Make Believe Mailer #121: Reol 2015 Interview
Hints Of Where J-pop Would Go
I never would have imagined I was getting a glimpse of J-pop’s future when my editor at MTV 81 came to me with an offer to interview Reol. This was in the middle of 2015, a time where Vocaloid loomed large but still felt quite separate from the rest of mainstream music. Sure, Hatsune Miku could sell out arenas, but most people were getting weepy to “Torisetsu.” The very concept of an “Utaite” — someone covering Vocaloid songs, but with their own non-digital voice — still felt novel from an overground perspective.
Nearly a decade on, though, and this background is commonplace among a new generation of J-pop creators. Whether via Utaites such as Ado or myriad creators who got their starts fiddling around with Vocaloid (including those still turning to Miku as a primary inspiration), this once-niche online community shaped amost all elements of the sound, aesthetics and system of Japanese pop today.
Reol was at the frontier of this when I met up with her in Shibuya back in 2015 to chat about her first full-length album of originals, though I never would have guessed this interview would serve as a preview of a pop ecosystem to come.
As tends to be the case with artists ahead of the curve, Reol’s place in modern J-pop is tricky to pin down. She’s hardly a forgotten name, as she remains a visible player in the industry who held a successful Asian tour at the start of 2024. She’s been on The First Take, for goodness sakes. Yet she, alongside only really Kenshi Yonezu who stepped into the spotlight a few years earlier, set the pace for everything happening with J-pop today, even beyond the simple Vocaloid connection. When we talked, she was still hiding her identity (it was a slight-to-do trying to get images for the article, settling for the album art), becuase she loved the idea of anonymity…a concept fully embraced by multiple chart-topping acts today. She was very internet-forward while we talked, which was still a rarirty back then…Nishino Kana, biggest act of the year back then, would only share like minute-long clips of her videos on YouTube…and even her go-to producer Giga has gone on to be a primary architect of how J-pop sounds in the 2020s.
All of that starts with Gokusaishiki, the album we talked about that afternoon. Perhaps the reason Reol feels just out of step with modern J-pop is she was already jumping ahead in the wake of this debut. I think this collection is fine, but I’m a much bigger fan of the follow-up LP1, which found her rejecting anonymity in favor of stepping into the spotlight between a harsher EDM-and-rap-inspired sonic palette. That’s turned out great for her, but maybe also the reason she isn’t lumped in with the Gacha Pop staples of today. If Ado ever decides to show her face…well, Reol will be the model of how to do it…
I’ve been thinking a lot about this interview lately after another summer where J-pop’s Vocaloid turn has once again been inescapable, thinking back on how accidentally prescient our chat was…but how it had been scrubbed from the internet thanks to the goofballs at Viacom nerfing all traces of MTV 81. Thankfully, I’m kind of a trailblazer in my own right…I saw how corporations would gleefully erase media history, so I saved everything! Here’s the original article2 as it appeared on the site September 19, 2015.
Rising Artist Reol Takes Vocaloid to Another Level (MTV 81)
By Patrick St. Michel
Reol is in a good mood when she meets with MTV 81 in Shibuya. Her first full-length album, Gokusaishiki, has debuted at number seven on the Oricon music chart, and will ultimately finish at the ninth spot for the week. That said, she’s already eyeing more.
“If I’m going to do this, I want to do my best work possible. I want to go to the top spot if possible,” she says. “When I heard the news yesterday I was happy, because it means I’m moving in the right direction. It’s a good start.”
She’s been building to this moment for a while. Reol -- real name not given, and prone to avoiding photographs -- started out making covers of popular Vocaloid songs. Which is to say, she, a human, sang tunes originally performed by singing-synthesizer software. Her voice, along with her arrangements, caught attention on Japanese video site Nico Nico (as did the art she drew for the tracks). Reol started collaborating with other online-centric acts such as GigaP, and she made frantic, slightly fatalistic originals that caught on as well. And now she’s looking to keep the momentum up with Gokusaishiki.
MTV81: When did you first become interested in music, and how did you explore that?
REOL: When I was around three years old, I kept pestering my mom about music. For two years, I kept bugging my mom about wanting to play music. But she would tell me that it was too expensive, the lessons, and she told me she thought I only was interested in it in the now. But I kept at it, and I finally started learning piano, which I kept with until junior high school. I also learned the trumpet while in elementary school, and joined the marching band. It was a high-level marching band, we’d compete in national competitions.
Until high school, it was all very structured and “serious.” But then I picked up an interest in band music, and I learned about Vocaloid. From there I got into programming music, and really dove into electronic genres.
What attracted you to Vocaloid, and the songs around it?
YouTube is how I immersed myself in it, just clicking “related videos” non-stop. The style itself, though, had just started out, so I was listening to artists such as supercell, and lots of music featuring Hatsune Miku. I also got into the style of rap within Vocaloid, it was amazing hearing voices sing so quickly in music. Hearing machines singing was really interesting to me.
Was Vocaloid your first introduction to rap, or had you listened to it before?
On Nico Nico, there was a sub-style of music called “Nico Rap.” Some of those used Vocaloid, but others ones featured people rapping over existing Nico Nico songs, like a “net rapper.” It was really cool! I had been so focused on symphonic music to that point, that hearing that freedom was really nice. From there, I got into international rap, like recently I really like Nicki Minaj3.
When did you decide to start singing?
In high school, I was in a band, and I wanted to play bass. But another student wanted to, and I was told I was too small to do it. They said I should handle vocals. I didn’t want to, but everyone said I’d be good at it...and then I was [laughs]. I was complimented, and I felt much better. That’s sort of what happened with Nico Nico, lots of people left comments about my “unique” voice.
Initially, I only put up videos featuring my voice. I never showed my face. Some people wrote my “strange” voice, and that really hurt. I didn’t upload anything for a year after that. But eventually I returned to it, and the comments were a bit more positive, and that encouraged me to keep going.
You mentioned not uploading pictures of your face, why are you still going with that strategy?
At first, it was just because I didn’t want people to find out I was in a band. Since then, after leaving the band, I kind of like the idea of being mysterious. But also, in the world of Nico Nico, lots of artists don’t show their faces. It’s actually more unusual to show your face then not4.
Before you made it to a major label, how did you record your Vocaloid covers and original songs?
I had a Tascam US-144MKII audio interface and a microphone. I just connected that into the computer. I didn’t know much about monitoring at first, so I learned as I went along. I eventually met GigaP, and I learned a lot from him.
What was the most important thing you learned from GigaP?
Getting to tap into his music knowledge was huge, but the human element he provided was big. He was also releasing lots of music on the Internet, so he hadn’t really opened up online. When we met, he actually opened up to me. There’s lots of talented musicians out there, but he was also extremely kind.
Let’s talk a bit about your first solo album. When you moved over to a major label, did you have any concerns about coming to a place like this?
Yes, there was a lot I was worried about. But the thing about coming here is, more people end up listening to your music. That’s what won me over. I’m still concerned about a few things, like having to show my face -- it isn’t out there yet, but on the DVD that comes with the album there are in-the-studio bits. But the prospect of more people hearing my music ultimately won out.
And honestly, if you are hiding after a certain point, you can’t achieve as much. For all my concerns, I’m confident I won’t lose.
What changed when you were making Gokusaishiki?
[laughs] I had to become more “major-like.” There is a tendency for people at major labels to look down at net singers5, so I had to change a few things here and there to appeal to more people, without losing who I was.
What song on the new album is the most “major-like?”
“Some,” the last song on the album. It means to dye colors. Part of it was an attempt to sound more major, but at the same time, the sound took time to get there. The lyrics came easily. The concept for the album is I was adding a different color to each song, so it seemed natural to close with a song about “dying.” It was the biggest song if you will.
On the album, you collaborated with a lot of artists. What collaboration meant the most to you?
On song six, “Logic Agent,” I worked with an artist called niki. At first he said “no.” He was done working on vocals and arrangement. But I really like his music, and I didn’t want to give up. So on Skype, I wrote this super-long message about how much I liked his music, trying to convince him to join on the song. I got through, and he agreed. Working with him motivated me to work even harder on this, to try even harder.
What’s your opinion of the Vocaloid scene today? What has changed in recent years, from your perspective?
I think the peak for it has passed6. But, technology is always evolving. What I think is interesting right now remains the collaborative community within the scene. Once everything calms down with the release of this solo album, I want to team up with GigaP and do something in the Vocaloid scene as well. But now I also think of Vocaloid as some sort of rival. I want to rise above Hatsune Miku.
What’s coming in the future for you?
I have a vision for the future, actually. I believe Japan is a little bit behind on the international music scene. For example, Justin Bieber was posting things on YouTube and blew up. He became accepted. In Japan, lots of people are just happy being a street performer for a few years, or being a net singer. Those two are sorta like the same thing -- they aren’t trying to expand. That trend is starting to shift, though, I think, and I want to be at the front of that. I want to be more international...and bigger. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to go big7.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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Which, kinda confusingly, actually counts as her debut as REOL, as she techinically used hiragana script for the album in focus here…though me and MTV 81 certainly ignored that.
OK, except the headline, which originally called Reol a “beatmaker” which…I didn’t do the headlines. I’ve adjusted to not be wrong.
At the time, this was far and away the most interesting detail of our interview to me, and I asked her after what songs specifically. She showed me “Super Bass.”
This is the justification all current-day J-pop acts opting to be an avatar…like Ado…give if you ask them about it.
I mean, here’s probably the wildest detail in retrospect.
I think in 2015 this was a fair argument to make…but I think we’ve seen potentially two waves of Vocaloid resurgence since this? An interesting article would be to pinpoint how it roared back…I think it’s Kenshi Yonezu becoming the biggest artist in the country pushing the first revival, followed by the kids who grew up with Vocaloid coming into their own in the 2020s prompting the next (with an international boom also factoring in).
Perhaps the most ahead-of-the-curve perspective Reol brought to J-pop…being confident about going out into the world. That drive of actually going out to win resonated with me watching J-pop artists perform at this year’s Coachella, but took quite some time to really emerge. Yet here’s Reol flashing it a little early, showing that maybe her attitude is what really informed the wave of creators that came after her.