What is the character of GARNiDELiA, the culmination of 4 years and the current sound package Interview with 3rd album "G.R.N.D.

GARNiDELiA, who has sung theme songs for many anime such as "The Lesser Student of Magical High School" and "Fate/Apocrypha," as well as boasting tens of millions of views for their newly drawn song "Odottakatta-mita" series, has released their 3rd full album "G.R N.D.", the third full-length album by GARNiDELiA, which boasts tens of millions of views. The album is so important to the girls that they named it after their own unit. The album is a return to their roots and a song about their relationship with their fans. We asked them about their thoughts and commitment to each one.

──Your third full-length album "G.R.N.D." is released within a span of one year and three months since your last album, and during this time you have released four singles, three dance songs, and many other live performances in Japan and abroad. Could you tell us about the production process?

Meilia: It was the toughest schedule I've ever had (laughs). 6 songs were all written after the "Error" single (9th single released in January 2018), so I didn't have any songs saved up.

toku: It's been almost nonstop since the end of the year. For "Error," I spent a lot of time working on what I wanted to do, including the equipment, and I even tracked down the song, so I really wanted to incorporate that experience into the album. So I wanted to include songs that I wrote for this album, not songs that I had in stock.

Meilia: I was able to work on the album for about one month. I was on the move almost every day for events, so my travel time was used as meetings (laughs). (Laughs.) I would write lyrics while waiting, or I would be handed a demo from the side and asked to listen to it, and I would work on it in the gaps of time.

─ ─ "G.R.N.D." is the title of the album and the lead track. I think it has a big meaning from the fact that you named the unit after yourself.

Meilia: I think it is quite significant. We had been talking about releasing an album with our own name on it someday. The last four singles had a wide range of styles, including the jackets, and we had shown many different faces to everyone, so now was the right time to think about "who we are" again. Also, this March marks the 4th anniversary of our formation, and as we begin our 5th year, we wanted to make an album that would serve as our business card, and that would include our activities before we met and before we made our debut, as well as the music that is our roots. That's why we named the album after ourselves.

─ What was it like for you to write a song that reflected on your own roots while you were so busy with your own activities?

Meilia: Because I was in the middle of a busy schedule, I wanted to go back to my roots, and it was like coming back to what I really wanted to do. We had been able to express our various colors through singles, etc., and "Error" was a single that we were very satisfied with because it matched what we wanted to do and how we wanted to be seen, including the visual aspect, and we thought, "This is what GARNiDELiA is all about, I think we were able to produce "G.R.N.D." with the thought, "This is what we want to do, isn't it?

─ ─ When I hear you talk about it, I can tell that the single "Error" became a big one. Now, please tell us about the lead track "G.R.N.D.".

Meilia: We wrote this as a way to create our own theme song. I included phrases and titles that I have used in previous lyrics and wrote what I always think about, and I tried to make the lyrics so that people would know who the song is about without looking at the credits. I also wanted to make sure that the song would be a lot of fun at live performances. It is the theme song for us and everyone else.

toku: When writing the song "G.R.N.D.," I got the idea for the tempo from Meilia. It's in between the "Error" and "Odottakatta-mita" series, but still something that everyone can get excited about. The shouting and clapping were a must.

─ ─ What is the point of "making a song that gets people excited"?

toku: I can say the same thing for this song, and for all dance music and loops, it's repetition. Whether it is clapping or shouting, if you make an easy-to-understand repetition, the second or third time you hear it, you will naturally move along with it. If you hit the crescendo of this essence and that essence in rapid succession, it will naturally rise up the next time, and so on. But I think the biggest element is the tension of the voice. The tension of the instruments is the same, but when Meilia's voice and the song are on the loop music and gradually rise to the A melody, B melody, and chorus, it becomes more and more addictive. In that sense, I wrote this song with the assumption that Meilia would sing.

───What were you conscious of in raising the tension in your voice?

Meilia: I don't think I was very conscious of it.

toku I just go over the notes on the score until I get to that point.

Meilia I write the lyrics myself, so I have an idea of how I'm going to sing the song at that stage, and the ups and downs of the tension are already over when I'm writing the lyrics. I have a setlist in the lyrics because I create the flow of the song, so I think it will go easily when I record the song. I also wanted this song to be visually and aurally pleasing, so I had the idea of adding a dance to the song from the beginning. Dance is also an element that is deeply rooted in me, so I wanted to convey that enjoyment to everyone. I would be happy if more people who have not been exposed to dance music before will be inspired to try it because of us.

─ Did you tell the dancers and choreographers what you imagined for the music video?

Meilia: Yes, I do. They always take the lyrics into consideration when they make the music video. I also asked them to make it easy to understand, flashy, and cool. This is the concept of showing something cool as entertainment.