WEAVER to visit their second home in Singapore this November

This Japanese trio band which was formed in 2004 will come back to their ‘second home’ in Singapore to enliven the biggest music festival in Singapore, Skechers Sundown Festival 2014. WEAVER who is known as a piano rock band had participated in several lives in Singapore before, including Music Matters Live back in 2013.

They’ve just finished their ID album tour titled “Leading Ship” and now are preparing for the live in Singapore for the festival. In their break, we’re finally able to talk about their tour, their 5^th anniversary since their major debut, and also their excitement for the upcoming event.

Without further ado, here’s our interview with them.

How do you feel to perform again in Singapore? And this time in Sundown Festival, what will you look forward the most?

Sugimoto: Singapore is the first overseas country we have performed in. We always receive warm welcome in Singapore! I look forward to meet our fans at Skechers Sundown Festival. It’s a good chance for us to deliver our songs to Asia through this event and we are really excited about it.

Kawabe: It will be our 4^th time to Singapore! We are very grateful for this performing opportunity. I’m sure most of the audiences at Sundown festival are first-timers to WEAVER’s performance. I hope they would like our music!

Okuno: I am very excited and honored to be performing with the top artists from Asia. We had been studying English in London for half a year since January so I hope to communicate more with the audience in English this time round. I hope more people would develop their interest in Japanese music through us.

How do you see the development of Japanese music outside Japan lately, esp. after you come back from London?

Sugimoto: Indeed there are increased opportunities for Japanese music to reach out to overseas audiences, but in reality, it is still not enough. There are always some difficulties like language barriers but it is important to keep on challenging.

Kawabe: I noticed that there are people who first exposed to Japanese music through manga and anime. However, when I stayed in London, I seldom found people listening to Japanese songs. I hope there will a song from Japan which anyone can sing to.

Okuno: There are some unique cultural aspect of J-POP and J-Rock, different from the music in other countries. It is such an honor that many people nowadays listen to Japanese music. Japan used to be very close-door culture so I think that increasing global communication is necessary to promote Japanese cultures.

We heard that Japanese can’t eat spicy food. Have you ever had any bad experience when trying foods all over countries you visited?

Sugimoto: When I first ate Tom Yam Kun soup, it was quite a shocking experience! But after eating a few times, it’s quite irresistible.

Kawabe: Tom Yam Kun was a bit too spicy for me. I have grown to like Nasi Goreng!

Okuno: I like the Padang food I tried in Indonesia before. It was spicy but I loved it. I also like Nasi Goreng and Sate which are not spicy.

Can you share with us the fun moments you have while having the current tour, WEAVER “ID” TOUR 2014 「Leading Ship」?

Sugimoto: We received surprise gift from the staff and the fans at final day of our tour, which was a huge banner with everyone’s message hang up on stage during encore. It’s our 5^th year since debut and we’ve been through so much memories and I could not stop tearing.

Kawabe: It was definitely the best tour we’ve done so far! I was worried that fans might have forgotten about us since the last concert we had was 1 and a half year ago. When we saw many of them waited for us, my heart was filled with gratitude.

Okuno: We could not perform live concerts while we were studying in London so I felt the joy of performing in front of everyone once again through this tour. Beside our new songs, we were able to put to use what we have experienced and learnt in London into our staging, giving birth to a level-up WEAVER!

Your recent album is titled ID and the recent tour was called “Leading Ship”. Is there any story behind “ID” and “Leading Ship”?

Sugimoto: We want to make our concert as our “ID” for those who support us and for the people we will meet in the future. As for “leading ship”, we want to show a new WEAVER after going to London, to lead everyone to brighter tomorrow.

The ship in your tour reminds me of Going Merry in One Piece. If you happened to be an anime character, who will you be?

Sugimoto: I want to become Minami Asakura (very popular girl character) from ‘Touch’ (famous baseball manga) by Mitsuru Adachi.

Kawabe: I want to become Luffy form Onepiece! He is not only strong but have pure heart to believe in people no matter what. I want to learn from the way he believes himself towards his dream.

Okuno: I like Ace or Sabo from One Piece!

Please do give a sneak peek of what kind of songs that you will perform in Sundown Festival next month and message for fans all over South East Asia to come and enjoy WEAVER music.

Sugimoto: We have been writing English songs in this few years while preserving the beauty of Japanese language. We hope this upcoming performance will bring us closer to our fans! I really miss you! Please come and see us at Skechers Sundown Festival in November!

Kawabe: We are still discussing about the performance details… but we will try to make visually fun! It’ll be something more than just piano, base and drums. Let’s make it the best day together!

Okuno: Since we’ve been studying English in London, we are eager to show everyone what we have learnt. Please look forward to our new performance!

WEAVER is going to participate in Skechers Sundown Festival on 22nd November 2014 at Marina Promenade.

Tickets are available at www.sundownfestival.sg . Get yours now!