Music Natalie - SCANDAL's Line of sight Interview

The present location of this all-girl band in their 17th year of existence, after having swept through their long-desired world tour

---

SCANDAL has released their new single Line of sight.

The title track, "Line of sight," which has been out on streaming services since March 15, is a fast-paced and big-boned rock tune written as the theme song for the arcade card game "Mobile Suit Gundam Arsenal Base LINXTAGE" out now. The single also includes the new song "Vision," written by RINA.

This is Music Natalie's interview with SCANDAL, who will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of their major label debut this October. They talked at length about the year 2022, which they swept through with their album MIRROR; stories about the production of their new work Line of sight; and big plans for the future.

---

No one gave up, no matter the circumstances

──Since the release of your album MIRROR last January, SCANDAL has been spending their days being immersed in performing live: your world tour that was held in Japan, North America, and Europe; appearing at numerous festivals; and playing joint concerts. What kind of year was 2022?

HARUNA: I think it was a year in which we were able to make big moves with the release of MIRROR, but I feel that our progress was slow and deliberate due to the still-large effects of the pandemic. Our activities are currently gaining momentum, so I suppose it was like a preparation period for that—or rather, it was a time to get our bodies used to things little by little. Still, it was a very happy year for us, since we were able to see our overseas fans on our first world tour in forever.

TOMOMI: I'm happy we got to properly convey our album MIRROR through our concerts. We do have some regrets, though, since some performances were canceled due to ud contracting COVID halfway through our overseas tour, but it was a relief to really feel that things were starting to move again (laughs).

MAMI: As we continued to work, we were able to sense signs that the world was gradually improving, so it was significant for us to feel like perhaps it's okay to think about the future. In that sense, it was a very hopeful year for us. Those sentiments led in part to the title of our "unlimited UTOPIA" tour.

RINA: To be honest, there were many moments when we felt discouraged. But each time we did, the four of us and our staff team supported each other and worked hard to get through the year. We were able to endure that year because none of us gave up, no matter what the situation was. We should be able to turn this experience into strength and open new doors by ourselves again—that's what I feel now.



──Along with your concerts, you were also actively engaged in songwriting.

RINA: That's right. The only way to move a band forward is to write new songs. It's hard to stay where we are now, so we keep trying to move forward. It may not be fast, but as soon as we have a song, we start pre-production and work on it. Among them, we received a tie-in offer and wrote "Line of sight."

"What should I start with when writing a rock song, again?"

──"Line of sight" was written as the theme song for the arcade card game "Mobile Suit Gundam Arsenal Base LINXTAGE." When was its production period?

HARUNA: Around last October.

RINA: Yeah. We heard about the offer in the dressing room at Zepp Nagoya when we played a joint-band concert with SiM. They asked us to finish it in a month, so we started concentrating on making it accordingly.

──You discussed things with the game's staff during the production process

RINA: Yes. The creative team of "Arsenal Base" is the same age as us, and apparently has known about SCANDAL for a long time. They conveyed their passion of wanting to incorporate a rock tune of SCANDAL's into the game scenes. The rock song they requested was something that we could show our strengths in, and it matched really well with how we wanted to start off 2023 with a powerful song. It felt like we were in a great mood to start production.



──The music was written by MAMI.

MAMI: Yes. I think I've spoken about this before, but in the last few years I've had a hard time making songs that show off an aggressiveness. After a period of not being able to perform live due to the pandemic, I didn't know where to direct my feelings when making songs. That kept up for a long time, so although this time as well I felt, "What should I start with when writing a rock song, again?", during discussions with the other band members, we decided that we wanted a song with a strong guitar riff. From there, I decided to make as many riffs as I could and let the members choose which they liked best. Then, once the riffs were finalized, I would send them several melodies for the chorus. We repeated this process as we worked on the song.

──I'm picturing the members making choices and stacking the parts up one by one to make this song.

MAMI: That's right. Until now I had often made fully arranged demos and then would have everyone listen to it, so this was pretty much the first time we made a demo like this.

RINA: We understood and accepted that that's how MAMI works, so as a band we felt like any method would be totally fine. Also, all of the riffs and melodies that MAMI comes up with have been really cool and made us really excited when we heard them, so even though this wasn't our normal approach, we weren't worried at all. If anything, we believed that we could definitely come up with a cool song, so we were looking forward to MAMI's ideas.

HARUNA: She sent us different patterns of phrases played on acoustic guitar, and basically all the ones that we thought were good were the same.

TOMOMI: Yeah. We were really quick to decide.

MAMI: It was a very new thing for us to make a song like this, and since song-wise it turned out to be ideal, I realized again that I don't have to worry about writing songs alone all the time (laughs). In my case, I have a habit of cramming in a lot of sounds or phrases, but this time I feel that everyone's opinions helped me to find the right balance. We were able to create a simple but very energetic rock tune.



──It does have a fairly heavy sound. The sound pressure is also impressive.

TOMOMI: The bass is also pretty distorted. It was refreshing since we haven't really taken that approach recently.

MAMI: Before we recorded it, she was scowling while saying, "It might take a little time to record the bass." But once we actually started, it wasn't like that at all. That was some great playing, as expected (laughs).

TOMOMI: Ahahaha. I thought it might take a long time because I was trying to change the rhythm in some places, but it went surprisingly smoothly. I'm used to playing this type of music, and I think I'm good at it. Since this song was to be played during the most exciting battle scenes of the game, I was very content to have created a speedy rock tune appropriate for those scenes.

MAMI: HARU's voice really fits it as well.

Music is unfair

──The lyrics are by RINA. The lyrics are nice and very much in line with the world of "Mobile Suit Gundam," while at the same time appealing to the hearts of the listeners.

RINA: At any rate, I wanted to make something that would meet all expectations (laughs). I personally wasn't the type that ardently watched Gundam as a child, so I asked the game staff about the worldview of this work. They told me that although it's about battling, it's simply a clash of justice on both sides with no absolute bad guy. I really sympathized with that. You don't necessarily have to find an answer to everything, there are no right or wrong answers, and each side has their own way of doing things. This mindset is also what we value most when we make music and express ourselves on stage. That's why I wove in words that evoke the atmosphere of the universe, which kept in line with the world of the work, while at the same time including plenty of our current feelings as SCANDAL.

──No matter what difficulties they face, they face them without running away. The attitude in these lyrics symbolizes SCANDAL as a band, doesn't it?

RINA: I personally think that this is an emotion that would not have been created, had we not experienced our world tour last year. It was a journey that forced us to make many painful decisions, and it made us think a lot about how we should live our lives from now on. There was a time when nothing really went right: When we came back to Japan to play at a festival after our North America tour, that festival was canceled due to bad weather. However, the Paris performance turned out to be a really special concert for us. Just when you're about to give up, there comes a day that ignites your heart as if to say, "Don't give up on music!" I think music is unfair (laughs). But the band is the most important thing for us, and we realized once again that there's nothing else that we love. I think there are ways to gently encourage people by saying that it's okay to run away, but there is definitely a view that you can encounter and a person you can become by not running away. I think that we were able to make the lyrics stick with us by taking the latter approach in writing the lyrics this time.

Their first song with such a loud rhythm section

──HARUNA, how did recording vocals go?

HARUNA: As MAMI said earlier, I was able to reconfirm that my voice is suited to this kind of song. As was the case with our previous release "A.M.D.K.J.", this kind of hard rock sound gets a great response from our fans. This is our forte, after all. This is the sound that SCANDAL is known for.



──Did you ever get lost in the nuances and expressions of the song?

HARUNA: Yes. We did takes where I sang a little stronger, but I curbed it a little since it had a bit too much of a live-concert feel to it. There were some adjustments, but I basically sang in a relaxed manner. Of course, at concerts, I think my vocals will be more powerful than they are on the recorded track (laughs).

──The single also includes another song, "Vision," which is a complete change in sound approach. This fluctuation is another interesting aspect of SCANDAL. The lyrics and music were written by RINA.

RINA: I wrote about my thoughts that, in order to cherish the present, we need to keep looking to the future. It's this sense of excitement about what lies ahead that allows us to do our best in the present. For me, it has a "self-love song" image to it. You don't know if you'll succeed, but you want to love and affirm yourself for being able to jump into the pitch-black darkness believing that you can become someone new. I wrote this song with the hope that it would be a fun song that everyone could freely groove to when performed live.

MAMI: I thought it was a very RINA-esque song. We had a rather solid image of it at the demo stage, but we changed some chords and melodies during pre-production. It was like we all went into the studio and shaped it together. As for the guitar parts, I include cutting, which is part of my forte. The guitar on "Line of sight" is also a part of my forte, so this single turned out to be one that really showcases my fortes (laughs).



──I thought the slightly tricky single-note phrase in the intro was also very SCANDAL-like.

MAMI: The arranger, Hibiki Nishikawa, came up with that part. I just said I'm good at it, but I'm not very good at coming up with single-note phrases (laughs). We asked him to arrange it based on his own ideas. Hibiki is a bassist, so he also produces guitar phrases on the bass. This allows him to come up with more and more interesting phrases that I would never have thought of on the guitar. New discoveries like, "Wow, so that's what it's like!" are fun to make.



──The sound of the rhythm section is quite effective in this song. The bass in particular has a big presence, and I think that's why the song naturally moves your body.

TOMOMI: As MAMI mentioned, Hibiki is a bassist, so he really likes the sound of the bass (laughs). As a result, the bass sound became very loud. I was a bit surprised at the mixing stage, but I thought it could totally work. At the very end, I told him, "The bass is quite loud this time," and he said, "I lowered it by four decibels, though" (laughs). This is the first time doing a song with such an extremely loud rhythm section, including the drums, so I'm looking forward to having everyone listen to it.

RINA: We had talked about making the bass stand out during the recording stage. I think the result is fresh and very cool.



──And as for vocals... This is sung by HARUNA, right?

HARUNA: It is. But it's totally different from my usual singing (laughs). This time I sang very close to RINA's demo vocals. I think I'm making the most of the trial-and-error I've gone through so far in regards to vocals (laughs).

RINA: I thought it was really cool. I was very happy that she brushed up my scratch vocals and turned it into a wonderful vocal performance.

HARUNA: The melodies of the songs RINA makes are always very interesting. She makes melodies that I would never come up with on my own. That's why they're difficult to sing, but I think that's what makes SCANDAL fun and interesting. It's good that we can show the variation of the songs on the single, including the contrast with "Line of sight."



──I think it's a number that shows the pop side of the band, but it's also nice that the song ends with a ruckus at the end, which is very SCANDAL-like.

MAMI: Hehehehe.

RINA: My music tends to be very alternative. I wrote this song while consciously trying to make it very pop-sounding, but it ended up like this (laughs).

If accepted, they will make it into the Guinness World Records

──After your "unlimited UTOPIA" tour, what kind of moves will SCANDAL show us?

HARUNA: We will celebrate the 17th anniversary of our formation in August and the 15th anniversary of our major label debut in October, but this year we have one thing we're aiming for...

RINA: We want to set the Guinness World Record for longest-active all-girl band.

TOMOMI: 17 years without any member changes or periods of inactivity seems to be the longest.

MAMI: If we apply ourselves and are accepted, we'll make it into the Guinness World Records.

──Wow! That's amazing.

TOMOMI: It's kind of funny (laughs). It's not that we've been aiming for that, but I think there are many things that we've understood because we've been doing this for 17 years, so I think it is important to keep doing everything.

HARUNA: While hoping to successfully set the record, we also have many other things to think about.

RINA: Yeah. I hope everything goes well.

MAMI: Please look forward to it!

https://natalie.mu/music/pp/scandal15

#front-page #lineofsight

---

If you enjoy my translations, please consider leaving a tip!