──After the release of your previous album, "POP VIRUS," and the five-dome tour that followed, Hoshino-san temporarily fell into a state of "burnout syndrome." You had a strong feeling that you had done everything you could, right?
Gen Hoshino
That's right. To begin with, until I released my first album, "Baka no Uta," I didn't think my songs were something that other people should listen to. I wrote songs as a hobby, but they were just personal things, and I was embarrassed to let other people hear them. Above all, they were very important to me, so I didn't want to be judged as "good/bad" or "like/dislike" by releasing them to the world.
However, Haruomi Hosono and the original director, Eiichi Azuma, asked me to release a song album, and when they asked me to, I had no choice but to do it. So I decided to put my life on the line and give it a try, and that's how it all began.
--So you were prepared for that.
Hoshino
Actually, I prefer working behind the scenes. Of course, I had been releasing instrumental songs with SAKEROCK for a long time, but from there, I started climbing the mountain, taking the lead as Hoshino Gen Hoshino and waving the flag myself.
So after releasing the album and revealing my dark side, I realized that I actually had a different side to me, so I tried to write brighter songs and steadily push my music mainstream, and with the success of "POP VIRUS" and the five-dome tour, I felt like I'd reached the top. I felt like I'd done everything I could.
──I think the turning point that helped you get out of that feeling of despair was the EP "Same Thing," which you released digitally in 2019.
Hoshino
I've always thought that if I was going to release my own world under my own name, I had to dig deep into every detail myself. That's why I purposely avoided featuring anyone, but then I got burned out and thought, wait a minute. I wanted to look outside my own world, and that's why I collaborated with SUPERORGANISM, Tom Misch, and PUNPEE on "Same Thing."
By making music with them, I was able to rediscover the fundamental joy of music. However, at the time, it felt like I was diving into their world, so I thought I would try to express that expanded world in my own work, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
──That must have completely derailed your original plans.
Hoshino
I had just completed a world tour and had intended to perform more live shows overseas. But that didn't happen, so I decided to use this opportunity to rethink my songwriting methods. I had always thought I could make songs more interesting, so in my spare time I learned from scratch how to compose songs on a DA W (Digital Audio Workstation). That's where the making of this album really began.
──Has your relationship with music changed as your songwriting method has changed?
Hoshino
Originally, I would imagine a landscape in my head, and then work on getting closer to it and developing it further through sessions with the players, but I feel like I've gotten to the point where I can draw the original landscape without any stress. I'm really bad at drawing, but I guess this is how I feel when I draw a picture well (laughs).
It was like a breaker in my heart had gone off, snapping.
While the way you compose music has changed, the world has also changed dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic. How have you felt about those changes?
Hoshino
When the COVID-19 pandemic first began, I thought that because I couldn't do certain things, I might be able to do things that I hadn't been able to do before. That's the case with "Uchi de Odorou." I'd never released a song on social media before, but I thought now was the time.
It was also great to have the opportunity to focus on the sound quality of the livestreamed concert. There are people who can't come to the venue for various reasons, so I think it's a wonderful change to be able to deliver a live concert experience with high-quality sound to those people.
But even after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, the world continued to move in a strange direction...or rather, everyone says that the world is heading in a strange direction. But I think the world has always been strange. It's just that it's become easier to visualize things, but the world and society at large have always fundamentally been strange.
──How was this realization reflected in your new album, "Gen"?
Hoshino
Hmm... The word "despair" has a slightly pop ring to it, doesn't it? No, it feels like a circuit breaker in my heart has snapped. I've become nothing.
Over the past few years, I've felt terrible about the nasty things in the world and the malice that keeps attacking me, and I've tried so hard to find a way to fight back, to turn it into something positive, but then it suddenly clicked. I thought, "Ah, never mind." I felt a sense of awakening towards the world. It wasn't so much despair as it was a sense of disgust.
Right now, I have absolutely no desire to inject hope or positive messages into my music. I have music that wells up from within me, and I have poems that express how I see the world, and these songs are just a record of that.
Of course, I think the album turned out like this because of the five years since the COVID-19 pandemic, but maybe it's something I've felt since I was a child, long before that. That the world is just like this.
