Our band favorite has agreed to answer a few of our queries about life at YMCK. Yokemura Takeshi on music, lyrics and arrangement; Midori Kurihara on vocals and Nakamura Tomoyuki on championing music videos for the band.

Can you tell us who, what and how did YMCK’s music characteristics come about?
(Yokemura) Chiptune is a genre of music, in which we use the sound of old computers or game consoles. When I was getting started with a pop music with jazzy feeling and cheap electronic sound. I thought the sound of old Nintendo would be a perfect match for it. Actually it sounded just like I had in my mind, and I kept using it until today.

Did you imagine a life in YMCK when you were young, if not, what were those ideas before the band?
(Yokemura) I remember I wanted to be a manga writer when I was little.
(Midori) I was dreaming of becoming a musician since I was a kid.
(Nakamura) I wished to be an owner of a small hotel in country side.

Besides YMCK music, are there other projects do you work on individually in music or other realms of the industry?
(Yokemura) Only YMCK, but our activity is expanding to various fields: developing software, producing video, designing clothes etc..

Most memorable performances by YMCK? How long did you wait until you got to this shining moment?
(Midori) About one year after we had started YMCK we had a chance to go to Sweden to perform. I was so glad because I saw the audience there were far more excited than in Japan. That was an amazing experience. Also I was so moved when we performed in New York City. We saw some audience members crying with deep emotion listening to our songs.

To Midori, do you have an anime character in mind when you go on stage to perform, what kind of clothing fashion do you like best while performing?
Sometimes I ask my good friend who is a designer to produce our costumes, sometimes I do them by myself. In both cases, I myself think of the basic concept.

To Nakamura, describe the best video game you’ve ever played and how can this influence your work with YMCK? Do you have other musical idols who greatly influenced who you are as an artist now?
My favorite would be “The Legend of Valkyrie”. It influenced me quite a bit and you could see them in my videos, especially in coloring. My musical influence is mainly from Paul McCartney.

To Yokemura, any plans to expand your music arrangements, to what genre and a foreign language maybe?
I always try to incorporate various kind of music in YMCK’s composition: rock n’ roll, heavy metal, swing/modern jazz, reggae etc. I want to keep on doing it in the future. I also want to write songs with languages countries I’ll visit in the future.

What kind of food do you feast on when you’re on the road and making music?
(Nakamura) I cannot do without “Weider in Jelly” from Morinaga when traveling abroad because I sometimes cannot eat much because of the stress of the different environments.
(Yokemura/Midori) We love to try what local people eat as much as we can

from Family Genesis album