KAZUKI KUWAGAKI/GOU TAKEUCHI - SIGNIFICANT POINT

💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal KAZUKI KUWAGAKI and GOU TAKEUCHI of SIGNIFICANT POINT, NWOTHM band from JAPAN!! Welcome!! Hi! Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for the interview. We are happy to be here! 💿 Can you tell us somethin’about your early days? When is this all begun? Which bands have influenced you? Significant point was formed by Kuwagaki and Takeuchi in 2011. At first, all members were friends from high school. After some member changes, we started to play gigs from 2013. The current lineup is Vo. Fumiya Abe, Gt. Gou Takeuchi, Gt. Kazuki Kuwagaki, Dr. Itormentor which was formed in 2016. We are influenced by not only US Metal and NWOBHM like Savage Grace, Metal Church, Savage and Jaguar, but also Japanese heavy metal such as LOUDNESS or WOLF. As for the guitar play, Michael Schenker has a significant influence. 💿 We’re in waitin’ for your 7” EP “ATTACKER”, out from March 15th. Can you tell us somethin’about this platter and its composition process? We’re listening to the title track and we were really very impressed! Thank you !! This EP is the first official release by this lineup. The support bassist in this EP is Hiroki Hamashima from Japanese Thrash metal band “OUTBREAK RIOT”. The ideas of “Attacker” and “Danger Zone”, which are the two contents in the EP, were made by Takeuchi in 2011. But it was 2015 when these songs were finally completed. Especially, it was so hard to create the guitar solo in Attacker. Creation and breaking were repeated over many times... The lyrics were made by former vocalist, but some parts were changed by Kuwagaki and Takeuchi. The songs were recorded in Studio Akseli at nishi-Ogikubo (a city in Japan) in May of 2016. After that, we requested audio mastering to Eisyu Ito in Studio Sun at Nishi-Funabashi. We think there are three important points for making song. That is quality of guitar riff, catchy melodies and structure of song. In Heavy metal, guitar riff is something like a face of song, you know.We think catchy guitar riff is more important than guitar solo. As for the melodies…In any kind of music, songs that are said to be great have a catchy melody. Catchy melody can exist in not only vocal melody, but also in guitar riff and solo. Keeping these things in our mind, we have been trying to make a catchy melody that can be stuck in someone’s head. In the structure of song, 4 steps are important; that is prologue, main theme, turn & change, and epilogue. If we can make these steps in a song, the song will not be boring. The 4 steps are also essential and important in guitar solo. Guitar solo with only shred guitar is not good. Balance is more significant than guitar technique. At first, the guitar solo in Attacker was redundant. It took many times to create and connect each solo part… 💿 The real “news” in music industry is the return of vinyl; What’s your feeling about this classic format and the current music business? Yes, it is justice that vinyl is attracting attention again. Download sales is surely great and convenient. In addition, nowadays we can listen anything in You Tube. But we wanted something like that can stand the test of time.We pursued 80's heavy metal and found that the origin is vinyl. Then, we had started to hear a lot of vinyl. Of course, we listened to CD and tape too. We went to record shop and saw these things with our own eyes, and bought. Vinyl release had become one of our dreams soon, and we are very happy that it has been come true! We think...Through download distribution, people noticed the importance of real object. That might be the trigger of the revival in vinyl. So, we think vinyl, CD and tape will become popular again, we hope so. 💿 The new vinyl will be out via INFERNO RECORDS. Can you tell us somethin’about the relationships with them? We got email from Fabien, who is the boss of INFERNO RECORDS. He told us that our music is really amazing heavy metal. At first, Shaxul (MANZER) and JERO (ABIGAIL) helped us to spread our music. Fabien got our demo CD by their helping. After the recording, we started to search a label for the releasing, and we sent email to Fabien. He told us that he would love to release our 7 EP.

💿 The passion for music in your Country is literally awesome! Can you tell us somethin’about the current situation of the classic heavy metal scene in Japan? Thank you ! As for the heavy metal scene in Japan… Young heavy metal band has been increasing compared with 5 or 6 years ago. That is something to be glad. But old school heavy metal bands like us is still minority...Death or Thrash metal scenes are more active than that of old school. Some expert bands invited us to some shows, so we managed to play gigs. We really appreciate it. In addition, Heavy metal music is a really minority while Pop music is a large Majority in Japan… We feel there is an overwhelming gap of popularity between the two music scenes… But we are hoping to eliminate the gap and change these situations. It seems big challenge. But the important thing is that we have to persist in our belief even in any predicament. We will never stop playing our heavy metal. As we said, young bands are increasing. We feel young metal scene is awaking. We think, what we can do now is to contribute to this scene. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’about your next live projects ? Are scheduled any gigs? We will participate in a show named TOKYO METAL FIRE, which is the young metal scene as we mentioned before. We plan to have one more gig in July, but the details have not been decided yet. Some members take part in another band, so sometimes it is difficult to adjust schedules. But we will play gigs periodically. 💿 Lastly, Can you tell us somethin’about the cover of “ATTACKER” Who made it? A really good job! The cover was created by the illustrator “Kamisironirey”, he is friend of Takeuchi and Kuwaga from high school. We just told him an image orally, but he made that. He really did great job. 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal!

It's our pleasure! Thank you for the interview! We hope many people will enjoy our EP!

#SIGNIFICANTPOINT #nwothm