[INTERVIEW] NANO at Anisong Stage – AFASG

Born July 12 in New York, America, nano is bilingual, fluent in both English and Japanese and paired with an outstanding singing ability. Since the posting of western music covers in video sites like youtube, nano has garnered the support of many users around the world. In March 2012, “nanoir” was released, despite being nano’s debut album, it ranked 10th on release date within the Japanese music chart, a surprising result for a rookie. Adding on to the success, “Remember your color”, nano’s first live, sold out all 2500 tickets on the first day.

The same year in May, nano attended “DoKomi” a Japanese culture convention in Dusseldorf, Germany and attracted 1500 packing the venue to its limit. In 2015, nano’s latest album “Rock on” was released in January, ranking 6th on the charts and in April, the first overseas solo performance in Taiwan as part of nano’s annual live tour around Japan. nano’s popularity knows no bound and this singing voice doesn’t have any borders. Kojacon Report got chance to meet nano personally today! Let’s check it out together!

Can you tell us how is growing up in America and how long do you take get used to Japan after going back?
It’s been really a long time since I started at dreaming about working in music industry. I was born and raised in US and ever since I was a little as I can remember I’ve interested in music,and my parents listen to a lot of musics so I’ve been interested in music as far back as I can remember. Yeah, I’ve never been dreaming doing anything else besides music.

You’ve been noted to be influence by Western including your songs and cover songs, which Western Band are inspiring you in music? 
I got my inspiration from a lot of different genre of music. Right now I sing a lot of Rock but I got my inspiration from Classical, Folk, Rock, Pop and anything that really just strikes my interest so I wouldn’t really narrowed down just to one group, band or genre. I listen to a lot of different stuffs.

You’re born in America, what makes you come back to Japan? 
Even though I was born and raised in America that my heart was certain have Japanese aspect and so I’ve always felt that I wanted to try a life in Japan as well to know my roots. And I want to experience both types of life.

Did you face any challenges when you’re in Japan? 
Yes, lots of challenges because America and Japan is so different, so many ways not only just the Culture and Language. The food and people are different, everything is so different but I feel that I’ve been experienced the good side of both Cultures and I don’t really feel sort of hardships or regrets, any obstacles that I face.

Some of your songs is been tied up by some Games, what kind of games do you play? 
I’m so happy that a lot of my songs are been used for tie ups, to be honest I’m not a huge gamer. But I started to try out a lot of games since I’ve received the tie up. So I find what reallynappeals to me, Anime and games it sort of help us to escape from everyday life and show us a lot of possibilities that we never really could imagine in real life. I really think Games and Anime are an awesome way to expand our imagination.

Since this is your first time in Singapore, what is your impression regarding Singapore? 
So far I’ve only spent a night in Singapore but it’s amazing. All the people are so nice and I love the weather here, because right now Japan is really cold and freezing. It’s about 8 degrees Celcius and when we’re in the airplane we felt that we’re not here for work but for vacation. I can’t wait to try out different types of foods, I don’t know what’s food are recommended here but I want to try it with my band member. We have a little time to explore Singapore this morning and we have a change to see Merlion and there are lot of tourist there but it was a nice seeing. And I hope that I can come back again soon.

Your songs have been used by Anime and Game Series, how do you feel when you compose the song for Anime? 
It’s always different preparing songs for tie up as compared to just a regular song. When I prepare a song for tie up it’s very important that it doesn’t sort of ruin the world of the anime series or the game series and it became a song that represent the series. But it’s more exciting for me because it gives me sort of ingredients to work on to express my imagination, different series all sort of give me different doors to open, different emotional to experience so I always feel so happy about them being able to tie up series.

You’ve come to AFA twice, AFA ID and AFA SG, how do you feel about going to perform in South East Asia twice a year and do you have any plan to have a solo concert in Indonesia? It was only a couple months ago that I went to Indonesia and although I have America and Japan in my blood, I’ve never been to Asia before that’s why I really excited and happy to be invited to both AFA ID and AFA SG this time. Definitely Indonesia crowd is amazing and my first impression is definitely I want to go back to Indonesia again to perform. And hopefully maybe a solo concert someday. Yeah definitely I love it there.

Which of your song do you feel have a personal interest for you? That’s such a hard question. Everytime we write a new song it becomes my favorite. I don’t wanna sound like a narcist but I love all my songs because each song represent something different and opens new door for me and I’m really happy that I’m able to collaborate someone like the creator who write my songs, he’s amazing. I’m just so happy to be able to collaborate with someone understand me very well and we’re able to create something so full of love and emotional power. But at the moment, my newest song Bull’s Eye probably represent where I am now and so it become one of the top of my list and of course Rock on always a really deep song for me, it has alot of meaning and then Magenta is really meaningful for me because it’s our first original song. But it’s hard to narrowed down.

Can you tell us more about your newest single Bull’s Eye? 
It’s been actually a year and 3 months that I released a single, so that’s really sort of like exciting for me. It felt like become we were really doing something new. And Bull’s Eye is both meaning and soundish, a little bit different from my other songs. It’s really catchy, it consist of not just rock but also consist of a catchy popness. Also it’s a tie up for anime series, this kinda new for me too. So we were really experimenting with the song. We actually wrote a different type of songs to represent the series and in the end Bull’s Eye were chosen, I’m really happy about that. Because to be honest I’m sort of really like Bull’s Eye from the beginning. Definitely alot of experience.

Speaking about anime tie up, Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio was played in Singapore Cinema, can you give us a bit comment regarding the anime series and how the anime helps you created the song? 
Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio it’s really a special series for me because I’ve been in the series for a couple of years now and so I feel like I’ve grown with the series as well and it started with Saviour of Song and there is Rock On and Silver Sky and now Last of Refrain and I think each song is grew with the series and express different emotions that the series presents. I definitely got very very emotional writing the lyrics. When it’s an opening song it’s different with the insert song and this time it’s an insert song. Because an insert song it play behind the scene, so it really represent the story and the emotion of the characters. When I imagine my fans seeing the movie I hope that they feel the depth of the song.

What is your motivation what you’re doing right now? 
What motivates me the most are my listeners, my fans. Without them I won’t probably doing music. I love music but I love my fans more than I love music and it means everything that they listen to what I have to create and the messages hope to express and my favorite aspect to doing music is the concert/live. Because I get to share the moment with my fans and it gives me so much power and inspiration to be able to see everyone rockin out to my songs. I’m gonna try really hard for not crying on today’s concert. Because I’m get really emotional when I’m doin my live. So I’m really looking forward for tonight concert in Singapore.

Do you have plan for more overseas concert? 
Definitely expanding my horizons, I hope to travel to alot of different countries in different concerts with a lot of different fans. Each fan and each new fan for me is like a treasure. My biggest dream is to be able to expand my music to the world and to connect with this many people as I can.

Now you’re be able to perform overseas a couple of time, is there anything about your overseas fans that you’ve noticed and found it interesting? 
My first overseas concert is concert in Germany a couple of years ago, but this year definitely one of my biggest. I didn’t really realized how different every culture is, how special every country is. When I went to Germany and Taiwan and Indonesia and now Singapore, I’ve notice that each crowd is so different, in a good way. That really pumps me up to be able to create something and share moments. A good thing about concerts are you don’t know what’s gonna happen, you don’t know how’s the crowd gonna react each time. So it’s like an experiment. I’m so excited each time I went to different country, I can’t even express it in words right now how happy I am to experience so much support and love for my fans.

You said that each country crowd it’s kinda different, is there any particular country that stood out for you? 
Yeah the reaction of the fans are different. In Japan, fans tend to be a little sort of shy sometimes but when I went to Germany for example I could hear the voices from the crowd of the entire concert and that really was special for me. Of course shyness is not bad, I still feel the love from them. But when everyone singing along with me and screaming and it’s just so exciting. And when I went to Taiwan, they’re also exciting but different with Germany. I think Japan is one of the quite country so I’m really expecting Singapore to be really fired up too.

Have you ever felt like to listening of your songs when you’ve experiencing something? 
Music is a worldwide thing. It’s one of the special tools in life that crosses border countries and nationalities. And you don’t really have to understand what the lyrics are saying to experience the emotion of the song has. And I think everyone in this world somewhere in their life they’ve been touched or moved or help by music and that is why I do music because I hope to able to reach out and touch even one soul in the world. I don’t really care about country where it from. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as they’re touched by the song and perhaps helped. I’ve definitely have been so helped by music in my past. That’s why I feel my job to be able to return that to the next generation of listeners.

Special thanks to : SOZO PTE LTD. ANIME FESTIVAL ASIA 2015