Ryo in GQ Japan - June 2020
Scans from raveman
Note: Most of this is translated with online dictionaries, as opposed to me actually understanding the interview and writing it in English. (I can’t really read Japanese lol). I welcome corrections. Another thing, this is a magazine cover celebrity profile. The piece is somewhat editorialized, with flowerier words than what you’d find in a standard entertainment article, I think. I tried peppering with some flowery-ish words, but I’m not a writer, haha.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF RYO NISHIKIDO
Seven months since going independent, to a place not yet seen
The True Face of Nishikido Ryo, In His Words
He launched a private firm in September of last year and started activities as a solo artist. What kind of state of mind is Nishikido Ryo in now? NOMAD - announcing an album named nomad, going on a nationwide tour, we went after the true bare-face of a former idol who just began walking to a “place not yet seen.”
Nishikido Ryo comes to a music studio, takes out a seemingly beloved acoustic guitar, and starts playing a ballad tinged with sorrow. An “adult” face of a man that he had never shown before doing solo activities. And then as if something suddenly struck his mind, he plucks the strings to the melody of “Higedance,” a staple of Shimura Ken’s.
Since the fall of last year, it has been seven months since he quit the agency he had belonged to for about 22 years since he was 12 years old. “Even when I think of wanting to be that, or do this, I’m bundled with the word idol. I’ve always been in a situation where I’m easily judged by the title, from some time ago. It has been irritating. It’s not that I hated being an idol, but it makes me think that as long as I don’t move, I will be perched there.”
A small conflict that he had been carrying. The year before last, a member of the group he belonged to left. It was upsetting and the conflict grew bigger. “If one person leaves a group, the balance unequivocally changes. Especially for twin vocals, my counterpart went away somewhere… I gotta do something, there’s nothing to do but work hard and pull everyone! was what I thought. But, I think I worked too hard. I didn’t know where each member was facing towards. I was in a state where I didn’t know how far I could aim. Everyone was was giving their all. It might have been a problem of how I felt things, but I started to feel a discrepancy between our passion and enthusiasm. Even a small discrepancy becomes tough when the discrepancy gets to an unallowable range. As for myself, I steadily got more and more exhausted.”
As he talks about the matters in his heart, his expression is serious. Every time words are about to come out, some traces of hesitation are apparent on his face. “(Regarding producing) I think I’m someone who’s passionate about it. While I do it, there are times where I would feel decisively no, I don’t think so… If so, I’ll just work hard by myself, I want to meet the challenge as long as it’s possible, I want to step on the gas fully! That’s what I thought.”
He says he has a straightforward disposition. “I can’t lie in my heart. I’m bad at playing my cards well. I want to live truthfully.”
However, leaving means losing the backing of a top-tier agency at the same time. “Of course I was anxious. I may look like this but I get scared quite a lot (lol). But when I thought what that anxiety was, in the end, isn’t it for my self protection, I thought. Now, I’m 35 years old. I can’t imagine myself doing the same thing even when I’m old. I thought I should steer the rudder while I couldn’t see the ceiling yet. I guess you could say like jumping out of a huge ship and boarding a small yacht. Up until then I was in such a huge ship that I didn’t even know the faces of the crew, didn’t know who worked in the boiler room. I was protected,” he says, without a doubt having ruminated over it time and time again.
“In all honesty, I was there for 22 years, I learned an extremely great deal. But, from here on out I’m going out into the wide world, bouncing everything off of me. I was prepared to bear all the responsibility. But you know, expectations of what’s ahead and my excitement were bigger. I think last year was when the timing of different things were on top of each other.”
On the crossroads of life, he was faced with huge choices. After quitting, he launched a private label, “NOMAD RECORDS.” Before the novel coronavirus hit, in November of last year he embarked on his first nationwide tour, the following December he released his first album, “NOMAD.” “I’m the type that moves fast after deciding things. I think a sense of swiftness is important. I want to do many things from now on, but right now, what I can transmit myself is only music. So I started from there.”
He handled all lyrics, all music, and producing himself. He says, “I’ve taken up songwriting with a guitar since when I was around 20 years old.” He puts in the feelings of his life-sized days in the songs. “If I were to sing songs by other people with half-baked singing, I’d rather give my all to melodies and words that I write. Even if I don’t sing it so well, I think it’s cooler that way. So that’s what I chose. What I made is what I will fight with, and I think all I can do now is stack up actual achievements and get recognized. I’m happy if somebody listens to my songs, feels something, and enjoys it.”
A sense of running at full speed fills up the the title song which contains the phrase, ”To a place not yet seen… This is the beginning step,” he shouts as if overflowing with emotions, during a live performance in a simple look of white T and jeans. With his sworn friend, Los Angeles resident Akanishi Jin (former KAT-TUN), they started a joint project, “N/A.” They plan to announce an album in the summer. “We have meetings every day on LINE calls.”
He himself named the record label “Nomad,” which carries the meaning nomad people or wanderers. “I guess I got it from the term nomad workers. I like it because it’s interesting as a movement of society.” (nomad workers: Japanese term for workers who don’t work in offices but in cafes or other public places with just a laptop)
His manner of living freely by his own axis really suits Nishikido who says “I hate shackles.” Born and raised in Osaka, he dropped out of high school. “It’s a city with lots of delinquents (lol). But I might have learned quite a lot of what I could have studied in school from those fellas.”
Nishikido likens his strong will to survive to weeds that are cultivated on dust covered streets. “I think once I can’t act strong, that’s it. And if I lose, that’s the end.”
Waiting For an Encounter with Film Works
Nishikido Ryo is also known as an actor with outstanding acting abilities. Even in this photo shoot, and during the interview, he speaks with his “eyes.”
From a young man committing domestic violence in the name of distorted love, a teacher that is undependable, comical acting as a time-warped samurai, etc. his repertoire is broad. Amongst all that, in a movie released in 2018, “The Scythian Lamb,” he plays a government worker in a rural town who has to face former felons with subtlety. He received high regards for that role. “Acting was where I could be as myself, away from the group. There, it makes me very happy to be evaluated as an actor and it’s something I take pride in. I’ve never been consciously particular about how I confront a role. I’ve heard that people would condition their feelings before a crying scene, but for me….that’s wrong. Feels phony. The moment I hear ‘Action!’ is when I start acting. Foreign actors that I like are Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington. One time, Denzel said, ‘I don’t embody roles,’ so cool, and I personally really relate to that. Be as oneself at that place, is what I think acting is.” (I don’t know how to translate 役作り. It means: thinking about the particulars of a role and really plan how to embody the characteristics of the role as if transforming into the role prior to filming. Almost like method acting.)
And then he says, “I think it’s about chance encounters with projects.” After a bit of silence, “But it would be really great if I could meet one (a project) as soon as possible,” he laughs. “I want to be in works I’ve never been able to until now, but I also think it’s important to do what I’ve always done until now. I’ve been getting offers, would you like to do something this, and such. But which would be good, I intend to mull over the various ways of how I appear on my first project.”
Now that he has begun rowing out across the big seas on his own, “I want to pursue things that only I as a person can do, be it music or acting,” he turns to a heated gaze. “I will run believing in myself. Just keep on running.”
役作り this should have been “getting into character” I think Sorry! So:
One time, Denzel said, ‘I don’t get into character,’ so cool, and I personally really relate to that. Be as oneself at that place, is what I think acting is.
