Yahoo News “I Wanted to Do Something Bigger Than Life”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With Yoshiki of ‘Yoshiki: Under the Sky’
Like many entertainers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese songwriter and musician Yoshiki wanted to find a way to use his artistry to lift people’s spirits, particularly fans who wrote to him about being in a dark place during that time.
“The intention was to spread love,” Yoshiki said during a taping of THR Presents, powered by Vision Media. “At that time there were so many amazing artists doing Zoom call-like stuff from the living room or something like that, but I wanted to do something bigger than life.”
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The result is the film Yoshiki: Under the Sky, a music documentary three years in the making that features performances of the composer with acts from around the globe including American EDM-Pop duo The Chainsmokers, violinist Lindsey Stirling and singer Nicole Scherzinger.
“I’ve known her since before she joined Pussycat Dolls,” Yoshiki says of Scherzinger. “She came to one of my shows in Tokyo a long time ago. “We have mutual friends who contacted her, and she said she was interested in joining my project.”
International artists included in the concert series include English classical singer Sarah Brightman, German hard rock band Scorpions, Chinese singer-songwriter Jane Zhang and fellow Japanese musicians and record producers Sugizo and Hyde.
“I come from Japan originally. I moved to Hollywood over 20 years ago and I always felt like the music industry has no boundary. Even though the world is so divided right now, in the artistic world, I always felt no boundary, so I wanted to emphasize this,” explains Yoshiki who made his directorial debut with the project. “As a musician, there is only so much we can do, but at the same time, music is very powerful. Art is very powerful. We can say, ‘why do we need to fight?’ ‘Why do we need to build walls?’ That’s the message behind this film.”
Yoshiki also reunited with his former bandmates of the rock group X Japan, which he founded with lead vocalist Toshi in 1982 during filming. He calls the scene in which the group discusses how the loss of their lead guitarist, Hide, who died in 1998, affected them “a poignant, painful moment.”
“The film title is Under the Sky, which means we are still in this world,” says Yoshiki. “One of my band members went up in the sky, so he’s in heaven, but there’s footage of us playing together at Tokyo Dome over 20 years ago. When I’m playing the song Endless Rain [in the film] Hide shows up, but it doesn’t feel like it’s [old] footage. It’s almost like he’s alive. Eventually, the fans join in this too. It’s a very beautiful moment.”
In both the opening and closing of the film, Yoshiki utters the same sentence to viewers during his narration: “Don’t take anything for granted, even if it’s hard sometimes to achieve it.” The duplication is an intentional message, he says.
“We went through COVID and before that, everyday life, we just took everything for granted,” says Yoshiki. “What we are having right this moment is a miracle.”
This edition of THR Presents is brought to you by Abramorama.
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