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Interview with AIMI – music.jp

The colorful future envisioned by AIMI(ex. Stereopony)and her feelings towards her songs “I hate hating things, but I want to have lots of things I like.”
The long awaited solo album from former Stereopony lead vocalist/guitarist AIMI will be released on April 4th, 2018. She spoke with us about how she would like to choose her own path herself, the powerful story behind the creation of her lead song “#Brand New Choice” and the filming of her MV.


AIMI(ex. stereopony)


AIMI(ex. stereopony)During the interview(1)

——Congratulations on your release. It is your true start as a solo artist.

AIMI: Thank you very much. “Aimilion” is, again, is my next departure as AIMI, the album was created from the starting point of “What kind of music do I want to make? It was made from a stock zero situation and it was made with everyone’s feeling of wanting to do our best from here on out.

——It is a completely different sound from the image of AIMI up until now but, how does it feel to you yourself?

AIMI: That’s right. Looking towards the production of “Aimilion” as a new departure point, I felt like I wanted to challenge completely unrelated genres and methods. At that time, it ended up as a co-production situation, and I was taught about “co-writing”. It wasn’t produced for me, including myself, we each had our own responsibilities, and we all had places where we could hang back and it was a interesting, challenging process.

——How was the “Co-writing” process its self?

AIMI:With the music production team Co-Writing Farm(CWF, each song was made by a team of three including myself, we each had things we were good at and that communication and exchange while making a song was a first for me but it was interesting. The melody was made after deciding the track’s BPM, the chord progression, and synthesizer tone so it was completely different than when I was in a band.

It wasn’t just expressing our opinions and hopes into the form but sometimes just taking things in the moment and a lot of catch ball, that way we were able to bring out a completely different feeling and AIMI-like feeling than I would be able to do by myself. “Aimilion” includes songs that I co-wrote going into my 2017 one man live and some songs I did additional brush ups on.

——Was the lead song “#Brand New Choice” also co-written?

AIMI: This song was made with 2 female writers and was the last song completed but by the 2017 one man live, we had an outline demo. At that point, I felt like it was too soon to be singing the song but I added the demo as stock. While the other songs all have a reckless, sad, or frustrating tone, I felt like I was dropping warm feelings and I wanted to work towards a more positive message saying “I want to keep up the favorite things about myself” and “I want to live by believing in myself unconditionally”. Now I think that “#Brand New Choice” has a very general appeal. There was also a feeling of “What would happen if I seriously tried pop now?” so I changed the arrangement to make it into a more positive and forward facing song.

——Of course, AIMI-san’s feelings are packed into this.

AIMI:When I decided I wanted to make music again, I knew these might be difficult things in the future but, I like what I like, and I felt like I wanted to do it bigger and stronger this time. There were times when I ignored my own feelings and thought “forget it” and gave up. Since we were co-writing there was a lot of communication like “What about this?” “I like this” “That’s very AIMI-like” and because those feelings were there, I was able to continue. At those times, those honest feelings themselves ended up becoming lyrics.

Fans also participated in MV shooting!?

AIMI(ex. Stereopony)During the interview(2)

AIMI(ex.Stereopony)During the interview(3)

——During the MV shooting, were there any points which AIMI-san fixated over?

AIMI:I left the angles and the story to the director but, I was fixated on the setting and ambiance. Since it is an album with colorful songs, I didn’t want the color black to be captured too much. Also, I also chose albums that would match a colorful. The scarf brand Viviana Zoe helped a lot with the outfits so the actors, extras, and of course me, were wearing scarves. They should us a lot of their products in a meeting beforehand and taught us the variation in ways to wrap them, and also came out on the day of shooting to help with the styling.

I normally wear a normal t-shirt with denim but putting a scarf on made me feel like I moved closer to my ideal adult. In the MV, I feel like the image we were trying to get is the image of how, having become adults a bit, we spend our everyday. A long time ago, I feel like there was the message of “I don’t want to become an adult” strongly ingrained into the music but, now I feel like having continued to make music this long “I can make this music now because of all the people I’ve met because I became an adult” and that had an effect on the outfits as well.

「Aimilion」is an album with music created from everyone’s love

AIMI(ex. Stereopony)During the interview(4)

——I’m looking forward to hearing “Aimilion” during lives

AIMI:I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of beasts the songs of “Aimilion” change into during lives. It wasn’t an album created from a concept so each one of the 13 songs is a heavyweight. I want everyone to look for a song they like. “Cotton” and “We-know” are regular songs from lives but “Wait up!” is also a song that can get you excited at a live. Don’t miss out on “Midsummer Rendezvous”!

The message that “Everyone’s love will connect to the future and become sound”(Minna no Ai ga Mirai ni Tsunagatte Oto ni Naru) was the meaning injected into the title “Aimilion” so I want it to reach everyone’s feelings and go to various places. Lives have also been decided in the city and in my hometown of Okinawa so if everyone looks forward to that, I’ll be happy. During the CAMPFIRE crowdfunding, there was also a lot of suppose from overseas so we also tried crowdfunding for overseas fans and I really felt that there are a lot of people supporting me. So in order to live up to those expectations, so I want to sort everything out a but and challenge more and more new things.

——Please tell us how you feel about 2018 and beyond.


AIMI(ex. Stereopony)During the interview(5)

AIMI:Since there was a lot of coming and going, I feel like I became very open and I want to continue and find new things about myself. I feel like the times that you just have to get through and bitter feelings are the same with everyone. I can only express those feelings thought music so I feel like if I can get everyone to feel like “Everyone is living as best as they can” then that surpasses music. Since life only comes once, I want to enjoy every second of it.
(Interviewer: Hashimoto Yuuka)

Translated by crimsonknight4

This interview was originally published May 11, 2018
http://music-book.jp/music/news/interview/185933/

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