Makoto Kawabata

As the head of what is arguably the most internationally known Japanese rock group(s) of the last ten years, Makoto Kawabata has used the Acid Mothers Temple project as an ambassador of his personal cosmic sounds since 1996. His releases, bands, and performances are legion: he's had so many projects that there's a good chance that YOU have collaborated with him without even knowing it. Jrawk briefly slowed him down long enough to discuss pro wrestling, ABBA, and the mysterious "copyleft."

JR: (Pulls out a flyer for the evening's performance and reads:) "After ten years of saying we'll never play in Tokyo, a complete betrayal of our principals!" (Kawabata laughs) You said you'd never play Tokyo, why now?

KM: Because this time people want to see us! Years ago, only a few people cared, but people want our music now.

JR: You have said that you're reaching for a cosmic sound, a sound you hear in your head. Do you ever feel like you're getting closer?

KM: No idea! (smiles) It's not a cosmic sound, but a something sound. I can always hear it as music, but I don't know the distance, how far it is.

JR: You grew up in a smaller town. Do you think your music would have been different if you grew up in, say, Tokyo?

KM: No idea! I can't imagine. Now that I'm in Tokyo, it feels the same as New York, London: it's like a foreign country for me. It feels very different. I can speak Japanese here, it has the same customs, but it's different. You're from America, so you speak English: imagine going to London. You can speak the language, but it's foreign.

JR: You've said that you wanted to be a dictator when you were a child, but when you heard Indian classical music on television, you decided to pursue music. Now, you're leading this collective, you have that leadership role. Do you think there's something about your music that invites people to follow?

KM: Not really: when my music leaves my hands, it's not my music anymore. It's for the people. That's why I don't like copyright: I call it copyleft. (laughs) Everyone can use my music for whatever.

Of course, I need to get money for my music, so there's only one condition: don't upload the official releases. If someone makes a live recording, great, they can upload it, no problem. We only get paid for the official releases and shows: it's our lifeline! (laughs)

JR: You work in a psych rock context, which inherently emphasizes inner space. This philosophy naturally leads to what some people call "headphone music," music made for shutting out the world and listening to a space that can only be experienced though headphones. When you record and mix, do you try to create a tangible sonic space?

KM: If you listen to Acid Mothers on headphones, you can find different things than you would simply through speakers. I definitely mix it as headphone music. I use a lot of panning, making something sound very far away at first. But if you listen through speakers, you lose some of the effect. The vibrations through the air can lose some detail, but listening through headphones is a much more direct experience.

JR: Changing the subject: I saw you in Columbus, Ohio, in 2001. Everyone was wearing WWF shirts. (NOTE: that's the World Wrestling Federation, not the World Wildlife Federation.) That was a bit of a disconnect!

KM: (laughs) At that time, we loved the WWF. We learned a lot of English from it! They speak very slowly, with bad acting, so it's easy to understand them. They also use a lot of bad language that we wouldn't otherwise hear. You can't find this kind of thing in a English guidebook! It's sometimes closer to normal English.

JR: That brings up an interesting point: often people who are as serious about their music as you are lack a sense of humor.

KM: I grew up in Osaka, which is very different than Tokyo. It's actually a bit similar to Latin or Italian culture: Osaka people love good food, lots of jokes, and women! (laughs) If you take the subway in Osaka, it's loud, everyone's talking about something. In Tokyo, it's the opposite, very silent. Totally different. When I was a child, all the kids had to tell jokes. If a kid didn't tell jokes, he couldn't live in Osaka! Music needs humor, like Frank Zappa. Zappa's a good example: His music is very serious, it blends jazz rock, contemporary music, but there's plenty of jokes.

JR: You've explained Acid Mothers' enormous discography as being similar to jazz musicians, who often release five or six albums a year. Do you every worry that the collector mentality will take over, that people will simply think "oh, another Acid Mothers release," and not really connect?

KM: I don't really have a problem with that kind of thing. Why do we release so much? We've never had a release through a big label, and by big label I mean a label that has strong, worldwide distribution. An American label might have good coverage in the States, but not, for example, Europe. So we decided to try to release at least one album in each country! That way, everyone can find at least one album, and it's still affordable since it doesn't need to be imported.

Also, when we released the first two albums through PSF, I had the idea that we had to have totally different sounds for each release. If we always sounded the same, it would be very easy to get pigeonholed. The first two albums were heavy psychedelia, the third was more ambient. So people's perception of us doesn't get stuck in one idea.

If Black Sabbath suddenly started playing avant garde music, even if it was very good, people would say no. They'd miss the heavy riffs. But we release so many different things, if we if we released a pure drone album, people won't be unpleasantly surprised. They'll already understand why we change.

JR: Is this why there are so many permutations of the Acid Mothers collective? With Acid Mothers SWR, there are seven different projects, all from some arrangement of the same three (or fewer) members.

KM: Yes. We really don't want to define any limits, we want to play any kind of music that might occur to us.

JR: Speaking of AMT projects, you've described Tsurubami as a project that you have as a spiritual refuge, in a way.

KM: Acid Mothers is entertainment, for an audience, in a rock 'n' roll style that's easy to understand. Tsurubami is much more experimental. Tsurubami is for us, a kind of practice as musicians on a personal level. People (as in the audience) made Acid Mothers Temple. In the early AMT days, we'd tour abroad, and the flyer would say "Acid Mothers Temple from Japan." We don't like that idea. We are people, we belong to people. We're not from anywhere. Tsurubami, on the other hand, is for us. We don't have to have an audience!

JR: In your top ten albums of all time, you list ABBA's "Arrival." That's a curious choice. Do you hear any of the cosmic sound in it?

KM: Not exactly, but we do have one thing in common: Vivaldi. I don't like baroque music, I prefer older musics, troubadour music, pre 16th-17th century. Baroque music became too mathematic. But Vivaldi...I love The Four Seasons. I love the melody.

It's the same with ABBA. They have beautiful melodies. They also had very original ideas in the studio, dubbing parts over and over until they had their original sound. Guitar, vocals, everything.

JR: When (ABBA members) Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus talk about those albums, they emphasize how much time they spend in the studio. Are you that obsessive with AMT releases?

KM: I spent two and a half years on the first album! We changed the lineup, had a lot of different sessions. Since it was the first album, I wanted everything to be just right.

JR: Have you thought about other methods you might use to channel the cosmos?

KM: I was a designer when I was younger, but I wanted to be an artist. A designer is always responsible to the client, and they can't really have their own work: it has fit someone else's idea. Some clients might not know anything about good design, but if they don't like it, I have to alter it. I was very unsatisfied. If I thought it was good, I'd often have to change it to something bad. I wanted to be more of an independent artist, like maybe I painter. I have good technique, I studied at university, but I had no idea what I should paint. It wasn't working for me, and changed permanently to music.

JR: Some musicians will artificially limit themselves in certain ways to see how they would work around the constraint. Do you ever set boundaries to see what happens?

KM: Not really. I'm focused on acting like a good radio receiver for the music from my cosmos, so I must play freely as possible. I can hear this music, but you can't, so I need an instrument to play it to you. I don't want my conscious thoughts to interfere. I've never composed, the music is not my composition. If I put a conscious idea into the music, it becomes bad. I try to be as open as possible, to keep my mind and ego out of it.

Some people say this is a Zen philosophy, but I don't like Zen, so I say no! (laughs)

JR: You've emphasized the importance of channeling the music to your audience and keeping your ego out of it as much as possible. When you play to an audience, do you think of them as part of the AMT collective?

KM: They're part of the energy, of course, but no. They do, however, feed energy back to us, which is one of the great pleasures of having this band.

JR: Of all the various AMT lineups, do you have a favorite?

KM: Last night we played as Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO. This is the best lineup, I think. There's also the Cosmic Inferno, which has Pikachu (from Afrirampo) as our drummer. We played a show in Hokkaido two weeks ago that was really good. We're also getting ready for a UK tour later this Summer. The Cosmic Inferno got better when Pikachu joined, because she brought a lot of new ideas and new energy.

JR: Speaking of Afrirampo, they played a show in Roppongi last year where their opening act was a yoga lesson. Last time we saw you, your encore consisted of showing off your record collection. Was that planned, do you do non musical things like that often?

KM: (laughs) No, no. For that show, we came from Europe, directly from the airport to the venue. We still had all our bags, and we just showed off what we bought. That did come from the way we improvise our humor, though. Timing is everything: sometimes, if the joke is three seconds later, it doesn't work! (laughs)

JR: Do you see yourself as a unifier?

KM: No, it just happens. I'm always meeting new people, and I believe meeting them is destiny. I never have a plan. When Cotton (Casino) left, we simply waited for a new vocalist. It's fate.

JR: Are there any bands today that you think are also channeling cosmic music?

KM: There are a lot of bands around Osaka, younger bands, a different generation. They were influenced by our generation, but they were also influenced by Jpop, although they play very different music.

JR: One more question: we've talked about how the music comes from some place other than yourself. As you play more and go further on your own journey, does it become easier to channel this music?

KM: It's difficult to say: I'm always connecting with my personal, inner cosmos. When it comes, it doesn't feel like a process. It just happens. This kind of thing is typical of my life, I can listen in at any time. It's the same as breathing, or my heartbeat. If I ever reach the point where I can't hear the music from the cosmos, I'll stop. My mission will be finished. If there is a God, then He'll decide, and if He ever decides my first mission is finished, I'll have to change.