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Japanese singer-songwriter Haru Nemuri is the next featured artist in Billboard Japan’s Women in Music interview series. Billboard Japan launched its Women in Music initiative in 2022 to celebrate women in the music industry through a string of projects including this series. Billboard Japan’s Women in Music follows the established example of Billboard’s event since 2007 that has honored artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to the music industry and empowered women through their work.
Haru — her name is stylized in Japanese order, surname first — has toured internationally and her music is highly acclaimed outside of Japan. The 28-year-old artist has shared in past interviews that she writes her distinctive style music that shouts anger and indignation “to keep from dying.” Billboard Japan sat down with the outspoken feminist who delivers her messages through song and asked in detail about the inspirations and thoughts at the base of her music.

Are there any female artists who have influenced you?

Haru Nemuri: I tried to think of an answer to this question, but couldn’t come up with anyone in particular. My parents love animated movies by Studio Ghibli and I’ve watched their works since I was a kid, and remember liking Princess Mononoke. I liked the way she was honest about her feeling of wanting to kill her enemies.

Did you consider any particular female figures as your ideal?

I try not to have too many ideals or visions of how things should be. The only ideal I have is to avoid holding on to symbolized motifs like male or female figures in my mind.

When did you begin feeling that such gender biases were symbolic?

I think it was after I made my debut to be exact. I went to an all-girls’ school in junior high and high school, so I was surrounded by girls and didn’t really have the experience of being made aware of my own female identity. After my debut, I became known as a “female college student singer-songwriter,” which made me aware that I’m being labeled as a “woman,” a “female artist,” and a “female college student.” Male artists who also happen to go to college are almost never referred to as “male college student artists,” but women who fit the same criteria are often labeled as such.

You’re absolutely right. No matter what their profession may be, being labeled as a “female college student” is something that happens often in Japan and it must be uncomfortable to be appraised as such. Do you think being a woman affects your activities in any way?

Not really. When I’m asked about my gender in terms of that definition, I say “cis woman.” But if you were to ask me, “What percent female are you feeling now,” my answer would vary from day to day. I might feel like a little boy on a certain day, or might not even feel human on another. I think the self-identifying gender of any person isn’t really fixed and is always fluid. But I do feel that visibility is important, so for example, when I’m asked, “How do you feel about it as a female artist,” I have a responsibility to answer as a person belonging to the majority as a cis-gender woman, and I do so because I believe it’s a task I should be taking on.

When did you start to think that you should be taking on that task?

About 3 or 4 years ago, I think. “Haru Nemuri” to me is the kind of person I wished existed when I was about 14 years old. So I think about the responsibilities I wouldn’t like to see her shirking, then reverse that to find the roles Haru Nemuri should be fulfilling and try to take on those tasks myself.

What do you consider important when sending out messages as someone belonging to the majority in terms of gender identity?

I try to make sure that the voices of the parties concerned aren’t lost in my words. I also try to consider each time whether the anger I’m feeling is really something I should be expressing. For example, when I feel angry about some damage caused by a misogynistic system, I think I should speak out, but I can’t speak for the damage caused by transgender discrimination because I can’t be a party to it. The mechanisms that lead to my anger are similar, but if I’m not a party to the situation, of course I can’t understand everything about the problem. That’s why I think it’s important to listen to the voices of the parties involved.

But to bring about change, allies in the majority need to stand with the minority concerned, don’t you think?

Yes. There are definitely moments when solidarity is necessary, but it can also lead to overgeneralization. That’s why we should listen to what each person has to say. When you’re listening to people’s voices like this, balance will be lost if your own voice becomes louder. But I have a platform as a musician so I have to take on that risk as well. By personally taking on this responsibility, I might be able to prevent overgeneralization.

I see, that’s why you respect the voices of those directly involved. How about you? Do you ever feel discriminated against or find it difficult to live as a cis woman?

Being subtly underestimated is a thing. For example, I write all of my own songs. Recently, I’ve been asking my manager, a guy, to stand in front of my computer and press the play/stop button during my live performances. Then after the show, people would come up to him and say, “Those songs are really good.” He operates the computer behind me and I’m singing with only a microphone, so I suppose I can’t blame people for thinking so, but I’m pretty sure part of the reason why it doesn’t occur to them that I write my own songs is because I’m a woman. Also, people who say that to my manager speak politely to him but use overly friendly language when addressing me.

I can see that happening. You’re also active in the U.S. and have done many interviews there. Do you notice any differences in the treatment of female artists in Japan and the U.S.?

I’m open about the fact that I’m a liberal feminist, so people who defend contrary positions don’t approach me very often. In that sense, I’m not sure I can rely on my experience as a data point, but I had many opportunities (in the U.S.) where I was treated with a sense of empowerment and respect. (Interviewers in the U.S.) aren’t put off when I say I’m a feminist, and in fact, they often ask me to speak in that context.

You’ve said in previous interviews that being a feminist isn’t accepted in Japan. Do you still feel the same way about that?

I think maybe more people are willing to listen to what I have to say now because they’ve done some reading or learned about it on their own. I expressed my messages pretty clearly in my second album, SHUNKA RYOUGEN, and many people seem to have read off of that.

What function does writing lyrics serve for you?

I didn’t become self-aware until fairly late and was quite unaware of my ego until I was about 18 years old. It was between the ages of 18 and 21 when I realized what I didn’t want to do, and ran away from home because I didn’t want to take a corporate job. I began writing lyrics from around that time, and I think I did it then to verbalize, realize, and grasp how I was feeling and what made me sad.

Did anything change when you started putting your sadness and anger into words?

At first I was really happy to be able to verbalize those thoughts and it felt liberating, but as I continued to do so, I was often confronted with the feeling that nothing can be done about what’s causing that sadness and anger until I die. So now it feels more like, “What I’m doing is meaningless but I have to do it anyway.” But after majoring in philosophy in university, I began to think that one’s thoughts and actions can be separated, and learned that they affect each other, so I think that is why I’m able to keep at it.

I’m sure many people are empowered by your music. Is that something intentional on your part when you sing or write your music?

You know what, that’s not really my intention. They’re for me; I write my songs in desperation, in order to survive. Things that are done in desperation has energy, so there might be people who are pulled along by it, and I also believe that writing songs and presenting them is a violent act like hitting someone. I compose and write lyrics feeling pain, coexisting with the thought that “people might be better off not knowing things like this.” It’s almost like I’m experiencing life through pain.

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan

LMYK is a singer-songwriter who debuted in November 2020, and her music has touched listeners around the world via anime works after being featured as the ending themes of Vinland Saga, The Case Study of Vanitas and other series. Two years and four months after her debut, the enigmatic artist — LMYK are the initials of her real name, but that’s about all we know of her profile — has finally completed her first album, a collection of 12 tracks that expresses her thoughts on life and death, joy and pain and other concepts that she has contemplated in the years since she was a child, given shape as if guided by sounds.

This project, called DESSERTS, was produced by Jam & Lewis, the producer team famous for their collaborations with numerous superstars including Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Hikaru Utada. Although the tracks included on the set are pop songs, they’re distinctive in that they were created using methods different from those commonly used in commercial music, and are precious musical works that carry listeners out to the sea of the mind and thoughts that people aren’t usually aware of. In this interview, writer Yukako Yajima spoke with LMYK on behalf of Billboard Japan about the inspirations and themes of her debut project.

Now that you’ve completed your first album, what do you think underlies these twelve tracks? In other words, what is fundamentally important to you in making music, or what’s the essence of LMYK that naturally overflows into the music you make?

Being alive. Questioning that. I think I’m always aware of the transience of time. Questioning being alive, and transience. Those things naturally go into my music. I also like humor. Maybe it’s because I’m originally from the Kansai area (where there is a long-standing culture of stand-up and other forms of comedy). [Laughs]

Your sense of fun can be felt throughout the album in a balanced way. I see what you mean about “questioning being alive.” We look within ourselves and at others, and by observing others, we understand ourselves again. I thought that kind of cycle was being depicted in each of the twelve songs. That sense of understanding oneself because others exist, is it something you’re strongly aware of? 

There is a dual relationship  between “you” and “I”. There are aspects that we share that are exactly the same, and those that are unique to each individual. “Separated” and “connected,” I feel both. Even if we’re physically separated, we are fundamentally the same and feel connected. We can’t see it, we can’t imagine it, we don’t know it… It’s a mystery.

I get the impression that your music uses sounds to delicately express things like emotions and the natural order of the world that we humans don’t understand, things that we haven’t yet been able to put into words or that science hasn’t yet been able to prove. Is expressing such things important to you?

I think the sounds probably take me there naturally. When you play sounds, it’s a different world, isn’t it? The sounds take you to places that you can’t put into words, or to places that exist at the root of existence. Maybe it’s a place where thought can’t catch up. Language “solidifies” things. So it’s like being in between thoughts. When you play sounds, you naturally go there.

The sense of being able to connect through sounds to feelings, phenomena, something like the root of existence, before it becomes thought or language. How about what you said before about the transience of time, why do you think that’s one of your central themes?

It makes me think about life and death. The fragility of human beings. It’s hard to tell if humans are strong or weak. They have both sides. They’re fragile, but also powerful and resilient. The passage of time also feels different depending on what you’re doing, doesn’t it?

It sure does. Is there a reason why you began thinking about the passage of time and life and death in this way?

I lost my mother when I was 18. It was a huge shock at the time. Death is perceived differently depending on how important a person is to you, but when you lose something absolutely irreplaceable, you lose a part of yourself as well. That’s how big the impact is and it really shakes us up.

So that was one of your major motivators in making music.

Yes. I started making more music a few years after that, so I think maybe it’s related. It could be all the stuff that I had pent up inside.

Your music also feels like it brings down something from another world that’s not our reality. For example, in “Sorakara” you sing about something “falling from the sky (sora kara furu).”

That’s the earliest song on the album, from around 2017. The title means “from the sky,” and it’s about a region on the far side of the sky that we don’t understand or the other side of life. The feeling of being connected to those things but also not understanding them. I don’t understand exactly what I meant by “sora kara furu” either, but it felt right. When I create a piece of music, it’s a combination of parts that clearly make sense to me and parts that are more abstract.

Do you remember what you were thinking five or six years ago　when writing “Sorakara”?

Looking back objectively now, I think I was acting tough. There are lyrics in the song where I say “I know,” “I don’t need it” and “I have no complaints.” The words came naturally from me at the time, but when I read them later, I think I was trying to be strong. But that’s also typical of me.

Chronologically, “Weak” is also an earlier song, but would you say it expresses something exactly the opposite?

Yes, “Weak” is really honest. It admits my own weakness without any hesitation. But there’s also the question, “Is it OK to be weak and to need your love?”

The philosophy expressed in your songs often feels like it hits the truth. “Sorakara” is one and the bridge of “Little bit lonely” is another.

What is expressed in the lyrics of my music is something I think about all the time. Where does human suffering come from? Why do we suffer? What’s the difference between “suffering” and “having a hard time” and “feeling exhausted”? Human suffering can lead to one choosing to take its own life — the emotions behind behavior and where those emotions come from are things that interest me.

Which is closest to the sense you have when you make music: do you write songs from your own conclusions, or do you use sounds to express what’s going through your mind, or is it about wanting to affirm someone?

Now that you mention those three… I feel all of them while I’m working. Because when you affirm yourself, you’re also affirming others. I often write while thinking about people who are important to me, and I write music about things that I think I’ll never come to a conclusion about, and things that I feel but can’t put into words. I also write about things that I think I’ve come to a conclusion about, but it might not really be a conclusion. I guess I do what I do because I think maybe someone else will feel the same way as me when I find an answer to something that doesn’t need an answer.

So the thoughts and feelings you have are expressed not only in the lyrics but also in the music itself. As you mentioned at the beginning, that’s probably because sounds connect to your unconscious and you select the notes that inspire you. Do you usually start writing your songs sound first?

I have a notebook where I write down lyrics, and usually start from a lyrical idea or concept. 

When I make a track, I often look for sounds or create from sounds I like. I get inspired by what resonates with me and what I like, by using plug-ins and changing effects.

After making the track, I go, “Those lyrics I wrote before fits this track” and combine them.

You took your demos for this album to L.A. to complete them, right?

I went to L.A. for two weeks in April and two in June last year. I have fond memories of working with Jimmy (Jam) and Terry (Lewis) to finish up the demos I brought with me. The songs were brought close to completion all at once there.

For example in “Smiley” and “Tendency,” you combine Japanese and English and even Korean to make rhymes. What was your inspiration for this?

I think there’s music I listened to as a child that’s become embedded in me with rhymes that feel good. I can’t give specific examples, but I used to listen to Hikaru Utada a lot, so I guess it’s the music she created as a bilingual singer that influenced me.

Why do you call this album DESSERTS?

DESSERTS represents the pleasures in life that alleviate the burden that comes with living as a finite being in spacetime. Alleviating that burden is what surviving means. In that process, emotions are born, like feelings of joy and sadness that we all share. I thought those emotions were honestly expressed on this album. And also, the questioning the root of those emotions that arise. So the emotions on the surface and the fundamental root of our existence that causes those emotions are expressed in all the songs on this project. When you read DESSERTS backwards, it’s “STRESSED,” so I wanted to communicate the relationship between pleasure and pain and how they are inextricably linked.

Your music feels to me like it overflows with zest for life. Could it be that this is because your desire to live comes across naturally in the music from the thought process you shared with us today?

I’m always overwhelmed by how beautiful the physical life is through my five sense despite the pain that comes with it, so that probably comes across. I feel both pain and beauty very strongly. I also feel beauty in the transience of finite things.

The things you can feel with your five senses are so fleeting. And if you don’t recognize them fully, they slip away.

Thoughts can go forward and backward. That’s also why humans can survive. We can write songs and create art with our imagination, and thinking ahead can prevent the risk of dying. For humans, it’s what’s called “a gift and a curse” in English. Both a strength and a weakness.

The album DESSERTS that expresses what you shared with us today will probably be an important and tangible part of your life going forward. I’m sure listeners will also find it valuable, and the more I hear you talk about it, the more I feel glad that you’re making music.

I also feel glad that I came across the act of making music. This album is filled with what I honestly wanted to express at various moments in the past five years. It contains parts of me that probably won’t change in the future, and also things that I could only feel at that moment in time. Everything that I felt at the time is valuable to me. There are lots of songs that I wrote over the past five years that aren’t included in this album, so I’d like to finish those, too. I’m looking forward to releasing more music.

–This interview by Yukako Yajima first appeared on Billboard Japan