Hironobu Kageyama tells all about how he became a top runner in the world of anime songs! Interview commemorating the simultaneous release of two bestselling albums on the 40th anniversary of his debut!

It has been 40 years since singer Hironobu Kageyama made his professional debut as "Michelle," the vocalist of the band "LAZY" in 1977, and he is currently working on a number of 40th anniversary projects, including the publication of a book titled "Destroy Your Goals: The Art of Reaching Beyond Your Dreams" (Chuokoron Shinsha) at the beginning of 2018. On February 14, Kageyama also released the CD "Kageyama Hironobu BEST Kage-chan Pack: Kimi to Boku no Daigyo" (Columbia) and the CD "Who's Covering Me: Ani Song Show" (Lantis). We asked Mr. Kageyama himself to reflect on his 40-year journey to become a leading figure in anime songs, as well as the thoughts behind the simultaneous release of these two CDs.

Awakening to Music

─ ─ What kind of TV programs, including anime and special effects, were the starting point of your own TV experience?

Kageyama: I used to watch "Tetsujin 28-go" when I was probably 2 or 3 years old. I was often scolded by my mother for putting stickers on the shoe boxes of my parents' house in Osaka, which I would rub on with a sticker from a package of candy (laugh). When I was in the first grade of elementary school, "Ultraman" started, and I remember the atmosphere of excitement, not only for me but also for all the children in Japan. The same goes for "Kamen Rider" when I was in the fifth grade. I was also crazy about "Triton of the Sea" and "Space Battleship Yamato" in terms of anime. Some of my most memorable anime songs are "Jungle Emperor," "Knight of the Ribbon," "Parman," and "Triton of the Sea. These are the kind of things you don't forget even when you grow up.

My parents' barber shop was not so wealthy, but my father was a music lover and had a stereo system in the empty house. It often played Showa-era songs, Latin music, and movie music.

By the time I was in the fifth grade, I had already met Tuckan (Akira Takasaki, who later formed LAZY with Kageyama) and Tanaka (Hiroyuki Tanaka, also deceased), who loved Kamen Rider. He used to transform himself from the top of a jungle gym in a local park and jump off the gym (laughs).　(laughs) So our first encounter was as friends playing Kamen Rider together.

─ What made you decide to pursue a career in music?

Kageyama: Eventually, playing with Takkan changed from "playing Kamen Rider" to "playing guitar. He had an older sister who was a college student and an older brother who was a high school student at the time, and both of them were quite music and rock fans, so they were more sophisticated or sensitive to information than the other kids. They were more sophisticated than the other kids, and they were more sensitive to information.

I also got a part-time job at a local grocery store and got a folk guitar from a manufacturer that no one knew called "Folks" (laugh), and at first I practiced Takuro Yoshida's and Nobuyasu Okabayashi's songs on the folk guitar. At the time, Japanese folk music had a strong message, but the guitar chords were so simple that even elementary school students could play them, so it was just right for me. There were many lyrics with chords in magazines such as "Heibon" and "Meisei.

But then "Tulip" and "Carol" appeared when I was in the sixth grade, and they were so much cooler than folk music. That's when I was drawn to the electric guitar. At the time, Tulip was singing on TV singing shows, but I was fascinated by the way they appeared on TV as a "rock band," rather than as a combination of a singer and a big band that accompanied them. He had long hair, cool clothes, and a guitar solo during the interlude. At about the same time, I was shocked to hear Deep Purple's "Highway Star" from Tuckerman's brother. So by the time I was in junior high school, I wanted to be in an electric band.

─ You are currently active as a vocalist, but when did you shift from guitar to vocals?

Kageyama: When I was in the first grade of junior high school, I bought a Stratocaster (*electric guitar model name) made by a maker nobody knew called "Friedger" (laugh). But everyone around me was also playing guitars. I got together with a bunch of friends, and we all played guitars (laughs). Eventually, some of us wanted to play in a band and naturally moved on to bass and drums. We also started a band under the name "LAZY" at that time. At first, I was the side guitarist and another friend of mine was the vocalist, but when we moved to high school, we decided that the key was too high and we couldn't sing Rainbow or Led Zeppelin cover songs. One day, he asked me to sing instead, and I was able to reach the highest notes without any difficulty. Then he said, "Well, Kage, you should be a vocalist. I had been singing at home while playing records on my father's stereo, but this was the first time I became a full-fledged vocalist.

Professional debut as an idol band "LAZY

───How did you come to make your debut as LAZY?

Kageyama: When I was just entering high school, I auditioned for a TV music show with LAZY and failed twice. Higuchi-san (*Moritaka Higuchi, who became the drummer of LAZY (deceased)) was two years senior at the high school where Tuckan entered, and Tuckan and Higuchi-san both had high performance ability and strong aspirations to become professionals, so in the end, these two pulled me along, with Higuchi-san on drums and Inoue-kun (*), whom I met in the light music club at high school, on keyboards. Mr. Shunji Inoue. We switched to a full-fledged professional career. I auditioned for the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation's "Hello Young" program with these members and passed with one shot. That was around October of my first year of high school. After the show was over, the host, Hiroshi Kamayatsu (Monsieur Kamayatsu (deceased)), came to our dressing room and said, "I'm going to debut you guys, so come to Tokyo! He said, "I'm going to debut you guys in Tokyo! I moved to Tokyo in April and made my debut in July (laughs). (Laughs.) It is normal for high school kids to not have that kind of decisive power, but Higuchi-san was very wild in that respect, and he said, "I'm going pro. What are you going to do? He would forcefully ask, "I'm going to become a professional. Thanks to his forcefulness, all the members decided to enter this world.

─ ─ When LAZY debuted, they were marketed as an idol band rather than a rock band. ......

Kageyama: When Mr. Kamayatsu first approached us, he said, "Let's have Paul Rogers produce the band" and "We can dress just like that," and I thought, "Oh, we can rock just like that. Then, Kamayatsu-san was gradually removed from the production team. He would only talk about rock music from the other side of the world and say big things (laughs). So, instead, we had Taro Morimoto-san (ex-Tigers) as the sound producer, Right Okamura-san (ex-Purple Shadows) as the record company director, and the office president was a former member of Outkast. It seems that they wanted to produce a band like Group Sounds again with their own hands. In addition, the Bay City Rollers were exploding in popularity in Japan at the time, and no matter what you did, you wanted to ride that wave. So LAZY was turned into a "Japanese Bay City Rollers" and "an idol band with an average age of 16," which was a different direction from the hard rock we wanted to play. Kamayatsu-san confessed to me in later years that he felt a bitterness about this .......

But looking back, I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I really don't know if we would still be here today if we had forcibly debuted in the hard rock scene there. It's true that I didn't like being forced to play the role of a tailor-made idol back then, but I can't say that it was a failure. Anyway, we sold well. That led to the subsequent "LOUDNESS" (a band formed by Akira Takasaki and Munetaka Higuchi after LAZY broke up), "NEVERLAND" (a band formed by Shunji Inoue and Hiroyuki Tanaka after LAZY broke up), and also to my being able to sing today as a solo singer.

─ ─ Were you yourself not so much oriented toward hard rock?

Kageyama: In the later stages of LAZY, Takasaki and Higuchi were already heading toward Iron Maiden, Van Halen, and Judas Priest, and they always said, "We want to play hard rock, even if it doesn't sell well. Me, Inoue, and Tanaka had come to like West Coast rock like Journey and TOTO, which would later be called "AOR," so it was true that we were going in different directions. So I thought that the kind of heavy metal they were aiming for would not suit us ....... I myself was well aware that although I could certainly produce a high tone, I was not a singer suited to heavy metal, so I was aware that I could not go on like this with Takkan and Higuchi-san.

I was greatly inspired by the activities of TOTO, who were creating a completely new and sophisticated sound as a unit of mainly session musicians rather than a rock band, and it was around that time that I admired David Foster's AOR unit "Airplay. The chorus work was amazing, and they were doing things so difficult that I didn't even know how they were playing, and I wanted to aspire to this kind of rock. Having David Foster arrange the song "Beginning" for my debut 40th anniversary album "A.O.R.," which was released last year, was a dream come true.

Independence, and on to the hard times: ......

─ After LAZY disbanded, you made your debut again as a solo singer with Tokuma Music Industry (now Tokuma Japan Communications).

Kageyama: It was good to be a solo singer, but I couldn't write lyrics, and I couldn't write songs either. I had never done it before. I realized that I was not capable of creating music on my own, and that I could not even indicate to the staff the direction I wanted to take. I was thinking "hmmm ......" to the lyrics and songs given to me by the staff, but I couldn't successfully propose alternatives. That was the time when I was in such a dilemma. Then, both staff and fans would leave, saying, "He doesn't know what he wants to ...... do. I realized that the only way to do what I wanted to do was to start ...... doing it myself. From there, I started writing songs for my own shows anyway, disregarding whether they would become records or not.

Eventually, my contract with both Tokuma and the office was terminated. At that time, I was introduced to Tatsuji Yamagishi of Birthday Song, who would later go on to produce concerts for "Super Robot Soul" and "Super Hero Soul. He booked me for live houses all over the country, and in return, I received no fee. While working in Mr. Yamagishi's office, I began my days touring live houses across the country, sleeping in a wagon packed with musical instruments. On days when there were no gigs, I did manual labor at construction sites. That was when I was 21 years old, so only a little over a year had passed since LAZY broke up. It really doesn't take long for things to go bad.

But for the next five years, I spent my days writing songs and singing them for myself, and I got a lot of training. I played 120 to 150 shows a year, and it was not unusual for me to lose my voice. Even so, I couldn't stop, so I forced myself to squeeze it out, and my voice became stronger and thicker. I didn't have many customers, and those were the hardest days for me because I was the most unknown, but I had a lot of fruitful experiences. I have nothing but gratitude for Mr. Yamagishi.