{"id":22860,"date":"2011-12-10T00:13:09","date_gmt":"2011-12-10T04:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=22860"},"modified":"2011-12-10T00:13:09","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T04:13:09","slug":"justins-japan-interview-with-kaoru-and-die-of-dir-en-grey-on-the-band%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98dum-spiro-spero%e2%80%99-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/10\/justins-japan-interview-with-kaoru-and-die-of-dir-en-grey-on-the-band%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98dum-spiro-spero%e2%80%99-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin’s Japan: Interview with Kaoru and Die of Dir En Grey on the Band\u2019s \u2018Dum Spiro Spero\u2019 Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Die of Dir En Grey: "Things that we took for granted before now feel more important than ever. We now venture forth into every single day, every new encounter, every concert we play, with everything we have." (Courtesy of MSO PR)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By<\/em> <\/strong>JQ<\/strong> magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a> editor <\/em>Justin Tedaldi<\/em><\/a> (CIR Kobe-shi<\/a>, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com. Visit his\u00a0page <\/em>here<\/a> <\/em>for related stories.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dir En Grey<\/a>\u2019s latest album is called Dum Spiro Spero<\/a><\/em>, a Latin phrase meaning \u201cWhile I breathe, I hope.\u201d Hope is hard to associate with this murky Osaka quintet, whose previous numbers include \u201cChild Prey,\u201d \u201cRepetition of Hatred\u201d and \u201cAgitated Screams of Maggots.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if killing is their business, then business is booming. Fresh from dates in South America and Mexico, the group is touring the U.S. and Canada through Dec. 23, with a high profile gig at New York\u2019s Irving Plaza<\/a> on Monday (Dec. 12). In this exclusive interview, I caught up with guitarists Kaoru and Die to discuss their sizable worldwide fanbase, scorning their government after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and their thoughts on the current protest movements in America.<\/p>\n

he cover art of Dum Spiro Spero<\/em> is said to represent Tara, the Mother of Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism. What was the inspiration for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaoru:<\/strong> The original idea had nothing to do with Tibetan Buddhism, to be honest. We simply wanted to capture something real and raw and decided to go with a photograph instead of the usual graphics and came up with the current cover.<\/p>\n

Dir En Grey has gained a big audience around the world without having to write songs that rely on \u201cpop\u201d sounds or even English.\u00a0 What do you think is the reason for that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaoru:<\/strong> I think the fact that we are not mainstream is why we appeal to the core fans.<\/p>\n

Dir En Grey has been called a band in its own genre. How would you describe the style of your music at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaoru: <\/strong>What we try to depict through our music comes from all the negative and unsightly parts of a human being.<\/p>\n

For the complete interview, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com. Visit his\u00a0page here for related stories. Dir En Grey\u2019s latest album is called Dum Spiro Spero, a Latin phrase meaning \u201cWhile I breathe, I hope.\u201d Hope is hard to associate with this murky Osaka quintet, whose previous numbers include \u201cChild Prey,\u201d \u201cRepetition of Hatred\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,340,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-justins-japan","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-5WI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22860"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22864,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22860\/revisions\/22864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}