The sound creators, who used to sing temporary songs, are now on the front stage. The professional group eyelis releases its first album.

eyeelis" is a unit consisting of three sound creators, Satomi Kawasaki, Takeshi Masuda, and Wataru Maeguchi. They are the sound creators of "Hayate no Gotoku! CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU," "The World God Only Knows," and "Snow White with Red Hair," they have finally released their first album "crescendo. The new songs for the album are said to be homages to the anime they have worked on. The bonus CD also includes demo takes that are not usually shown. This work offers a glimpse into the music production process. In this interview, we also get a behind-the-scenes look at the industry!

As a singer of "temporary songs," Eyelis was well received in the industry

─ ─ Eyelis made their debut on May 30, 2012, with their self-cover album "PRE-PRODUCTION. What prompted you to form the unit?

Maeguchi: All three artists belong to an office called Smile Company, and the director, who has always been a great help to us, came up with the idea of having the three of us form a unit.

Kawasaki: We had been involved in the same animated film several times, each in a different way, and the director liked the tentative song that Masuda-san and I had composed. I thought the three of us could do something interesting together.

Masuda: Up until then, both of us had been singing tentative songs, so it was a surprise to have our songs appear in the form of a work of art. I had no idea what was going to happen, and I felt that we started the project in a situation that I could not imagine.

Maeguchi: We each wrote our own songs, with Mr. Kawasaki as the main vocalist and Mr. Masuda as the member of Men's Eyelis, and then Eyelis began.

─ So your debut album was a self-cover album. It was a work in which songs that I had provided to various singers were once again presented to the world with the vocals of Mr. Kawasaki and Ms. Masuda. Six months later, the first single "CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU" (from the TV anime "Hayate no Gotoku! CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU" opening theme) was released, and from there you went on to work on several anime theme songs.

Maeguchi: At first it was refreshing to hear Mr. Kawasaki's and Ms. Masuda's singing voices coming from the TV. I thought, "Ah, I can hear the voices of the tentative songs" (laughs).

───To begin with, what do you mean by "kari-song"?

Maeguchi: It is the material we give to the voice actors and other singers who will sing in the production.

Kawasaki It is a sample of how the vocals will sound on the melody.

─ ─ What do you pay attention to when you sing the tentative songs?

Masuda: I don't sing in my own character, but rather I take into account the personality of the singer who will ultimately express the song. I had the mindset that the tentative song was only a guide.

Kawasaki: It is the same for me. Anime songs have a wide range, from idol songs to ballads, so I was conscious of changing the way I sang for each song to make it easy to understand that this is the direction of the song.

Masuda: If it was a fresh song about a nice young man, I would sing softly, and if it was a rock song, I would shout at times.

Maeguchi: I envy the two of you for your ability to sing in so many different ways.

Masuda: We originally just sang our own songs when we submitted them to competitions. But then we realized that we were also being asked to tentatively sing songs written by other artists.

─ ─ So becoming eyelis was the first time that your songs were released to the world.

Kawasaki: Since eyelis is a unit that handles anime songs, my awareness of it hasn't changed much from when we were tentative songwriters. For example, when I sing a song for "The World God Only Knows," which is based on a boys' manga, I try to sing in a slightly idol-like way for the male fans, while "Snow White with Red Hair" has many female fans, so I sing in a way that is closer to my true self. Masuda: I am the main vocalist of the song.

Masuda: The only song in which I am the main vocalist is the song "THE UNLIMITED Hyobu Kyosuke," but I sing it from the stance that I want to sing this way to express the world of the work. I don't really try to pin down what my song really is, but my awareness may be different from when I sang tentatively, in that I sing more spontaneously while the work is still there.