15th Anniversary kalappo lab. WEB MAGAZINE –PART1–
WEB MAGAZINE
–PART 1–
To commemorate the 15th anniversary of TK from Ling tosite sigure’s solo career, we conducted a special interview exploring the themes of “Where he is now (現在地)" and “What lies ahead (その先 )”. We spoke with TK the day after he returned to Japan from his North American tour, which took him through six cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
What left the deepest impression on him throughout the tour was the sight of audiences erupting with enthusiasm. The energy was so intense that people even sang along during the ballads. At the same time, however, he was confronting his own struggle with his voice, as well as the emotions that fluctuated as he found himself pushed into difficult situations.
“I feel like this North American tour itself tells that story,” TK said.
His words came in response to the title Seiheki (生癖), which was chosen for his nationwide tour beginning in November. They suggest that the North American tour was, in many ways, a reflection of his entire life as a musician.
Interview & text / Ai Matsuzaka
1. A North American Tour Where Two Extremes of Emotion Intersected
TK: My brain is still pretty much in Mexico (laugh).
You’ve just returned from your North American tour, which took you through six cities across the US, Canada, and Mexico. How are you doing with the jet lag?
I’m fine. I’ve always lived on the other side of the time axis anyway(laugh). I think people who live a more regular lifestyle probably have a harder time when they travel overseas. I stay up late and still get up early, so my manager says I’m a short sleeper, but I don’t think that’s really true (laugh).
But when we went to Dallas on this North American tour, there was actually a time when I slept so deeply that I was practically dead to the world.
Was there something that triggered that?
The first show of the tour was in San Francisco. From there, we went to Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York, and then Dallas.
Actually, on the very first day, I felt like something wasn’t quite working with the way I was singing. I kept pushing through it, and eventually I got to the point where, even when I tried to sing, my voice simply wouldn’t follow.
I think I must have damaged my vocal cords. It’s the same with catching a cold, you start with some warning signs, and then it gradually gets worse, right?
Based on my past experience, whenever my condition started to deteriorate, it rarely got better immediately. So I had a feeling that things were probably going to get worse as the tour went on.
We had two days off before Los Angeles, so I was thinking about how much I could recover during that time. But even then, I was basically forcing the sound out using various different vocal techniques.
Then, by the third show, in Toronto, there was a point where I felt like maybe my voice was starting to recover a little.
And then in Dallas, something that almost never happens to me happened: I woke up because my manager called me at the scheduled meeting time.
Maybe it was because of all the fatigue from travelling and performing, but I slept incredibly deeply for the first time in a long while. I recovered quite a bit that day.
For me, even in the past, there haven’t been many occasions where simply getting a good night’s sleep immediately made my voice come back.
So maybe the bed at the hotel we stayed at in Dallas was just really good (laugh).
It was also a period when I experienced firsthand that even when your voice has completely disappeared, there are times when you can gradually bring your throat back while continuing to perform live.
Normally, when your vocal cords are damaged, you absolutely shouldn’t use your voice at all. So, especially considering the schedule of this particular tour, being able to recover while singing the way I do felt almost like some kind of miracle had happened.
So that sleep became a major turning point in your recovery. And this tour also involved travelling all the way from the West Coast to the East Coast.
After I came back to Japan and looked at a world map, I thought, “Wow, it really was that far.”
This time, I was getting on a plane roughly once every two days. It was a schedule unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life.
So I imagine it must have been incredibly difficult for the manager and coordinator to put together the itinerary while balancing the venues and the different areas.
North America is huge, so there are inevitably times when you have to travel all the way somewhere, only to come back in the opposite direction again… I imagine planning all of that must have been quite a challenge.
When did you first start planning the North American tour?
About three years ago. With overseas shows, it’s actually quite common for something to prevent them from happening even when you’ve decided you want to do them. There are international circumstances, and then there’s always the possibility of something sudden happening, like the COVID pandemic. Unexpected situations can arise out of nowhere.
This time, fuel surcharges went up too, making flights incredibly expensive. Visas for the US are also expensive, so there were things we had to adjust realistically from the setup we had originally envisioned. Dealing with those kinds of issues is part of what makes an overseas tour uniquely challenging.
There are also many things I’d never done before, so in a sense, it’s a kind of training for me. That said, I do feel that I’m in a fairly privileged position. There are probably situations where you’d go with just the members and manager, without a PA or roadie. This time, we were able to perform at fairly large venues, and most of the shows were sold out. I don’t think anyone had really imagined that we’d reach that level.
When I think of TK, I can easily picture Europe, but why did you choose North America as the destination for this tour?
I’d heard that my music was being listened to quite a lot there through streaming services. Chile was another place like that. Of course, I think the popularity of “unravel” and the impact of anime theme songs played a major role in that.
But people listening to your music and people actually coming to see you live are two completely different things. At first, I was honestly worried about whether anyone would show up. So when ticket sales started and I was told, “They’re selling really well,” I was quite surprised.
Maybe things would have been different if we had held the tour two years ago. In the meantime, there were also production projects and tie-ins, and my music became more widely listened to around the world. So I feel that having that preparation period really worked in our favour.
When the North American tour was confirmed, what kind of image did you have of the places you were going to visit?
When I go somewhere to take photographs, it’s usually Europe—places like Iceland or Berlin. I’m drawn to those places because I see the scenery and think, “I want to photograph this.”
When it comes to places for making music, I’ve gone to studios in London. I’ve visited New York a few times too, but the US itself didn’t really feel like it was part of my DNA, so I didn’t have any particular image of it.
Musically, though, I’ve always had the impression that America is one of the countries driving music around the world.
In the past, Japanese music wasn’t really known overseas. But with the rise of anime culture as well, Japanese artists have increasingly been making an impact abroad.
After actually performing in North America, did you feel that your music was reaching people there?
Yes. Everyone was genuinely so excited this time that I really felt, “My music has actually reached people this far away.”
It wasn’t just numbers on streaming services. I could actually feel that people were watching us play and getting genuinely excited by it.
I’ve been to the UK several times with Ling tosite sigure, but the feeling this time was quite different from what I experienced there.
You’ve only just returned to Japan. When you think of the tour now, what scene or event stands out most vividly?
The sight of the people going absolutely wild.
Every country was incredible, but in Mexico, people even sang along during the ballads. Maybe it was because of the climate, but there was such a positive, exuberant atmosphere there. I remember thinking, “They’re reacting like this to this song?”
Everyone sang along to “white silence” as well, so those moments are really burned into my memory.
But at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that I couldn’t properly control my voice is also burned into my memory.
So rather than simply thinking “That was fun.” I feel like I currently have these two completely opposite emotions existing inside my head at the same time.
So the issue with your throat has also left a very strong emotional impression on you.
There were quite a lot of people who might only ever get the chance to see us that one time, especially compared with Japan.
We don’t even know whether we’ll be able to go back to America again, and most of the people there were seeing us for the first time. So there was a lot of pressure.
I’m not really a singer whose job is simply to make people listen to my singing, so half of me thinks, “Even if the singing is falling apart…”
But it was incredibly frustrating to have all the ammunition loaded, yet be in a state where one of my weapons simply couldn’t fire.
Even so, the fans had an incredible amount of energy, so there were times when we just pushed through on the sheer force of their enthusiasm.
Also, there were four members in the band for this tour, and it felt much more like a real band than usual, in a way.
When I told them, “Sorry if my throat dies today,” they’d say, “It’s okay. We’ll bring it back to life.”
(Pierre) Nakano and 345 are like that too. They don’t necessarily say it out loud, but there’s that kind of feeling between us.
So rather than it feeling like me plus the support musicians, it felt more like everyone was moving forward and attacking together.
I was able to ride on the energy of those members as well.
It sounds like you were surrounded by a very reassuring group of musicians. The first show was in San Francisco. What was the atmosphere like when you arrived?
The city itself felt cooler than I expected given the scenery around me.
You tend to imagine it being midsummer, but the air was actually cool and very comfortable.
And what did you feel when you actually saw the audience filling the live house?
First, there was something called VIP, where people who had paid for VIP access come in early to watch the sound check, and we do the sound check for them.
So the first people we met were those VIP guests.
Having people watch your sound check isn’t really part of Japanese culture, is it?
They call it a meet & greet, and it’s something you encounter when you go overseas.
But the idea of showing people the stage once before the actual show didn’t really fit with my own sense of aesthetics.
In Japan, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t even want to meet people when I first arrive at a venue.
So there was initially some discussion about whether we should even do the VIP rehearsal. But in the end, I’m glad we did it.
I started to develop a sense of “This is how we are over here”, and I found that interesting in its own way.
Roughly how many people watch the sound check?
About 100 people.
In terms of capacity, there were probably two or three rows of people right in front of the stage.
That was another experience I’d never really had before.
And because the audience was seeing us for the first time, they were nervous, while we were also trying to figure out how seriously we should approach the VIP rehearsal.
It was very American in that sense, they don’t really give you that many details (laugh).
San Francisco was particularly difficult because it was the first day.
I ended up trying too hard and couldn’t really relax. I felt like I was slightly spinning my wheels or that my usual rhythm had been thrown off.
I’m sure the people watching enjoyed it, but I felt that finding the right balance was difficult.
So even the way we approached the VIP rehearsals gradually changed as we went through the tour.
The second show was in Los Angeles, right?
Yes. Although, I don’t really remember much of the first half of that day.
I knew that my throat was going to be worse the next day than it was that day, so I spent the whole time thinking, “What am I going to do tomorrow?” and “How am I going to make it through?”
The thing I hated most was the thought that people might think, “They sounded good on the recordings, but I guess this is what they’re actually like live.”
You still had many more shows ahead of you, so you were continuing to get on stage while carrying that anxiety. When you were making the album Whose Blue, you mentioned that moving back and forth between the hotel and studio in London gave you new experiences and inspiration. Did you have any similar stimulation or new input during this North American tour?
I wanted to take photographs, so I brought a film camera with me for the first time in a while and photographed the cities overseas.
I didn’t really get to go very far, but I would move around together with the coordinator.
This time, I was seeing the scenery from the perspective of “me in performance mode, playing music.”
My mindset was different from when I go somewhere specifically just to capture the scenery.
Among those places, the scenery in Mexico made me think, “This is completely different from America.”
There was hardly anything that felt American about it.
If anything, it had an atmosphere more reminiscent of Southeast Asia or Spain. It felt very exotic.
When you think of Mexico, food culture is also a big part of the image.
The food was all incredibly delicious. There was this sense that people were always keeping their feelers out, so to speak.
For example, you’d see mothers and children selling handmade souvenirs or things like that on the side of the road. But it didn’t feel sad or desperate at all. It felt like a perfectly normal part of their everyday livelihood.
They would simply set up their little stall without giving off any strong sense of “Please buy something from me.”
Even in places like markets, after asking the price, you could just say, “Okay, got it. See you,” and walk away immediately.
People kept a certain casual distance, but at the same time they were incredibly friendly.
That sense of comfort really stayed with me.
Earlier, you mentioned that the atmosphere at the shows in Mexico was also very upbeat.
It really was.
Everyone was so kind.
Dallas had a very calm atmosphere as well.
Of course, everyone is different, but I felt that American culture is more oriented towards communicating with other people than Japanese culture is.
I feel the same way when I go to the UK. For example, if you happen to share an elevator with someone, you might say “Good night” to each other.
There were also a lot of people in Mexico who would greet you.
At the same time, Japan has its own unique qualities. I was reminded of how wonderful it is that people here do their jobs so meticulously, right down to the smallest details.
But experiencing that openness overseas also made me realise that, “Maybe it’s okay for me to be this free too.”
That was another thing I took away from the experience.
2. Writing Down Memories That Don’t Appear in Photographs
New York, which you visited around the middle of the tour, is a city with a particularly strong image of being a huge metropolis. Having stayed there again, what kind of city did it feel like to you?
It was extremely urban. When I first went to New York, around 2012, I remember thinking that it was difficult to take photographs there. It felt like the pace of the city was simply too fast.
I feel the same way when I’m in London. Rather than going there to think about something, there’s something about those places that switches me on.
So I think they’re good places to go for work. You really get the sense that everyone is competing and fighting to survive, and I strongly felt that everyone was just doing whatever they could to make it through. That aspect seemed to have become even more intense.
So when you’re in London or New York, you constantly feel like you’re switched on?
Yeah, I’m definitely switched on.
That’s why I can understand why so many creators gather in places like that. People of all different backgrounds come together, and you can really feel that all kinds of things are being created and produced there.
Of course, there are plenty of tourists too, but even just seeing the energy of the city was stimulating.
That’s why I really liked going to New York for live shows, just as I did for recording and mastering. When I’m there for a live performance, I really feel like I’ve come here to make music.
Even in a city like New York, did you have any moments that felt like a brief escape or a chance to catch your breath?
When I went to a bakery in Manhattan, I remember it having a really peaceful, laid-back atmosphere.
And the food was great too. It’s incredibly expensive, though(laugh). But no matter what I ate, I found myself thinking, “How do they manage to make this taste this good?”
Sometimes I’d just walk into a random place and the pho would be unbelievably delicious.
Our coordinator this time lives in New York, so I think it also helped that they knew the city inside out.
Even the catering at the shows was great. They prepared hot meals for us, and everything was delicious (laugh)
You visited six cities in total. Did the audience reaction differ from place to place?
Yes. In terms of sheer energy, I feel like Los Angeles turned into an incredibly intense show.
New York had a somewhat sophisticated atmosphere.
San Francisco was probably the shyest of the six. Though when I say “shy,” it’s still nothing compared with Japan (laugh)
You get something similar at Ling tosite sigure shows as well, but in Japan there’s often this atmosphere of quietly watching the performance.
Sometimes it even feels like people are watching you the way they would look at a work of art. Maybe I’m putting it a little too nicely (laugh)
Whenever TK starts talking during the MC, it always feels like that’s when the tension finally starts to loosen a little.
On our side, too, there’s this feeling of “We can’t afford to make even a single mistake for even a moment” (laugh) I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though.
What did it feel like when you took the stage in Mexico, which was the final stop of the tour?
In terms of sheer excitement, I think Mexico was probably the most intense of all.
Part of that might be because I associate it with the FIFA World Cup, along with the natural character of the people, but there were so many lively, bustling spots all over the city.
The energy of the audience was just incredible. That said, it's not like they were overly pushy or invasive. When I was buying coffee in town, someone came up to me and said, 'Hey, I went to your show yesterday,' but they were completely calm and polite about it. It was so relaxed that I almost felt like asking, 'Is there anything I can do for you?' (laughs). I really felt like they were watching with a true understanding of what I've created and who I am as an artist."
The way people maintain a sense of distance from one another is also very interesting. During this tour, were there many moments that you felt you wanted to preserve in your memory?
Around the second day, my throat broke down, and I started wondering, “What’s going to happen from here?” So I asked someone to keep filming. I didn’t really think there was much chance that my voice would recover from there. But if it did recover, I thought that would be a miraculous story in itself, and I wanted to preserve it as such.
I was in an extreme situation, after all. I had spent two or three years putting this tour together, and this was happening right at the beginning.
I remember thinking, “As far as God’s punishments go, this is way too harsh.”
But when you’re confronted with a situation like that, you can encounter emotions that you’ve never experienced before. Conversely, when you’re in your normal state of mind, it’s difficult to come across feelings that you’ve never discovered before.
So this time, while taking photographs, I was also writing things down almost like a diary, recording how my emotions were shifting at the time.
I thought that, viewed from a distance someday, the way my emotions fluctuated would probably be interesting to look back on. It wasn’t really about finding inspiration. I simply wanted to document what happens to me when I’m pushed into a corner.
Even when I’m in good condition, I’ve always set the keys of my songs right on the edge of whether I can actually sing them or not. I make music while deliberately stretching myself beyond my limits.
I feel there’s a certain thrill that comes from that particular vocal range. I also feel that this aspect, including with Ling tosite sigure, may be one of the reasons why the music has eventually reached people overseas, even after all these years. Somewhere inside, I understand that I’ve managed to get this far by repeatedly pushing myself to the point of hurting myself. So I’ve also always had a feeling that, at some point, there will come a moment when I break.
Do you think the emotions you were writing down in real time might eventually become a song?
I’d like to try turning them into a song. I’d like to express how my emotions shifted at that time.
Although whether those emotions actually fit a song is a different matter.
In reality, putting my feelings into words is quite difficult.
There’s also the relationship with the tempo of the song. The deeper and more raw emotions inside me are often things I want to express through something slower.
Even so, this time I felt like I was experiencing, compressed into every single day, things that I would normally take several years to feel and process. It really was an incredibly intense period of time.
At the time of this interview, “unravel” had surpassed 400 million streams on Spotify. Having actually performed it overseas, what kind of response did you feel from the audience?
I really did get the sense that this song has spread throughout the world. But when it comes to Mexico, it wasn’t simply that everyone went crazy for “unravel.” There was an incredible level of energy from beginning to end. It felt like every song was greeted with cheers from the very moment its intro started.
You once told me that “the day of a live show is when I feel the most fulfilled.” Did you feel that way during this tour as well?
Yes. A live performance is a place where I feel both full and empty at the same time.
When I say “fulfilled,” I don’t mean that I personally feel fulfilled. It’s more that it’s the moment when I feel something like the meaning of being alive most strongly. I think many musicians probably feel the same way, but the moment you finish creating a piece of work, and the moment you’re performing live, are times when you can experience the greatest emotional highs and lows as a musician.
The difference from completing a piece of work, though, is that when you perform live, the things that are missing from you also come pouring down on you at the same time.
When you look at your life as a whole, it may be a moment of fulfilment.
But at the same time, you’re also confronted with the part of yourself that isn’t fulfilled.
Sometimes a live show is also when I feel despair about who I am right now.
And yet, when I look back on those moments of despair from far away someday, I think I’ll probably be able to say, “Even that was a moment when I was truly fulfilled.”
After finishing all the shows, what were you thinking about on the flight back to Japan?
On the flight home… I was writing the whole time. My flight was at 6:30 in the morning, and I got to the airport around 3 a.m., so I boarded the plane without really having slept much. But I also wanted to preserve my memories of the show from the previous day, so I just kept jotting down whatever was on my mind at the time. Things I was experiencing through my senses, what I was hearing, what I was physically feeling… I’m not sure how to put it.
For example, the way the plane was shaking, or the feeling of the wind blowing outside, those are things you can’t necessarily recall from a photograph.
So I tried to write down as much as possible about the seemingly insignificant things I was seeing around me at that moment. Even something as simple as sitting in my seat on the plane and seeing sunlight falling on my legs through the small window.
Things that might seem completely trivial can actually be surprisingly important, because when someone reads about them later, they can picture the scene in their mind.
As time passes, you forget those things, and they’re not necessarily things you would take a photograph of. But the things that somehow create the atmosphere of a moment are made up of all those tiny details. I’ve written texts for film A moment and Whose Blue before, but the things I ended up struggling with later were always the things that weren’t captured in the photographs. So this time, I wanted to make sure I preserved those kinds of details as much as possible, even if it was just in the form of bullet points.
After experiencing this North American tour, were there any new cities that made you think, “I’d like to perform there someday”?
Chile, I think. Even at my age, the more places I visit, the more I realise there are still so many emotions I’ve never experienced before. This tour also made me feel that there’s still a whole world ahead of me that I don’t know yet.
Of course, an overseas tour isn’t something that can happen just because one person says, “I want to go.” The circumstances are different every single day, and you run into problems that would be unthinkable in Japan. For example, you might arrive somewhere and find that the only thing available as a drum stool is a folding chair.
You need a team that’s able to accept those kinds of situations as part of the experience.
Sometimes I even find myself wondering, “What are we actually seeking by taking on such a difficult challenge?”
Even so, I’d like to find out whether there are aspects of my solo music that make it easier for people overseas to embrace it precisely because it’s solo work. And I’m also curious whether, if we were to perform Ling tosite sigure’s music overseas again now, people would respond to it differently from how they did in the past. That’s something I’d really like to find out.
3. 15 Years of Solo Work—Sharpening Himself Further and Moving Beyond
In July, you’ll also be holding the Asian shows “TK from Ling tosite sigure TOUR 2026 ASIA” in Taiwan and Seoul. After the North American tour, do you feel there’s anything you can carry forward into these upcoming Asian shows?
I think we’ve become considerably stronger.
When we’re overseas, we also kind of flip a strange switch. No matter how difficult something is, we get into this mindset of “Okay, let’s just make this work”（laugh）
I definitely think we gained stamina from going through that tour. And even without putting it into words, we all share the feeling of “We got through that.”
I feel that being able to establish that foundation was a really significant thing for us.
You’ve performed in Asia several times before. What kind of image do you have of performing there?
Last year, I went to a festival in Korea with Ling tosite sigure and the audience got excited for every song. The atmosphere of the festival itself was like that too, but I felt that there are a lot of audiences there who genuinely love Japanese music. There are people who are waiting for us like that, so… although I can’t allow myself to take that support for granted.
And from November, your nationwide tour “TK from Ling tosite sigure TOUR 2026 生癖 -seiheki-” will also begin. You have a lot of live shows coming up one after another.
My friends even say to me, “You’re always playing live, aren’t you?”（laugh）
But I think it might give that impression because I probably have two projects that take turns being active.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of your solo career. If you were to put into words the things you have continued to hold onto unchanged—the “core” within you, so to speak—as suggested by the title Seiheki (生癖), what would they be?
I feel like this North American tour itself tells that story. In songs by Ling tosite sigure, I’ve been screaming “I want to die” while continuing to live all this time. My entire life as a musician overlaps in some ways with that tour, where I was struggling through extremely demanding circumstances in North America.
Rather than simply continuing to make music without anything going wrong, I have this tendency to push myself to somewhere close to my limits.
When I look back, I’ve really been putting music out there right on the edge of whether I can actually do it or not. And I think there’s probably a kind of pleasure that can only be found in that state. I think that is also my Seiheki — my particular “nature” or “habit” as a musician.
It also feels as though you deliberately put yourself in extreme situations while constantly trying to see new landscapes. How do you view the fact that your values may change over time?
Values… I haven’t really thought about it that much. But I don’t think my own values have changed. The part of me that gets excited by the music I create has remained the same all along.
Maybe that’s close to the mindset of someone who thinks, “I don’t want to change.”
But I do find it interesting when I occasionally look back and realise, “So this is how I’ve changed.” Right now, in this very moment, I always feel like “I haven’t changed.”
But someday, when I look back, there may come a time when I think, “I’ve actually changed in all sorts of different directions.” That’s something I’m looking forward to as well.
In a way, it sounds like two sides of the same coin. You once said that while trying to create music that has a solid foundation, you’re also searching for things that you don’t have yourself. That attitude seems to extend beyond music and into the way you live your life as well.
Yes. I’m actually more inclined to break things apart, in a sense.
There are two extremes within me: the conservative side and the side that wants to break things down. When it comes to music, I have this feeling that I can break things because I’m confident they won’t actually break. For example, changing the people involved in my music, whether they’re support musicians or engineers. Some people might be afraid that working with other people could cause them to lose something of themselves. But controlling that is also up to me. If all I wanted to do was protect what I have, I could simply do everything myself. But the reason I bring new people into the process is because I believe there might still be something beyond me, something I haven’t seen yet.
There’s a constant seesaw between two feelings: the confidence that I’m the person who can express myself best, and the desire to see landscapes that I’ve never seen before.
Those two things are always going back and forth inside me.
I think there’s always been this feeling that, by working together with other people, I might be able to see what lies beyond the things I currently believe in.
You said, “I can break things because I’m confident they won’t break.” Where do you think that sense of being “unbreakable” comes from? Is it a kind of conviction built through all the experience you’ve accumulated?
I think it comes precisely from the fact that I’ve continued to retain a somewhat cautious, timid side. I know better than anyone what it takes to actually break something.
That’s why I think very carefully about who I work with. I generally don’t just hand something over to someone else and leave it entirely in their hands. Rather, I make sure I’m still in a position where I can properly take responsibility for it myself. The feeling of “If I’m not keeping an eye on things here, something terrible is going to happen” is probably something only I have（laugh）But I keep those things in mind while trying to create something new.
It’s precisely because you have that sense of balance that you’re able to step forward and reach for new landscapes. At the end of the year, you’ll also be performing at Nippon Budokan for the first time as TK from Ling tosite sigure. Last year, you stood on the same stage with Ling tosite sigure for the first time in 12 years. What did that feel like?
I thought it was a place with a very special aura. We never pursued our career with the goal of performing at Nippon Budokan, nor was it somewhere we had particularly dreamed of performing. But when we stood on that stage, I felt that everyone could sense the weight of the venue as a historic place that Japan can be proud of. The fans, us, and all the staff, we all naturally seemed to feel the significance of “Today, we’re going to have people listen to our music here, at Nippon Budokan.” There’s something almost magical about that place.
When you perform at Nippon Budokan solo, I’m already imagining what kind of lineup you’ll have on stage.
I haven’t thought about it at all yet（laugh） But I do think it would be nice to have a section where I perform solo, singing and playing guitar. Although, if I do that, it actually creates more things to worry about（laugh） With a solo acoustic performance, there are sometimes these casual moments like, “What song should we play today?” But with me, I inevitably switch into this mode of “If I’m going to do it, I want to show them something properly.”
I still vividly remember you saying in the past that performing solo with just your voice and guitar is when you feel “the most completely exposed.” I’m really looking forward to spending an evening immersed in your music at Nippon Budokan at the end of the year.
And to commemorate your 15th anniversary as a solo artist, you’ll also be releasing the digital best-of album The Best of Portraits [Thrill / Still] – 15th Anniversary Collection, with the tracklist selected by listeners. The songs selected by the audience through the voting process will be released as a best-of album. I think the selection turned out to be more deep-cut and hardcore than I expected. What I’d really like is to take those songs and give them a new breath of life through the sound they have today, turning them into something that feels like a new work.
You’ve already reached 15 years as a solo artist. Have you ever found yourself imagining what you might do for your 20th anniversary?
Not at all. There’s no way（laugh）I don’t even know if I’ll be alive five years from now.
But the fact that I’ve continued as a solo artist for 15 years might itself be something that people who knew me in the early days never imagined would happen.
Now that you have these two outlets—your solo work and Ling tosite sigure, there seems to be a kind of synergy between them, as well as something interesting about moving back and forth between the two.
Through producing and doing solo work, I do feel that people naturally find their way to Ling tosite sigure as well. But overseas, people don’t seem to draw as much of a distinction between my solo work and the band.
During this tour, for example, people would tell me, “I’m looking forward to ‘abnormalize’” or comment, “I love ‘a 7days wonder.’”
It does sting a little sometimes（laugh）But precisely because that boundary is so blurred, I think it also makes it easier for people to move back and forth between the two.
TK from Ling tosite sigure is a pretty weird name, though（laugh）The fact that the band’s name is included probably also gives people a reason to listen to both at the same time.
“kalappo Lab.”, which was launched to commemorate your 10th anniversary as a solo artist, is also celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. What has this space come to mean to you?
When I started kalappo Lab., what I had in mind was simply, “It would be nice if this is fun.”
I live with the attitude that I want to do things that I find enjoyable.
I don’t really think of my life as a musician as a job.
If you think you have to do something, it becomes difficult to keep going. But if you’re having fun, you can continue without forcing yourself, right? So, just as the name kalappo suggests—meaning “empty”—I started it from the idea of “There’s nothing inside me, really.”
With kalastagram—TK’s posts about the mundane emptiness of everyday life—I deliberately started posting things that weren’t really significant enough to put on social media, because I wanted to create a place where I could post things even when nothing particularly special was happening. So I’m incredibly grateful and happy that, five years in, it has become a place where I can show people sides of myself that I can’t show them at live performances.
In a way, it’s also become a place where everyone can gather.
When I’m on stage, I feel like people are watching me battle against myself, so I don’t even have the mental space to talk or do anything else. But I’m not really a serious or solemn person either, so I actually feel more comfortable when people get to see that side of me.
I’m glad I created this place because it’s allowed me to keep going while showing people that side of myself.
Finally, could you leave a message for everyone who has been connected with you through kalappo Lab. and has always been watching over you?
I’m very happy that kalappo Lab. has become a fun place for me.
I hope all of you are enjoying it too. I want to keep kalappo Lab. going for another 10, 15, 20 years… until the day I die. So please, keep watching.
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