[Interview] Daesung @ AVEX Live

a-ticket special interview!!

D-LITE (from BIGBANG)

Singing is the happiest thing for me

Bigbang’s D-LITE, as a singer, has portrayed his charms well

He has released his Japanese debut album “D’scover”!

Starting from 23rd March, he will be starting his Japan tour.

As the initial release of tickets were all sold out, it was decided there will be extra tour!

He has also told us how he felt about his work and the tour.

Interview 1

If it is about my thing, I will not compromise

The stubborn side will become very dominant (laugh)

In 5th Dec 2012, at the highly anticipated stage of Tokyo Dome, D-LITE suddenly announced that he will be having his Japan solo and it left 55,000 fans excited. He himself selected precious J-Pop songs to record in his cover “D’scover”. (Oricon, when the album came out it landed on the #2 spot!) Along with this album, D-LITE’s solo live will soon be starting! 23rd and 24th of March is held at Kobe World Memorial Hall while 30th and 31st March is held at Nippon Budokan. All 44,000 tickets were sold out upon release. As the reception is good, it was decided that there will be an extra tour for the whole nation “D-LITE D’scover Tour 2013 in Japan ~DLIVE~ extra tour”! Hopefully everybody can take the time to attend D-LITE’s concert where his voice are able to move souls.

AVEX: Your Japanese debut “D’scover” is about covering J-pop songs. It is very rare to see overseas artists using Japanese to cover songs by Japan artists. Since it was your first time experiencing singing in Japanese for the album, were there are any parts where it was slightly tougher?

D-LITE: The main problem was whether I could sing my feelings out while using Japanese. Because I feel that it is most important to use a song to show your feelings. So while making sure that my Japanese pronunciation sounds natural, I also have to inject and blend my feelings in… I have to think about different matters and record at the same time, and it was also in the midst of Bigbang’s world tour, there will be problems with jetlag and different languages going through in my mind, to be honest it is really tough. However, even I am in such a situation, no matter what, I will practice repeatedly. I must look at the song with all kinds of angle, consider, then discuss with the producers. It is not only about the melody but also the detailed parts like the adlibs, to finish the album by producing it after knowing your own style’s very well. This is different when with Bigbang, in this album, all the songs are my stories. From the start to the end, things that I want to speak, I have to ask myself, carry my own thinking and perform it in that way. For this, I always listened sensitively to the voice, I am also very particular about my changing of breath for each song, and thus, I experience a never-happened-before tiredness both physically and mentally (laugh).

AVEX: About the part of being exhausted, do you sleep well every day?!

D-LITE: Once I sleep, I will do into such deep sleep that I won’t even have dreams. But for this time, in my very limited time, there are many things that I have to complete. Every day I work till 3 or 4 am, once I end I go back to my bedroom, although I feel like leaping on to my bed, I can’t because I know that I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t prepare for my recording the next day. If I don’t do it, there will be failures, if I do it way beforehand it would be better… I do not want to make myself regret it.

AVEX: We can really see D-LITE’s serious attitude towards his work.

D-LITE: I only purely have a worry sickness (laugh). And I am that type of person who does each work seriously and I will not give up working until I receive people’s approval of my work.

AVEX: D-LITE is very cheerful, you give people the impression that you could always warm up the atmosphere around you.

D-LITE: I am like this when handling matters that does not involve me, however if there are matters that involves me, I will not compromise and my stubborn side will become very dominant (laugh). About the songs in the album, it consists of songs that I want to sing, songs that are introduced to me by the staff members and there also songs that I only heard once before. Firstly, I will start by understanding the image of the original song, I will go to YouTube and watch the singer’s message or atmosphere for their live performance, I will listen to other albums under the same singer and will also search to see if this song was being covered by any other artists. If I have enough time, I will listen to the cover version of the song and see what I can feel from the song. Then, if I feel that there is a slight difference or if I can’t find a common point with the original singer’s attitude, song or view, I will then feel that this song cannot be covered.

AVEX: So, we can say that this is a piece of work that shows how persistent D-LITE is.

D-LITE: When I feel that this person has such a color base, I will then think, what are my colors like? It is so rare that I get to cover songs, if I do not have my own colors, it will also be rude to my listeners. I really considered many aspects about this, I listened too much to the songs as well and I feel that it would be bad if I continued listening (laugh). To convey colors that only belongs to me is really tough, however I think that I have produced an album that I approve of.

AVEX: After singing Japanese songs, you must have felt the difference compared to Bigbang’s songs?

D-LITE: When comparing with Bigbang songs, definitely although the style is different, however Bigbang has ballad songs as well and also many sad songs. However, amongst the songs I selected this time, there is a melody line that only J-pop songs have, it allows Japanese listeners to be deeply touched and contains more warmth when compared with other songs.

Interview 2

I would like to create a live that allows the audience to discover my new charms

AVEX: Other than songs from solo male artists like Kazuyoshi Saito’s “歌うたいのバラッド”(Singer’s Ballad), and solo female artists like Ayaka’s “Hello” and MISIA’s “逢いたくていま”(Missing You Now) , there is also Remioromen’s “夢の蕾”(The Flower Bud of My Dream) and Do as Infinity’s “Sunny Hill”, songs from different genres. The four producers (Seiji Kameda, Matsuo Kiyoshi, Sasaji Masanori and VERBAL (m-flo)) representing Japan used live instruments and live bands and combine them together as a whole.

D-LITE: Everybody is really very awesome. All of them have their individual personalities and they are able to produce an album full of uniqueness. And also like what I said, the common point for all songs is “warmth”.

AVEX: Regardless of gender and genre, it’s not only your singing skills or straight forward performances, you will also convey your “earnest” attitude and idea via the whole song and this is the specialty of D-LITE. I am able to think of D-LITE’s character based on the songs. For example, in “全力少年”(Powerful Boy) you sound like a youth who is working very hard and it brought out an innocent side of D-LITE with your gestures as well. “やさしさで溢れるように”(Like Overflowing With Kindness) is your care and concern for your members, staff, fans and people around you. “アイ”(Love) is your broad chest filled with overflowing kindness and love, just like how an angel spreads their lovely smiles and occasional sorrow. Just like this, all these song titles, lyrics and melody represents D-LITE.

D-LITE: Ahahahaha…. I’m so embarrassed (shy smile). However, it is not possible to sing without feelings and emotions in the first place.

AVEX:  “じょいふる”(Joyful) is the joy brought out from your heart when you are on stage, where you share the stage with your fans.

D-LITE: When I heard about the cover project, I immediately thought of singing “Joyful”. After listening to many songs, I chose this song which left me the deepest impression. To be honest, when I first heard it, it was different from my first impression of “Joyful”, I was a bit shocked and I thought what happened to this song~~ (laugh). You can say that I went back to my childhood times in a moment. But this time it is produced by Sasaji Masanori which re-arranged many good songs, I think he produced a “Joyful” entirely different from the original song.

AVEX: How did you feel during recording?

D-LITE: During recording, I will adjust the brightness in the studio; I will then enter the world of the song and sing. Especially this song because it reminds me of a mischievous kid, it lets me think back to my childhood period. I feel like a naughty kid touring in a strange place, constantly high and I will start dancing and recording together very naturally (laugh). If you guys see me at that time, you will be surprised. I think it should be very embarrassing; I wouldn’t want anybody to see it (laugh). Although I will dance and sing during live, but during recording I have the mindset of controlling myself, nope, it is that if I didn’t control myself it will be over (laugh). 

AVEX: The “warmth” and “passion” that you mentioned about is the common thing in D-LITE’s “voice”. From a range of being a little husky to being able to project your voice out loud to an impressive range is D-LITE’s biggest charm and also your weapon. You filmed the MV for “Singer’s Ballad”, in the song there is a sentence that says “Singing is not a difficult thing”, what is singing to you D-LITE?

D-LITE: (answers immediately) it is a little tough (laugh). Singing is something that makes me happy, because singing is now my job. It is not only making me satisfied, but I must sing songs that people will be satisfied too. To ensure that listeners are able to listen to the message I convey, I always sing “seriously”. It would be best if I can really sing seriously without thinking of anything. I will be serious and blend my thinking in while singing, that is my dream and it is also very difficult.. However, I believe as long as I face the songs with a serious attitude, my voice will naturally be directed in. For my album title “D’scover”, it is D-LITE’s “D” and “Discover” combined together, I chose it myself. Through this work this time, I once again discovered the exemplary Japanese songs and also the difficult areas and I also allowed myself to discover my whole new charm during my first solo album. After I cover the songs, there is actually such huge difference, I think it is a precious experience for a singer.

AVEX: Your anticipated solo tour “D-LITE” is about to begin!

D-LITE: I still cannot believe that I can hold a live concert at places I have never been, I am very happy. Because of this, my schedule has been packed (laugh). To ensure that there are no regrets left behind, I will do my utmost best in all live performances! It’s just like producing the warm album, I would like to turn my live concert into a place full of warmth.

AVEX: It seems like you can be high and perspire a lot with everybody.

D-LITE: Instead of warmth, I think it would be a live as hot as the weather, everybody please come wearing lesser! I think I myself will definitely perspire a lot, I am the one who has to wear lesser (laugh).

AVEX: Bigbang’s live has performances such as hanging on the wires around the arena etc.

D-LITE: During Bigbang’s world tour, when performing “Wings” as my solo segment, I put on the wires and flew very long, this time I must have performances underground… using drilling to sneak underground…. This is definitely a joke (laugh). I would like the live to be able to allow everyone to discover new contents and new charms of me and when in Bigbang, please look forward to it!

Source: AVEXLIVE

Translated by: nakedae@SMILE HOLIC www.dsholic.com