May'n takes on the challenge of "doing something new with the same old me" in a new place - interview with "momentbook," the first album after moving to a new label!

May'n, who made her major label debut in 2005 at the age of 15 and celebrated her 15th anniversary in June 2020, moved to Digital Double in March 2021.

The full album "momentbook," the first item to show the "now" momentum of the move to the new label, will be released on June 30, 2021.

This album is filled with tie-up songs released during the Flying Dog days and new songs leading to the future. We asked her to talk about the album, which is truly a record of "what has been and what will be".

I want to do new things with my unchanging self

Q: This is a bit sudden, but "15Colors -soul tracks-", one of the three mini-albums released last November to commemorate your 15th anniversary, was a very good album. I feel that R&B and city pop music has been popular recently, so I think it fits the times very well.

May'n It's certainly in vogue now. That one was quite a challenging piece, though (laughs).

I see.　I had the impression that May'n's roots were in soul and R&B, but it was also a challenge for you, wasn't it?

May'n I have always played dance music and soul, but I was only able to create a mini-album with such an in-depth view of the world because it was a project.

It was a challenge for me, but many of my fans said, "I love '-soul tracks-' so much! I realized that I had tried to put out music that I liked and that I could say was one of my roots and that it was probably the best fit for the album.

Q: The song has the feel of something I used to sing from long ago, and it fits very well.

May'n Really?　I'm glad to hear that. Even though I consider it a big challenge, when I get such a reaction when I make a song, it reminds me once again that challenges lead to the next step. It was a production that made me realize how fun and encouraging it is to take on challenges.

Q: Was this a challenge that would have been difficult to take on without the opportunity of the 15th anniversary?

May 'n I have always loved music, and as I sang rock songs, I began to think about what rock is, and I realized that May'n's rock is to hit it with your soul without thinking. It was my music that brought me to the point where I could sing with a rock soul no matter what kind of music.

I had the feeling that I could express any kind of music with May'n's voice, which is why I was able to go genre-less, but at the same time, there were many opportunities to work with May'n on productions, so I was not able to do dance music that was too extreme. So I took on the challenge on the occasion of the 15th anniversary, which was a big part of it.

Q: And as an even bigger challenge, you moved labels from Flying Dog to Digital Double. I think that you are still delivering music, but are there any changes?

May'n I met Hiroyuki Tanaka-san, who is also the producer for this project, when I sang an insert song for "Kamen Rider Fourze," and we have had a relationship where we work together once every few years. I decided to take a new step forward this time with Mr. Tanaka because I thought it would be a good fit with my desire to do something new with my unchanging self.

I will continue to release CDs under the new label, but I also wanted to focus more on online activities. I was aware that I wanted to deliver my music and activities to a wider range of people, and I thought that online was a necessary element for that.

Q: Regarding online, did you have this Corona Disaster in mind?

May'n Certainly, I thought about it because of the Corona Disaster. I was also aware that many of our live concerts are held in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, and that many people might not be able to go to the concerts.

We have done a lot of online live shows, and while it was lonely not being able to see everyone, we received comments like "I was able to see the show because it was online," so we would be happy if people felt closer to May'n there.

Q: I feel that this will help us to understand the goodness of gathering people together, and ultimately I hope that we can move toward the future both as an audience and as a distributor.

May'n Yes, that's right. I have realized how much I appreciate and enjoy online, so even after Corona settles down, I would like to continue to emphasize the importance of distribution.

Q: But I thought that distribution was quite a challenge. It's easy to see the power of performance, isn't it?

May'n You can't fake it (laughs). (laughs) There is also the difficulty of not being in the same space. If you are an audience member, you can share the same tension with the people who are there, but if you are alone in your excitement, there is a difference in tension between you and the people watching you. How much do you make up for that in your performance? In the sense of making the tension closer to the daily life, there is a difference between the audience and the non-audience.

An album that takes a new step forward while respecting the career to date

Q. Your new album "momentbook" will be released this time. What kind of album did you decide to make this time?

May'n First of all, since this is the first release after the transfer, I wanted to present May'n's new challenges for the future, but I also wanted it to be the first step to express all the feelings and gratitude I have felt up to now. Of course, we are creating new songs, but by allowing us to include existing songs beyond the boundaries of the label, I think we have created an album that will allow us to take the next step forward while respecting our past musical careers.

ーーHere and now...... I really felt that.

May'n The producer suggested that since there are many anime tie-ups in the existing songs, we should make the new songs more about my own life and life-sized aspects of myself. When I heard that, I thought to myself that I haven't done many songs that capture my life, so I was more focused on my own creativity than ever before.

Q: There is a good mix of both, isn't there? Rather than a cohesiveness, I feel like I can sense May'n's progress.

May'n The title of the album is "momentbook," and I wanted this to be the main theme of the album, or rather, an album that contains all the important moments. I think I was able to put all the important moments of my life into the album, including my thoughts and feelings that I have been thinking about since I was a little girl, the feelings I have worked hard to achieve my dreams, my current feelings, and my desire to continue to work hard, as well as the new songs and existing songs, which are all important moments in my career.

Q: In that sense, I thought it was a perfect title.

May'n It was a word that came to me pretty quickly. ...... I think that I usually give an album title after the album is finished. I would write new songs in the mode of the moment, and then come up with the music that I wanted to deliver now! But this time, I wanted to make an album that would be a culmination and a new start for the next 10 to 15 years, as well as a thanks for our 15th anniversary, so the title came to me first.

Gems of new songs created in collaboration with a wide variety of artists

Q: The first song, "Walk with moments," is a song that gives a sense of everyday life, and the image of May'n walking with her big feet comes to mind.

May'n Actually, I decided to make "Walk with moments" the first song and "Mirai Note" the last song as soon as all the songs were finished, because I thought it contained the message I wanted to convey the most after 15 years of activity.

So I wrote "Walk with moments" while looking back on my career and thinking that I have been walking for 15 years. ...... I have some regrets and remorse, but I have continued to walk with great care in every moment, so I wanted the song to have the feeling that I am always walking. I wanted the song to have the feeling of a person who is always walking.

Q: The arrangement of the song is also very much in line with that, with the keyboard sound strongly moving forward.

May'n I think it shows that you are looking forward, walking fast toward the future, and walking on a road that never ends (laughs).

I felt that I was not walking alone, but that everyone was with me.

May'n I wanted to depict my own path (main street) that I have been walking alone, but before I knew it, the scenery changed, and my friends grew and became more colorful, so I think the song became a song where everyone is in the melody with me.

Q: On the other hand, the simplicity of the song is also very good.

May'n This time, I wrote the song on the piano, sent it to Hayato Tanaka, and we worked on the melody together in the studio. Normally, I would have gone for a natural chord in the white keys, but I wanted to go for a minor key for a moment, so I went for the black keys (laughs). (Laughs.) I usually put in gimmicks like that, but this time I wanted to get rid of them. I wanted it to be something that you would find yourself humming along to, so I repeated the same melody over and over again. I had never done that before.

I wanted to keep the lyrics as simple as possible, and as my career progressed, I wanted to make people wonder what the lyrics meant (laughs). (Laughs.) The best part of lyrics is that they can be taken to mean many different things, and there are songs that I wrote with lyrics that can be interpreted in many different ways, but for this song, I wanted to stick to simplicity, so I wrote the lyrics in a straightforward manner.

Q: The second song, "Summer Dream," had a summery feel with impressive brass, but it also had a nostalgic feel to it.

May'n I asked h-wonder to write the music for this song out of my admiration for him rather than out of a desire to write a summer song. Since I was about 13 years old before my debut, I had seen h-wonder's name in the credits of my favorite songs, and I had always admired his music. I also sang h-wonder's songs in the audition for my debut, so I have been thinking for several years that I would be able to work with him someday at an important moment .......

I wanted to write lyrics about how I felt before my debut ...... at that important moment and my sparkling desire to seize the future at that time.

The title of the song is also about summer and dreams.

May'n I wrote the lyrics by remembering how I felt when I went to a summer festival for the first time.

Q: Did you ask for the summery feel to the song?

May'n I had heard h-wonder's song with Kumi Koda and BoA, and both of them were divas that I admired. I had a meeting with Mr. h-wonder to tell him, "I spent my youth listening to these songs! I had a meeting with Mr. h-wonder to tell him, "This is the kind of music I used to listen to in my youth!

I think the reason you mentioned earlier that it was nostalgic is because you made it with my longing for about 15 years ago, so maybe it has a 00's feel to it.

ーーI felt it had a very 00's feel to it!　I was surprised that it was your first time, since h-wonder has provided songs for many artists, including Maaya Sakamoto, even for Flying Dog.

May'n Indeed. But he did say, "It's a wonder we haven't worked together before.

Q: "place roulette" is a song written by Rin Oto and Taro Ishida.

May'n I had the opportunity to work with Rin Oto because I was a fan of hers myself. I was inspired by the opportunity to work with one of the leading artists of the new generation.

Looking back on my life, the feelings I had at that time when I was struggling to get a chance to make my debut are important moments in my life. Because I tried my best at that time, I think the road has continued to lead me all the way, so I thought I would try to write a song about it again.

I want to move forward, but I can't. I don't want to look back, but I don't want to move forward. When I mentioned that I wanted to deliver the message that we can expand our path depending on our own awareness, Rinne compared life to a game of backgammon and said, "Let's write a song about that. Rinne came up with the title of the song by comparing life to a game of backgammon.

Q: I thought it was a great song order to sing about struggling with one's dreams here, which leads to the final song, "Mirai Notebook.

May'n That's right!　I think it is a song that leads to the end.

Q: The vocals and the singing voice are really technical from low to high notes, but it was beautiful because it conveyed a lot of emotion.

May'n I have been singing hip-hop-like songs and rap songs at karaoke for a long time, but I have never sung an original song in such a relaxed, almost rap-like manner, so the vocals were a challenge for me. Rin Oto also directed me to sing as if I were speaking.

I can now say that I did not make a mistake in any choice I made.

The fifth song, "Real Lies," has a great intro riff, a groovy tune, and an emo quality to the vocals.

May'n Taichi Mukai also asked me to do this song because he likes me, but when I heard the demo song sung in Texan English, it sounded like a lie. I decided to write this one on the theme of lies. It was a demo with Mukai-san's sexy voice, so I thought I would write lyrics with a worldview of being deceived by such a nice guy (laughs). Since she makes that choice knowing that she is being deceived, I want her to think about various things, such as the fact that it might actually be herself who is being deceived.

Q: "Irritable" is a song by Hidekazu Tanaka of MONACA, and I thought it was an EDM song with an ani-song feel.

May'n When we worked together before, I asked him to write a song like the ones he wrote for "THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA GIRLS" and "Wake Up, Girls!" that I had grown to love, but this time I wanted to make a new song that incorporated the EDM-like musicality that I liked, and Mr. Tanaka had the image of writing such songs as well. I asked Mr. Tanaka to write a song like that, because I had an image of him writing such songs.

When I wrote the lyrics, I thought that "anger" and "sorrow" of "joy, anger, sorrow, and fun" should not be shown too much. There were times when I suppressed the sadness and anger, and when I was troubled, I would find myself troubled, and I would blackmail myself before I was troubled, saying, "If I had time to cry, I could do more of these things. ...... But I thought I needed to admit to myself that I was more troubled and frustrated, and that's how I came up with these lyrics. If I could say in my music that sometimes I get frustrated too, it would send a different message.

Q: The lyric "Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! It made me feel like I should dance anyway (laughs).

May'n It's because the song is a pop song that lyrics like this are good!　By the way, "Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop" was the first thing that came to me after playing the melody for a long time. I was in such a tight corner that if the lyrics were delayed even a day, the release would be postponed.

May'n: I've seen the music video for "Mirai Note," which was written and arranged by Masayoshi Oishi, and it just makes me cry.

May'n I cry no matter how many times I see it. Oishi-san also said that he cried at that music video, and I think everyone would agree that it is a music video that applies to them.

Q: I like the story that the dream has not come true.

May'n That's true!　It is a typical music video where the main character returns to the path of dance to make his dream come true, but the message is very realistic and good that he tries his best in his current place while having his past self push him forward. It is a music video that makes you feel the kindness of someone who is there for you.

Q: Most childhood dreams don't come true, do they? May'n: The collaboration between Nakabayashi Corporation, which produces stationery and albums, and Masayoshi Oishi, did it open up new doors for you?

May'n The reason why I started collaborating with Nakabayashi was because my real name is Mei Nakabayashi, and I said on Twitter that I wanted to collaborate with them someday, and we were able to collaborate over 3 years later. I have known Mr. Oishi only long enough to say hello to him, so I was happy to be able to collaborate with him on a song this time.

When I received your song, I thought again that you are a composer who writes gentle songs that inspire me to try my best, with a positive message or a message that makes me want to do my best. I felt that this song gave me a push to go on with my life from now on.

Q: The lyric "Everything becomes a lovely record" would normally use the word "memory", but the stationery made me think of notebooks, and the collaboration gave the lyrics a certain charm.

May'n When I talked with Mr. Oishi, he said that everything becomes your record and you can keep moving forward. That is a message that I also sincerely believe, and it is connected to what I myself wrote in "Walk with moments," but now I can think that I did not make a mistake in any choice I made.

I have regrets and remorse about what would have happened if I had made this choice at the time, but the fact that I have arrived at this point in my life makes me feel grateful to myself. It's the kind of song that tells me that everything really isn't a mistake, and I want to tell you that too!

Q: May'n, I'm sure that you also put those feelings of regret into the songs in the form of an album, and in that sense, the CD is also a record, so I was listening to it while thinking that it was very emo.

May'n That's right. There are really things that are brought out through this kind of collaboration. Nakabayashi's corporate message is "Stop worrying. That's how you move forward." Mr. Oishi agrees with the message, and he wrote the lyrics directly into the song.

The company is a manufacturer of stationery and office supplies, but it is also involved in a wide range of other businesses, such as libraries and food-related businesses, and the company's theme is "We will be there for you in your life," and we were asked to sing a song that would somehow become our strength, I was asked to sing such a song, and this collaboration has really made me aware of the feelings I have.

So I would be very happy if you keep this song close to you. I was able to include my 15th anniversary in this song, and as the title "Future Notebook" suggests, I think it has become an important song that I will be able to sing for a long time to come.

Q: What do you have planned for the future?

May'n On July 4, there will be an online event "OPENREC.tv presents May'n Special Live "momentbook on line"" where I will sing many new songs. Since it is an online event, everyone from all over Japan can participate, so I hope you will watch it.

(Interview and text by Junichi Tsukagoshi)

Album information

momentbook/May'n

Release date: June 30, 2021 (Wednesday)

Initial limited edition bonus: Serial code for participation in online event (July 4, 2021 (Sun.))

Price: CD + Blu-ray 4,620 yen (including tax), CD 3,300 yen (including tax)

<Songs included in the album

Walk with moments

Words by May'n Composed by May'n and Hayato Tanaka Arranged by Hayato Tanaka

SUMMER DREAM

Words by May'n Arranged by h-wonder

3.place roulette

Words by May'n Arranged by Rin Oto and Taro Ishida

Fangs and Wings

Lyrics: Dan Miyagawa, music: Tomoya Kawasaki, arrangement: Junichi Sato

Licensed by FlyingDog, Inc.

Real Lies

Words by May'n Composed by Taichi Mukai, CELSIOR COUPE Arranged by CELSIOR COUPE

Irritable

Lyrics: May'n Composition/Arrangement: Hidekazu Tanaka(MONACA)

graphite/diamond

Lyricist: Seiko Fujibayashi Composer: Ryuichi Takagi (Dream Monster) Arranger: Yusuke Shirato (Dream Monster)

Licensed by Stray Cats Co.

Hear My Homeland, O Angel

Lyrics: Yuho Iwasato, music: TOMOYA/KENT (SALTY DOG), arrangement: CHOKKAKU

Licensed by FlyingDog, Inc.

Tears in the Sea to the East

Words by TAKU INOUE Composed by JUVENILE Arranged by Yashikin

Licensed by Stray Cats Co.

You

Lyrics: Yuho Iwasato Music: Ryota Nakano Arrangement: NAOKI-T

Licensed by FlyingDog, Inc.

Mirai Note

Lyrics, Music, Arrangement: Masayoshi Oishi

Licensed by HoriPro International Inc.

Special live Event

OPENREC.tv presents May'n Special Live "momentbook on line

Date & Time：July 4, 2021 (Sun.)

Part 1: 17:00-18:00

Part 2: 19:00 - 20:30

Ticket prices

Part 1: Free of charge

Tickets can be exchanged online using the serial code enclosed with the CD purchase.

Part 2: General admission: 2,800 yen (tax included) / Subscription members: 2,300 yen (tax included)

System usage fee will be charged separately.

Ticket sales period (Part 2): June 16, 2021 (Wed) 10:00 - July 11, 2021 (Sun) 23:59 (including missed distribution period)

Event ticket purchase page: #

＜Special live Event Details

Part 1: Talk about the secret story behind the making of the album + mini live

Performer: May'n

MC：Producer Tanaka

Part 2: One-night-only "momentbook" SPECIAL TALK & LIVE (singing new songs from the new album)

Performer：May'n

Special Talk Guest：Taichi Mukai, Rin Oto