Musician Break Down:  JUN & IORI SPIV STATES

Guitar Heroes:

• JUN: hide from X, Imai from BUCK TICK.
• IORI: I like Miyavi… MIYAVI!

Favorite Band/s Growing Up:

• JUN&IORI: X, definitely X, & LUNA SEA

First guitar ever owned:

• JUN: A Black Les Paul I spent all my New Year’s gift money on.  It was my 2^nd year of Junior High School.
• IORI: I worked so hard and saved my pennies & dollars for my first Stratocaster.

As a beginner, first song ever learned on guitar:

• JUN: Blue Blood from X
• IORI: A children’s school song/melody

If you can do one cover song, which song would it be?

          JUN&IORI: hide’s PINK SPIDER!!

Current Axe of Choice:

• JUN: ESP Mocking Bird JUN Model
• IORI: ESP Horizon 3

Pick Size:

• JUN & IORI: 1mm heavy

First of all congrats on “SPIV STATES”, and thank you for your time and talking with us. 

I’d like to go back a bit and focus on your music history that lead up to SPIV STATES.

You are both very well known for being the guitarist of a very influential Visual Kei band “Phantasmagoria”.  What did you learn from being in Phantasmagoria, and what have you as a musician taken with you from that experience?

• JUN: What I have learned from Phantasmagoria is…well, each member had a completely different character from one another, so getting together to create something that satisfied everyone was not easy.  However through our passion for music and dedication to the fans, we made it work.  I don’t know how we made it, but mainly the music chemistry was there.  Or perhaps even a miracle came upon us.  The environment was great, and each member & staff where all amazing.  We were quite blessed.  I’m so happy to share such great times with everyone.  I feel that is one of the most important things in being in a band, is having a good time.
Simply put, based on my experience with Phantasmagoria, I should appreciate my environment and have a great time with the members.

• IORI: As JUN said, each member was unique and had totally different characteristic. That’s why we could create such awesome music adding elements from each member. Phantasmagoria was a well-balanced band. They always supported me no matter what. You can learn a lot if you have the best members around supporting you. Phantasmagoria was disbanded, yet I will continue to use that experience to support each member and make the band better. Well, to sum up...Phantasmagoria was a band that gathered weird people. (lol)

SHION to JUN: After Phantasmagoria you went on to do solo work as attic what did you want to accomplish as a musician with attic? How was your experience being a solo artist?

• JUN:  When I did my solo work on attic, I wanted to focus just on music only, no music videos or what not.  I wrote songs when I was in Phantasmagoria, but as you know Phantasmagoria has a certain sound. I would write songs that match Phantasmagoria.  However I often would compose many songs that didn’t fit with that concept.  I wanted people to listen to my music that which was quite different than the Phantasmagoria sound.  Simply, I wanted to show another side of my writing style as a solo artist.

SHION to IORI:  You also dabbled with a solo project releasing "Surely".  What did you learn as a solo artist and has that solo experience helped with SPIV STATES?

• IORI: Laugh. I really don’t considerate it a “Solo Artist”, I was just doing that for fun when we had certain live events. Therefore I cannot really say that the experience brought stuff to SPIV STATES.  It was mainly just to have fun as a musician.

Now there is SPIV STATES. First of all, I love it!  You mentioned that you both tried out other singers at first in your Cure Magazine interview (see latest Cure Issue for SPIV STATES cover shoot).  JUN, you have experience being a front man, why didn’t you just plan on being the vocal from the start?

• JUN: I certainly have experience being a singer. However, I’m guitarist by trade; being a guitarist is what I had have done since I started. And wanted to focus more on that.  As an inevitable consequence, I was thinking to start a new band that has a front man and me on guitar. Unfortunately I was unable to find a vocalist that matched the sound of SPIV STATES. Also, when I sang as a test for SPIV STATES, I found out that my singing matches SPIV STATES well. Thus I changed my mind and started guitar-vocal, which is the current SPIV STATES style.

So basically your original idea was the two of to focus 100% on guitar playing?

• JUN & IORI: Yes, most definitely.

Who writes most of the songs for SPIV STATES?

• JUN: Well, I’m in charge of lyrics and vocal-melody part.

In the past you did a special acoustic set together which I really enjoyed called “Ore no Shio”.  Will your fans be able to see more of that type of sound in spiv states?

• JUN: Laugh. We don’t have plans to use the acoustic guitar in this band, but I like to play it, so I’d like to show acoustic sets if we have some special live occasion.
• IORI: We can add the acoustic sound in parts of a song, but it’s difficult to make acoustic-music as spiv states. (Laugh) Well you may see acoustic sets someday somewhere.

Perhaps at a U.S. live….?

• JUN: Could be.

You guys have had a long both working and friendship relationship, how is it working with someone you’ve known and played together with not only in Phantasmagoria but previous bands as well? Negative & Positive

• IORI: To me it cannot be described as a Negative or Positive. We share a connection through music and the guitar, that’s basically what it comes down to.
• JUN: The best part about working with someone whom you known and played with for so long is that we can always tell what one another is thinking.  At times we really don’t need to say a word to each other since we already know what is on each other’s minds. This is a very positive point working with a long term partner.  Nevertheless, due to our long relationship, once one of us gets lazy, the other gets lazy too (laughs).

Viva Sonic your first release of SPIV STATES catches me right away from intro to the end with music and vocals.  Not only is it positive, but also a hard rock'n song! I for one can't picture any other vocal that would fit right with the music except yourself and to know that IORI is playing side by side with you is amazing.  Can you talk about the writing process for Viva Sonic?

• JUN: You mentioned it “ROCK”; we focus on whether the sound is a rock’n sound, and how we can rock out at our live shows. This was our one and only focus on VIVA SONIC. So when I write a song, I first imagine myself on stage. In regards to the lyrics, I put simple messages that we want to tell audience, and what we want people to feel. VIVA SONIC is really simple and song to Rock out to.

Can you talk in depth of the over sound style of SPIV STATES? And what you want to show fans through SPIV STATES?

• JUN: Well… As far as sound, we are not trying to make a sound that everybody says “awesome!” We rather make our original sound though we are still struggling. When we record music, we try and manage everything by ourselves even though we are not fully skilled enough, such as composing, music arrangement, adding certain electric parts, etc.  That way by us doing everything ourselves, you can be 100% that this is the sound of spiv states. It’s what we put into to it, and nobody else.
  
• IORI: Our sound style… uh I don’t really know. (Laugh) I’m not really working hard to make a certain style of music. Automatically, the sound turns to music that is matching “spiv states”. I kind of have an image of the sound, but not trying to follow my image. Image of a song would change depending on what you feel at that moment in time. I don’t mind if each of our songs sounds totally different as long as it’s our original sound.

What are some future projects for SPIV STATES?

• JUN: We just started; thus we haven’t done anything special yet. However I really want to have One-Man live in Japan. Why don’t we do it in summer, IORI?
• IORI: I’d love to! One-Man live!
• JUN: And also we are thinking to release another single before the One-Man live. That’s about it.

Do you have plans to take SPIV STATES on tour outside of Japan?  If so, I better be involved. And if we can get a verbal contract now please, Onegaishimasu.

• JUN: We have a lot of music that we want to release, which is not out yet. Simple we just want more and more people to enjoy our music. Well… we are cool and our sound is cool, isn’t it? So then you should just listen to it! (Laugh) Hahaha
• JUN: We used to copy musicians who we respect, and it was fun! I’m so glad there are people who copy and practice our songs. I want to improve more for those who like our guitar work.
• IORI: Yea, we are going to make it! Gambaru!
• Hai (Laugh)

Would you both mind doing a video guitar break down of the intro and guitar solo of Viva Sonic for your fans across the world?

• JUN & IORI: Most definitely!

(video will be posted here soon. Be sure to join Cure Rock Streaming Radio mailing list for updates)

Could you please give a message to your fans across the world?