “effort.” It’s just this… abnormality of his.
Sakakibara: Maybe “trouble” is the right word? Anyway, while on the one hand I do think he’s amazing, on the other hand he can be a little too pushy, to the point that it’s scary.
Kadoya: Pushy?
Sakakibara: For example, if he has some idea that me and Nagai can’t seem to quite keep up with, Taiyo will force a deadline on us. He’ll say like, “All right then, get it done by this date.”
Someya: Well, I’d argue that by societal standards the things I tell you two to get done is less than the absolute bare minimum.
Sakakibara: In any case, I do think you’re amazing for all the trouble you put yourself through.
Nagai: Yes, amazing. Amazingly abnormal. (laughs)
Someya: If anything, I think it’s you two who are weird.
Sakakibara: Nagai is someone who would do fine even just by himself. He’s so good at singing his own songs, but when it comes to Taiyo’s songs it’s like he becomes a different person.
Nagai: I feel like if I really practiced I might be a halfway decent singer, but I just can’t. I have this curse that won’t let me sing. I think it was those early recording experiences—they affected me in a bad way. I wasn’t very good, and our recording engineer at the time kept telling me how bad I was.
Kadoya: He said that to you? Directly?
Nagai: Yes. But it’s not like we were even on bad terms or anything.
Someya: You’d always had a pretty negative personality to begin with. That must’ve made you totally lose confidence.
Nagai: Right. I used to sing all the time before we started the band, but ever since that happened I’d hardly ever sing anymore.
Kadoya: You must’ve been traumatized. (laughs)
Nagai: Yeah. He put a curse on me. (laughs)
Kadoya: Is there no way to lift that curse?
Nagai: One thing I’ve recently really been thinking about is to stop writing songs. Maybe that.
Sakakibara: What does that have to do with it?
Nagai: I’m just so bad at dealing with things internally. But I bet if I decided I was only going to focus on singing, I might be able to manage that. It’s when you start piling things like writing and composing on top of that, then it becomes difficult.
Kadoya: That’s unexplored territory for me—I don’t sing.
Nagai: Something I recently find myself thinking is that maybe all this time I’ve just been doing something I’m not good at.
Kadoya: Huh.
Nagai: The reason I’ve kept going all this time is because I happened to be decent at composing. Originally I wasn’t someone who wrote their own songs. But Someya told me to try… And when I did, I found that I could. But initially I was a singer. So I feel like all this time I’ve kept doing something I’m simply not very good at.
Kadoya: It took you 21 years of writing songs to come to this realization? (laughs)
Nagai: Yep. 21 years. (laughs)
The above is only a small excerpt from the opening interview. Do check out the full issue to read about the Lamp members’ childhood interests, their feelings towards recent music and the music scene, their thoughts about streaming services, how aging has influenced their music making, difficult recording experiences, their life plans 20 years into the future, and much more!
Please head over to the Lamp Spotify Store and show Lamp your support with a purchase. It sends a clear message that you want to hear more from them in English.