YOASOBI and Bring Me The Horizon discuss keeping listeners on their toes

Reflecting feelings and thoughts in songwriting

RSJ: Oli, how do you think about your relationship with the world when making music?

Oli: I think the way I approach lyrics is always really personal. I’ve only ever known how to explain things through how I’m processing them. As I said, with Post Human: Survival Horror, that was the first time I started really making a full record that I felt was talking about bigger issues but I realized the only way I could do that was by still filtering them through my experiences. When the pandemic happened and the lockdown happened, I ended up falling back into drug addiction and so I was struggling with this addiction and it was at that point that I realized how similar our personal struggles were to the bigger story. I realized that I thought I was in a good place mentally and psychologically but I was not really in that great of a place, it was more that I was so busy with the band that I didn’t have the time to take drugs or to develop this problem anymore. Because I was so busy, Bring Me The Horizon was really successful. We were touring everywhere and then the pandemic hit and suddenly I was at home, I had nothing to do, I was no longer feeling the adrenaline from the shows and the excitement from the fans. So I very quickly got depressed and turned back to drinking and drugs and I realized how similar that was to the situation in the world, that society works really well when it's working but when a little thing stops it all, the whole thing goes into chaos and it makes you realize that our society is quite fragile. If you can throw something like one disease at it and it breaks the whole system and people are dying, it makes you realize that we’re not OK and I realized for me as well that I wasn’t OK. I was actually distracted. 

I realized that I could start talking about these bigger issues and use my addiction and my realization as a way to talk about something bigger. With these records, I’m truly in the whole record. For instance, on the new record, we have a song called “Strangers.” And this song for me is about going to rehab and realizing that I'm surrounded by people who are going through the same thing as me, people who are looking for safety or peace or comfort and then applying that to a bigger situation like refugees, people who are fleeing their home or their countries to go somewhere else and having more compassion for those people because nobody leaves their home unless it's on fire, nobody leaves their community unless it's so bad that they have to. Sometimes, especially in England and America, a lot of people treat this situation very coldly, the same way that someone who doesn’t understand drug addiction can treat someone very coldly. Because they don’t understand, they think you’re being selfish or self-destructive when there’s always a deeper reason as to why it gets that bad. So I'm trying to apply this idea of my personal experiences and connect it to something larger for every song.




RSJ: I get the feeling that, although YOASOBI’s songs are based on novels, when the stories are channeled through Ayase and delivered by ikura, they take on a broader life and meaning.

Ayase: Yeah. On top of following the original stories, there are definitely parts where I link the emotions of the main characters and the various dramas that arise to my own real-life experiences and real-life situations. Rather, I can use the emotions of the main characters to convey what I want to say. The listener can understand my feelings through the filter of the main character and enjoy the original story at the same time. . That is how it works. Of course, it is difficult to find the right balance, but I read the original novels so deeply that I feel as if they were my own . Something new comes out when I pass it through my own experiences. 

ikura: I can't be the original author, I can't be Ayase, and I can't sing as the main character of the story but I can bring my impressions of the story and I can bring emotions that are close to what I’ve experienced, beyond just imitation. There are natural tones and nuances that emerge when you are close to the songs, like, “I might want to sing this way when I am sad.” I value that kind of thing . I put my first impressions of the songs and what I felt when I first read the stories into our songs. I really hope that I can put a good part of the chemistry that only YOASOBI can create into my singing voice.



RSJ: What did you think when you got the offer to appear at NEX_FEST ?

Ayase: I was super excited. I was able to predict at that point that we would probably stand out from the other performers because we are a little different in genre, and that the other bands would be louder and more intense than we are. We really wanted to take part in this festival. We were confident that we would perform well at an event like this , so we asked, “Please let us play .”

RSJ:  In an interview, you said, "We will be the loudest " I thought it was really nice (laughs).

Ayase: (laughs) As always, we want to showcase the maximum power of the J-POP we’ve developed so far in this field.

Oli: Yeah, I think it’s going to sound huge.

RSJ: Oli, why did you choose Japan for the first NEX_FEST?

Oli: I guess it more chose us, really. We’d been talking about doing a festival in Japan for many years. We wanted to do something before the pandemic and obviously, that didn't happen so this was the first opportunity to do such a thing. For me, it was really exciting because I’ve been so inspired by Japanese artists, most of my favorite music has come out of Japan. Usually, I struggle a lot with going on tour in America or Europe or England. I don’t know who to take on tour, I feel like there are no bands that work with us anymore. We’ve tried something in England a little similar to NEX_FEST where we have a very diverse lineup, we had artists like Run The Jewels and everything from indie to hip hop and it wasn’t a disaster but it was really stressful because, at first, we sold no tickets, it was at a 30,000 capacity festival and we sold no tickets (laughs). We realized that people would prefer us to play with bands from our world, you know? 

In the same respect, I think our record amo was more successful in Japan than it was in England, or we felt like people responded to it better in Japan and I get the feeling that it’s because it’s more different and diverse and people in Japan are more excited about listening to a record that has a lot of different elements and different sounds. Whereas, in America, if you like rock music, you just like rock music. It’s changing now but then, it was very much this way. So we felt a lot more confident trying to do this idea of a festival where the music was more diverse, we were confident that the Japanese audience would be more excited about this than maybe if we took this to America first.

We want to show the rest of the world that this is how music should be. There should be fewer barriers and less gatekeeping. I think people don’t always know what they like until they see it live or give it a chance. We really believe in that, it sounds cheesy but I think music’s the last thing that can bring people together. I think that’s how we can put our differences aside in a lot of areas so it’s really exciting for us to be able to do it and for it to actually be successful.

Ayase: That’s great. Oli, I want to show you this photo. This is my room (where the cover of the album Sempiternal hangs.)

Oli: Aha, wow, so cool!


Oli（Photo by Maciej Kucia）

RSJ: With “Idol” reaching No. 1 on the Billboard GLOBAL TOP 200 (Excl. U.S.) and YOASOBI performing at Head in the Clouds Festival by 88rising in L.A., it seems like you’ll be looking to tour overseas more. What are your thoughts on that at the moment? 

Ayase: I feel like we are totally stepping out now. We want more and more people to listen to our music, and we want to hear real voices about how they understand our music in each country. We love all kinds of music and we are confident that we can continue to distribute our music while absorbing various influences and keeping the core of J-POP within us. We want to distribute our music to the world more and more, taking inspiration from various things around the world. I recently traveled to London. The city was so great that I thought if I could stay there a little longer, the songs I would write would be different.

RSJ: It is very cool that your music has been accepted overseas without changing yourselves.

Ayase: Yeah, but I don't want to be overconfident like we are “world-class.” I am glad that we were able to make people aware of our work, and I hope that we will continue to accept this opportunity, think about what approach we should take next time, and continue to challenge ourselves while having fun at the same time.

RSJ: From now on, the idea that “J-POP is not acceptable overseas” is going to become old-fashioned.

Ayase: I really want to break down the walls. I don’t want to sound arrogant , but I think we all had a somewhat strong fear about doing music abroad. Until now, I think there has been a feeling among us that “it’s not going to work anyway.” I believe we can break down those barriers.

RSJ: Have you changed your mindset since your music actually made the charts and you have performed overseas?

Ayase: I thought that if I wanted it, I could get it. I don't know if we have opened the door, but I think we have opened a small hole. I want to make that little hole bigger and bigger and eventually open the door. We hope that one day J-POP will be regarded as one of the hottest genres in the world, including not only ourselves but also young and future J-POP artists.

ikura: When our name was introduced just before we took the stage at the festival in Los Angeles, we received very loud cheers. That was the first time I realized that YOASOBI's music was reaching L.A. as well. When we received a visible applause , I thought, “There really was an audience waiting for us.” When we actually got on stage and heard the audience singing our songs in Japanese, I had a very big realization that we had really made a hole, or at least a little bit of a hole, as Ayase said. That is why we really want to keep opening the door with our music.

Oli: I think that’s the right attitude because any time we’ve tried to change because we thought it would help us grow bigger, it’s always had the opposite effect. Every time we’ve followed exactly what we want to do, it’s paid off. So I would say keep doing what you’re doing and I think the scope for these guys to be international is huge because already, I know it’s not the same, but because K-POP is so huge in England and America, people are already aware of that world. Also, with artists like BTS, each of the artists has their own side projects and some of those side projects are similar to YOASOBI where it’s very creative, very different and all these kids who got into BTS when they were 14 are now listening to this more mature, interesting, different music. So I think there’s so many people that will already understand what they’re doing and be really excited by it. And anime is so huge in America so those guys are coming from that world as well, so there’s so much potential.

RSJ: I think YOASOBI and Bring Me The Horizon can do something together in the future.

Oli: Yeah, that would be awesome, I’d love to work together. That was the first thing I thought when I listened to the music.

Ayase: I hope next time we can go to England and perform together.

RSJ: How about featuring Oli on vocals for a YOASOBI song?

Ayase: I am too afraid to ask so casually (laughs).

Oli: (laughter)




Ayase、Oli、ikura（Photo by Maciej Kucia）

Styling = Shota Funahashi（YOASOBI）, IORI YAMAKI（BRING ME THE HORIZON）
Hair and Make-up = nari（YOASOBI）
Hair = HAYATE MAEDA（BRING ME THE HORIZON）, Hair Assistant = REN（BRING ME THE HORIZON）
Make-up = YUKA HIRAC（BRING ME THE HORIZON）, Make-up Assistant = BERI（BRING ME THE HORIZON）