X JAPAN Founder Discusses Plans For Future

The Jrock Revolution web site has posted an English translation of the interview X JAPAN founder Yoshiki gave to MySpace regarding the band's upcoming reunion shows and future plans. An excerpt follows:

Q: Can you tell us something about the Tokyo Dome live shows?

Yoshiki: "There haven't been any concrete decisions made yet. We're still having meetings about that. But there will probably different songs at those two nights — well, not all different — and I'm contemplating creating totally different performances."

Q: Did you start rehearsing?

Yoshiki: "No, not yet. X doesn't really rehearse much. Or rather, I don't like rehearsal, I like to see just what will happen at any given concert. Well, for some songs we rehearse a lot, but with others we hardly do and just perform them as a challenge on stage."

Q: Do you have any plans after Tokyo Dome?

Yoshiki: "Well, I guess just as with the previous video, it's another step on our way and we'll see how it goes on after we've taken that. We'll see if there's something we want to do next or if we'll end it if nothing like that comes up. I don't actually know yet, I'm just doing things as they come up without much planning ahead. With X, it seems regardless whether we make plans or not, when things are bad they're bad, and when they're good they're good. Naturally, there are concert offers from overseas and so on now, but that's all still under consideration. Well, after we start to rehearse for Tokyo Dome, if all the members feel we can do more, there's a good chance we'll do more."

Read the entire interview at this location.

X JAPAN's new song, "I.V.", topped iTunes' daily charts upon its release on January 23 in both Overall Sales and Rock categories.

X JAPAN is the first Asian artist to chart high worldwide on iTunes and the Billboard music site Billboard.biz.

A 16-minute interview (in English) with Yoshiki about the reactivated band's future plans can be viewed below.

"I.V." and another new song, entitled "Without You", will be featured on a forthcoming "best-of" collection, to be released later in the year.

"I.V." appears in the fourth movie of the record-breaking "Saw" horror franchise, although it's not featured on the film's soundtrack.

"Saw IV" comes from the same team that produced "Catacombs", which featured the song "Blue Butterfly", written and produced by Yoshiki.

Approached in July 2006 about producing the theme track for "Saw IV", Yoshiki chose to perform the song with X JAPAN.

Written and composed by Yoshiki, with lyrics completely in English due to the international target audience, the song features Toshi on vocals, Pata on guitar and Heath on bass. While attending Toshi's vocal recording sessions, Yoshiki took the lead in overseeing the English lyrics.

"I.V." reportedly features previously unreleased ideas written by X JAPAN's influential lead guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto, who committed suicide in May 1998.

The video for the song "I.V." can be viewed below. The clip was shot on October 22, 2007 at Aqua City, Odaiba, Tokyo, Japan. Read a report from the video shoot at Jrock Revolution. Check out photos from the shoot at Wire Image.

The entire event was reportedly broadcast to a public audience next to the location of the video shoot.

Interview:

"I.V." video: