The depth of the emotions and words accelerating every second as they head towards a place they’d been promised long before. Right now, what they want to communicate/what they can communicate is all put into 23W/220 L. The voices of the four woman you must want to hear in this moment are engraved completely here.
So, you’re going with Latin for summer after all?
MINA: ‘Perfect Love’ is like a mixture of Latin and Disco. We’ve never done such a straightforward song before, so this was also a new challenge.
NANA: It’s very catchy, even if you’ve only heard it once, it sticks in your head. And I also think it’s different than a lot of MAX’s song up until now.
MINA: To tell the truth, there was actually one more song, of a different type, but we also wanted to record something that was a completely new challenge too. When the CM was decided and we saw the storyboard for it, it seemed like a fun song would fit it more, so we decided on this song.
NANA: We even recorded the trial recording of the other song, but it didn’t fit the image of the CM. But it’s not like that other song is lost. We’re thinking we’d like to rethink the timing for it and release it later on. So that means we’ve got even more to look forward to. What were you trying to express with this song, what was the key point to it?
REINA: We really worried a lot over that this time.
MINA: Each times we worry about ‘how can we arrange this to be MAX like?’, but this time it was a question of ‘How much can we power up how interesting this song is?’. So, in order not to break the song’s image, we wanted to make the dance and the outfits as interesting as we could…to make it something that would be a lot of fun to watch. So is that why you used stand mics?
MAX: No, when we came to ourselves, we’d changed to stand mics. (laugh)
LINA: The idea came up to try using stand mics while we were making the dance. And in the midst of that rhythm, we were like ‘Well not use them sometimes?’ (laugh)
NANA: But it so interesting how things will change during the process of making it. At first we were thinking really deeply about it but finally the four of us said, ‘Let’s just have fun with this song.’ So we added a lot of playfulness to it all. The dance, and the outfits…we decided to make it a song with a feeling of ‘This is good, this is good!’
LINA: Rather than charming everyone with MAX’s coolness, we condensed it all into something coming from a completely different side, we wanted it to have the kind of fun of a party.
REINA: For the first time in a long while, we put in a lot of dance moves that would make the people watching thing ‘Ooh, I want to try that!’ The reason we decided to use stand mics was because with hand mics, an interesting dance with two hands often becomes a one handed dance. It’s also a dance with quite a bit of impact…I really want everyone to remember it and dance with us. So you can all dance together at your concert.
LINA: That’s another reason for it, yeah.
NANA: Our tour starts in July, so we kept in mind the fact that we wanted a song that we could all dance to together. We put in things like the peace sign, saying ‘It would be really funny if the whole audience did this!’ (laugh) The PV also reflects a very playful spirit.
MINA: It’s very playful. (laugh) That kind of pattern in a first for us.
LINA: With the PV as well, we put a lot of focus on, ‘How much fun, how interesting can we make this?’ Watching that, you can really understand where this song’s going.
NANA: I have the feeling that the playfulness got stronger as we made the PV. Speaking of which, as we were talking about the costumes, the suggestion of mini skirts came up, and we were like ‘Seriously? It’s been a long time. Should we go for it?’(laugh)
LINA: But after all, we can only wear clothes like that during songs like this one. So we decided to do it.
MINA: Cause, if we did it all kind of half-heartedly, it could all turn out to be really stupid looking. So we said, we’re doing it, let’s go all the way. And if you go all out, you can make people think, ‘Their bravery, and the energy and spirit they put into is really cool.’
NANA: Right, right. That’s was we ourselves were going for. (laugh) And the coupling song is so cool…
MAX: Yes! It’s so cool! It’s just what you would expect from MAX, who seem to be going for a ‘B side Best Album’ (laugh)
MINA: The first time we heard it we all jumped around saying, ‘This is really, really cool!’. But it’s a very difficult song. So we put a lot of fighting spirit into the recording.
LINA: It’s almost shame to make it a coupling song. If we sang this on TV, I think everyone would say ‘This’s amazing!’.
MINA: So we’re looking forward to our tour. When we come across a song like this, we all say ‘Ooh, we want to hurry up and sing and dance and show this to everyone!’
LINA: We want to give color to it. I’m looking forward to that.
NANA: And with this type of song, you can get into the world of the lyrics really easily.
REINA: Ooh, I really want to hurry up and show everyone MAX singing this ‘Bible XX’.
LINA: All the coupling songs, and…oh, is it okay to talk about our tour? Of course! That’s actually where I was heading.
LINA: We have a lot of great coupling songs, and album songs. And of course single songs too. So making the choices for this year’s song list was really hard.
MINA: It took a lot of time. Before, we’ve always finished it in a day or so, but we went over that this time for the first time. It was incredible. You just couldn’t cut songs out?
REINA: Yeah. We had a lot of different ideas. And then, deciding the order of the songs was really hard too, putting out all our ideas one by one…
LINA: Before that, we first decided on a theme, and a concept for it all. Because, if you don’t decide on a theme, you can’t make a flow for the songs. So, we decided on a theme, but finding a song list that fits was hard as well… If you get too caught up in the theme, then it actually becomes harder. So that took a lot of time too. So, we said, ‘Maybe we should try taking away the theme and all that for a second, and just look at the song list without it…’ and stuff.
REINA: Also, there are too many songs we want to sing. (laugh)
NANA: We have to figure out how many ‘We definitely want to sing this!’ songs, and how many ‘I bet everyone will want to here this…’ songs to put in. Everyone has a lot of feelings about each song, so you have to try to figure that all out in a way that everyone will feel good about, and it gets even harder! So what’s the result like?
MINA: It’s a bit unexpected. But, we have a lot of new challenges, as we make this concert. We may be sticking our necks out here….(laugh)
NANA: But, I think that it does have that feeling of This is MAX!’ Rather than something strange, it has a feeling of MAX, who is trying a lot of new things. Straightforward.
REINA: I think a lot of MAX’s various good parts will come out this time. It has a lot of nice parts, like ‘They have parts like this too.’, and ‘Oh, but this is MAX too.’ ‘And so is this!’ Heh heh. During our last interview, you said ‘We can think of many different way to present each song, including the album songs.’ But how do you figure out how to communicate the songs other than the single title songs?
NANA: One song at a time. But, even the older songs change, don’t they?
MINA: Yeah. We try more to get our old songs closer to the current MAX. Rather then having MAX go back to when the song was released, we try to present them all as, how that old song would be if MAX did it now. We think a lot about that part of it. Which means that you of course pick the songs that that would work most cooly with?
MAX: Ahahahaha! You found us out! (laugh) Well, we think about that too. So, the songs that you start creating from zero….
REINA: Oh, this time we redid every one from zero. Oh, you did?
MAX: Yep, we did!
MINA: We took all the song, singles too, and start them from a completely blank state, sort of like saying ‘Come here, to how MAX is now!" So, you have a foundation, but you don’t try to bring it closer to your current age and style, but you start it from a completely blank state?
LINA: Right. From a clean state. Ahh, that sounds difficult…
MINA: And when we came to ourselves, it was like ‘Oh, did we actually do that to every song this time!?’ That’s what happened. Wow, we really did it this time. (laugh) But, isn’t that what you want to do?
MAX: Right, right. (laugh) We do. Now them please let me know your own individual ‘Personal theme for the tour’, which has become your established practice.
MINA: I don’t know if you’d call it a theme, but I believe that I’ll be able to give something more than what’s in me at this concert. I have a feeling that I’ll be able to do more than what I believe is ‘the limit of what I can do’, on this tour. Whether it’s in the dance, the singing, how I present myself, I think that it will come out. I really do.
LINA: My overwhelming theme is ‘growth.’ I’ve done the concerts up until now, not with a conscious thought of ‘I want to make myself grow’, but with more of a feeling of ‘After the tour is over, I can see what parts of me grew, and what parts of me that didn’t.’ But with this tour, I know from the beginning that ‘If I can make this succeed, I’ll grow for sure.’ I feel like if I can make all these things we’re challenging into my own, my self confidence will grow, and something will change, so…I’m going to go to confront it all, believing in my own strength.
REINA: This might be a funny way to express it, but I want to ‘do everything truly’. There are a lot of ways to look at it this time, but I can say ‘It’s all true.’, so I want to give it everything I’ve got. And then, when it’s all through, I want to meet a new self, after it’s over, and during the tour as well. While doing the concerts I want to be like ‘ooh!’.(laugh) Like, this kind of Reina [exists] too. Yeah.
NANA: I want to enjoy the concerts more than I have before. We’ve been doing concerts for so long…of course I enjoy them, but there’s also a part that’s very tight. When I thought to myself, ‘What can I do to enjoy them more?’ I realized, ‘I need to be prepared enough to enjoy it.’ So, the first thing I have to do is to do everything I can before the actual tour begins. I want to stand confidently on the stage so that I can enjoy it from beginning to end. What kind of concert would be what you consider MAX’s best?
MINA: Like we mentioned before, we’ll consider it a success if a feeling of ‘This is MAX!!’ is communicated. I have a feeling that if we can communicate all the different faces of the current MAX just as they are, that that would be our personal best.
NANA: Like, so that when it’s over, we don’t have to say things like, ‘But we’re really like this …’ We want to make it a concert where if you watch the stage, everything that we are comes across.
