04 Hardcore Techno Boy

I travelled with X Japan as their synths' programmer, but in the beginning I was not on duty, even though I was in the studio while each band member recorded their part. I also worked on sounds while in my place, and tagged along when everyone went to an amusement park, golfing, drinking, and more drinking. When I think about my time in LA, I feel like I worked hard, but I also feel like I spent a lot of time having fun. Yet, I wonder why all I can remember is having lots of fun. Well, at least the audio recordings are proof that we actually worked, but hide and I surely hung out a lot. And all that hanging around eventually turned into music.

"Ina-chan, you work with step entry recording, no? Would you come over to hang out and teach me how it works?"

That was a phone call I received from hide after about one month into our stay in LA. When I got to his place, he had a Korg T3, an all-in-one synthesizer that had a synth function, drum sounds, and sequencing (the step entry recording function).

"Huh, what's the deal with this?"

"I borrowed a leftover from X. Can you do sequencing on it?"

Nowadays, it's super simple to create music in computers and tablets, or even phone apps. But, back then, you needed certain technical knowledge, and had to assemble a large-scale system in order to compose music with a sequencer. This particular synth sequencing function wasn't very complex for a beginner to operate, but there was a learning curve for someone who was completely unfamiliar with it. So that day, I just briefly explained some basic concepts and went home.

The next day, the phone rang again.

"I don't get it, can you explain it again?"

When I arrived just outside his place, I heard a basic drum beat pattern like ba-dum dum dum dum... What was he working on? An X song? But no, that beat wasn't... And hey, he was making progress with the sequencing.

As soon as I stepped inside the sunny living room and said "Good morning!", I saw hide absorbed in his work on the equipment. His apartment was on the top floor of the building, the windows allowed plenty of sunlight to stream through, and the dry Californian breeze felt amazing.

"So, what was it that you didn't understand? Oh, that. Ok, so you need to change the mode to fine tune the hi-hats, and sequence the eighth notes in order..."

And like so, I gave him a lecture. At first, he was nodding and humming along, but in moments, I realized he wasn't paying attention anymore.

"......"

Silence. Then, the sound of quiet breathing.

What? Sleep breathing? Is he asleep? He fell asleeeeeep!!

I screamed in my inner monologue and very quietly closed the door and went back to my apartment.

Another day, another phone call.

"Hello, Ina-chan? Come over for a bit?"

Oakwood Apartments was an apartment complex built on an enormous lot, and the three-story buildings were numbered all the way from A to Z. It was a five-minute walk from my apartment to hide's. I was on my way as soon as he called. During the walk, I wanted to know if he had made any progress, but I didn't hear anything when I got to his door. I knocked, wondering what was going on, and a half-furious hide appeared.

"I’m done with that shit. It'll take forever to make one song."

He told me he would get ideas for a song, but in the long time it took him to input them on the sequencer, these ideas would leave him, and so he was unable to make any progress. I understood that well, it's a pretty common phenomenon in the sequencing world.

Then, hide explained why he was writing that song.

"I've been working on a song with Inoran and J from Luna Sea, we teamed up for a project that's going to be on a compilation album, but if I keep working on it like this, it's going to take an eternity to finish. And that's why I wanted your help, Ina-chan. I wanna do something that's a mix of hardcore techno and rock."

He then put on some Prodigy, a British band that was leading the rave scene at the time. Prodigy brought sequencing to the forefront, and I was astonished to learn hide listened to that acid-esque techno genre.

Bands like Killing Joke and Ministry were the faces of the early 90s, and industrial rock was becoming more popular. This kind of music combined heavy guitar riffs and sequenced drums, sampling and noise created on the synths, and many other elements into what is commonly called a 'digital sound'.

As an enthusiast of everything new, hide quickly noticed the trend and started planning around the concept of making music separate from X Japan, and digital music that couldn't be conventionally made with a band. Naturally, having a synthesizer programmer was essential in order to achieve that.

This seemed like fun. Not only because it was a completely different approach to X, but because the synths would be the main element, and there would be a lot of sequencing. There was no reason for me to turn his request down. Or better, I wanted to do it.

"Hell yeah, let's do this!"

And that’s how I became a participant.

I was ready to begin right away! Or so I hyped myself up, but the reason both hide and I were in LA was to record for X Japan, and we couldn't neglect that. Both of us rationalized that we could work on this project if we used our free time wisely. My part of the work began. I brought the tape hide had been working on by himself for the last few days home, and dissected the basic sequencing inputs on my computer and sampling machine. I polished the demo tape by swapping the drum sounds, adding a few new riffs, and put it all back together again.

"Hello, hide-chan? It's done!"

"Oh, I wanna hear it! I'll be over in a minute."

"Hello, Ina-chan? I want to add some guitars today."

"Okay, I'll come over then."

And so, we found time to work on this project, between our apartments. We named the finished demo tape "Hardcore Techno Boy".

This first demo was an instrumental, and it had a pounding synth sound used as the main riff, and the aggressively sequenced arrangement was unlike anything hide had done up until now. hide was excited to send this tape to Japan, where J and Inoran waited for it. However, sending things abroad back then wasn't as convenient and quick as it is today.

In today's internet era, it's very obvious to us that it's not only possible to be connected from LA to Tokyo at virtually any time, but that you can also share recorded music data over the internet with just one click. But this was the year 1992, and the idea of a network connecting the whole world together seemed more like something out of a sci-fi movie plot. The dawn of the internet was still a few years away, and the best we could do for our finished demo tape, Hardcore Techno Boy, was to pack it in a tightly-sealed anti-magnetic package and send it to Japan via international airmail. Now, how many days would it take to get there? And, would it arrive intact? I worried the X-rays used in customs would erase the contents of some floppy discs(computer and sampling sound data) I included with the tape.

After a while, we received a call from the J and Inoran team, who had listened to Hardcore Techno Boy. The computer data had also arrived safely. It came as a shock for them that hide had unexpectedly and wholeheartedly embraced a digital sound, they would hire their own synths programmer and share the data and use this demo tape as the foundational ground for the project. The programmer would be Norikazu Miura, who had also been the sound manipulator for Koji Kikkawa and Tomoyasu Hotei's duo project, Complex. I hadn't seen him in a long time, as we had been only acquaintances, but he graciously accepted to take part in this project when I reached out to him.

Another week later and we received an international package from the Japanese team. They sent us more audio recordings and data. We decided to listen as soon as possible, eager to know how they modified the original tape we sent.

"Ooooh, this is amazing..."

hide was ecstatic with this renewed version of Hardcore Techno Boy all the way from Japan. Orchestral riffs were added, which worked well, and Inoran also added an ambient techno section to the middle portion of the song.

That was what I call collaboration. Something you make gets passed on to someone else who in turn breaks it up and builds it up again, and returns something that's even cooler than before. That was my first time experiencing it. It was incredibly inspiring.

hide had a radiant smile on his face when he turned to me to say:

"Ina-chan, let's add vocals to this! Vocals! Tomorrow we'll go to the studio and record them right away!"

Indeed, this was getting more and more interesting.

The next day, we went to a recording studio called The Enterprise, located in North Hollywood. X Japan had been renting the studio for long stretches of time, and we devised our own guerrilla strategy to record during our breaks.

hide insisted on not using the help of the X staff crew, recording engineers or assistants because the project had nothing to do with X Japan. It was just the two of us in the studio, as he determined. We were free to do things our way, to an extent. We spent a lot of time playing, literally, with several million to several tens of millions of yen worth of studio equipment. Equipment that, under normal circumstances, an engineer would be in charge of, and we would never touch. I felt like I was a schoolboy again, playing a mischievous prank while the adults weren't looking. I remember the conflicting feelings of thrill and guilt I felt at the time.

We finished the song after days of this continuous feeling of excitement that blurred the lines between work and play. Thanks to that studio, we recorded a song without lyrics, but with some provisional vocals. All that was left now was for hide to finish writing the lyrics.