Ryota Fujimaki interview "Why sing, why climb, why do you kick a ball?" Vol.2 Student days as a mass of inferiority sense

<From Vol.1 is here>

--What position did you play in soccer back then?

FujimakiIn elementary school, I played as a forward, specifically a left winger. In middle school, I played both left and right midfield. Those positions required a lot of running. Now, I play a more aggressive, attacking position up front. 

- From what then did you run like it now?

 FujimakiSince I'd only ever played mini-games, I had a really hard time in a real match because I didn't know how to move or what to do.

--But third place in the prefecture is amazing, isn't it! When you joined the brass band in high school, did you ever feel like playing soccer? Did you have any lingering regrets about not playing soccer?

FujimakiSince I entered high school I joined the Brabang division and suddenly music as I formed a band. It became a feeling that, I was absorbed in music, did not I?   

--What inspired you to start making music?

FujimakiThe first thing I thought was that the seniors who bought the guitar in the mail order play cool and shocking. Because it is a country, the musical instrument store is also far and I also bought it through mail order (haha)

I entered senior high school while playing Shakashaka, making copying interesting.It was like, "Let's cover bands like Green Day, Oasis, and Lenny Kravitz and perform at the school festival!" We didn't actually write any songs at first, though.

--Many people start playing music because they want to be popular with girls, but that wasn't the case for you?

FujimakiI didn't have anything like that back then. I feel that way more now (laughs). Every year I want to be popular, I want to be popular! (laughs) Back then I was just doing it for fun.

--Does your approach to a song change depending on your emotions at the time?

FujimakiThis might be a foreshadowing of what I said earlier about nothing lasting long, but I originally wanted to become an architect. I admired gymnasts and aimed to become an architect, but my life was all over the place until I was about 20, and I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. At that time, there were people around me who were working hard towards their dreams, and those people seemed to shine to me.

When I saw people like that, I felt like I was a ball of inferiority complex. I felt like I was doing everything half-heartedly, and although I wanted to become an architect, I failed the entrance exam for the architecture department and ended up going to university for civil engineering instead. There was something about it that left me feeling unsettled.

But, when there was a lot of things to say to them there was a lot of things to do, when I first made a song at the age of 19, that mooyamoya got on the song tune. That is my starting point.

The moment something is born from nothing is amazing. The moment that I still remember the most in my life is the first time I made a song.
 


--Is that song included in any album?

FujimakiIt hasn't been released to the public. I was in the civil engineering department, so the song is called "Concrete" (laughs). When I made that one song, I felt like my heart was lighter, and the vague feelings of inferiority that had been swirling around in my mind became a little more positive. From there, I became completely immersed in music, and when I was 20, I formed Remioromen.

In a way, my overwhelming feelings of inferiority actually worked to my advantage, becoming my starting point and leading me to discover the wonderfulness of expressing myself through music. 

- There was a desire to become an architect because there was a desire to make something?

 FujimakiI think I always had the desire to create something. My family grows peaches and grapes, and I grew up watching my father growing things, so I think I had a feeling that I wanted to try making something myself.

And I went to Spain on a trip abroad for the first time I liked the Gaudi that I liked the shaping of the building purely.

I think it's because when I saw the buildings Gaudí created, I was really impressed by his philosophy of expressing things from nature and his idea of reinterpreting those forms in a geometric way. Well, in the end, I ended up going in the direction of music rather than architecture.

--You then debuted with Remioromen, but before we talk about music, I wanted to ask you about mountains. How did you start working with mountaineer Ken Noguchi? Was Remioromen on hiatus at the time?

FujimakiI'm from Yamanashi Prefecture, so I vaguely thought, "I'd like to climb Mount Fuji by the time I'm 30," and then I happened to have the opportunity to do so.

When climbing from the Fujiyoshida mouth, the Kawaguchi lake is visible at the beginning, the Misaka mountain range can be seen beyond the lake Kawaguchi as it rises a little more, the Kofu basin can be seen beyond that and as we climb, the more it climbs, the more Nagano can be seen, the more Niigata is visible The scenery changes steadily as we go. 

It was incredibly beautiful, and luckily the day I climbed it was sunny, so I could see the sunrise from the top, and it was truly beautiful. At the time, I didn't think that mountain climbing would become a lifelong hobby, but I just felt that it was something really great.

Later, as part of a project to commemorate Remioromen's 10th anniversary, we had a special feature in a separate issue of Kadokawa magazine where each member of Remioromen had a conversation with someone they wanted to meet. Since I had just climbed a mountain at the time, I thought Ken Noguchi would be a good person to talk to about mountains, so I asked him to have a conversation with me.

When I actually heard Ken Noguchi's story, it wasn't like when I climbed Mount Fuji and thought, "Oh, it's beautiful!" It was more like a life-or-death situation, where he walked over corpses during the climb, saw people fall right in front of him, and he talked about philosophical things like why people climb mountains, and I was absolutely overwhelmed.

At that time, it was just an interview, but later, I happened to meet him again at a Moroccan restaurant, and we made plans to have a meal together. When we went out for dinner, we hit it off, perhaps because we were close in age, and from then on, he took me hiking in the mountains regularly.

Initially, I was taken to the Yatsugatake Mountains, and it seems that Ken Noguchi recognized my physical strength during that climb, because the next step was to suddenly go to the Himalayas.

<To be continued in Vol. 3>http://king-gear.com/articles/571

Photo gathering: Takeshi Sekawa