"New stuffs means continuing to challenge many different things"
B'z has completed their latest album in one year and seven months. It compiles more than enough contents to please the listeners, for example album version of the official theme song for Fukuoka 2001 World Swimming Tournament "Ultra Soul" which was released in March 2001, official theme song for TV Asahi's Network Sports 2002 and Yokohama 2002 Pan Pacific Swimming Tournament "Atsuki Kodou No Hate" newly released on June 5th, 2002. There's also "Signal" and "Utsukushiki Sekai" which are the opening and ending songs for Play Station 2 "Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side" love and relationship game. As well as "Everlasting", main theme for the 6th animated movie of the ever popular Detective Conan - The Phantom of Baker Street.

In terms of sound and music, "Green" is extremely rich with variaties. With the presence of band-sound, accoustic sound, digital sound, strings and other elements' sound, "Green" expands in the colourful world of songs. B'z as a unit, consists of Inaba Koshi as vocalist and Matsumoto Takahiro as guitarist, and then comes the important element of creating in freedom. Such is the basic of B'z, it can be felt all over again and distinctly in their latest work "Green".

Tak When we were doing last year's show, we decided to start on the new album after new year. So when January's holiday was over, we went straight to work on the album. As usual, we didn't have the so-called 'theme' whatsoever, only the thought of doing a new album. Songs after songs came out and we recorded them in that order. In that process, for example, band members would come up with things they can do, some things we tried and decided to use, altogether we have tried many different things. And afterwards, from those available songs, we chose and selected things to go into the new album. But now that I think about it, things which were done by the band as a whole are basically left out this time... why is that?
Koshi We have never done an album with a decided 'theme' before. In short, we recorded all the songs steadily and kept inserting stuffs which we thought would be good for them. When we made our first debut, there wasn't any computer for us to reproduce our sound, so we made music solely with live vocal and guitar. We worked on the instruments ourselves. The way we create our sound, that point never changed. For people who have just started to listen to us since what number of album, maybe the image of band-sound comes in very strongly this time. This might be something they never heard from us before. And also for people who have been listening to us since the beginning, they might also find things that remain the same ever since our debut.

B'z is a band that is always in search for new possibilities and accepting fresh challenges in music. They played and had fun with the 'sound' of this latest work. Soft-rock, a style which never before applied, was adopted. Effects on vocal were also used. Veteran basist, Yoshida Ken participated for the first time, and in such happy exchange of collaboration, they explored and tried on many things together. The basic ground of their music is so firmly established, it feels as if such music must have been born from the spare room in the heart.

Tak New stuffs means continuing to challenge many different things, doesn't it? 'Eee...? No, I don't wanna do that!' I think if that happens, it means serious trouble in the band (laugh), because such thing never happens with us. We both have come all the way doing it like this. Who gets to play the drum on this song, how we start to work on this song, our decision has always come naturally and flexible. On that flexible part, there's a huge influence from outside. From now on too, we will still exchange opinions with fellow musicians. It's good that we get to broaden our musical limits by discussing it with many people.
Koshi Our staff would come up and say 'How's this?' If it sounds interesting, let's do it! That's how we do things.

The lyrics in B'z songs are written by Inaba. In this latest work too, variaties of happy stories and situations are brought to live by description in words. It is probably everyday thing for Inaba, but they definitely reflect the earnest way he looks at life and his sense and attitude towards living in this world.

Koshi I don't really have a special thought about life. There's an image of discovering what's inside it and tying it up with what's at the surface outside. Maybe that influences and gets represented in the lyrics. In everyday life, everything can be a material. Conversation between people, my own experience, watching movies, reading books. I think all of these can be included as materials for me.

The album's title "Green" makes people think about the richness of nature and its fresh image. It also reflects the determination of both members of B'z to continue moving forward in their endless pursue in music, both as artists and persons.

Koshi It happened alot lately that we decided upon the title in the half-end process of completing the album. When we felt, ok, now it's about time to decide on a title, the word "Green" was just there. By then, we have already completed the song "Stay Green ~ Mijyuku Na Tabi Wa Tomaranai". In its content, we confronted the immature part of ourselves and experienced the torment. Bearing such feeling in mind, we use the word "Green" to describe the still inexperienced part of us. For sure, I think it's a good thing to want to continue working on things you haven't completed. Furthermore, as a title, the word "Green" makes you think of greenery growing and luxuriate, young and lively. I think because there's such broad visual element in the word, this image just rushes forward.
Tak When I first heard of the word "Green", I thought it's really wonderful. It's easy to understand and exudes very fresh feeling. And just like what Inaba said so, as the band continues to exist, well, both as a person or musician, until the last moment, we will never think 'I'm the best!!' that kind of thinking. There are plenty of time when we think of ourselves as 'not there yet'. With such meaning, in my opinion, "Green" is a very good title to suit the present condition of B'z.

Tak First of all, we're looking forward to this event very much. I think it's such a positive leap of the music industry. The concert time is shorter than our usual show though. And it's such an honor to be able to perform with Aerosmith. When they say, 'Let's do it sometimes', I really want to!
Koshi I like Steven Tyler very much. I always think that he has such energy. When we met in a TV studio, he came in the room while singing, very energetic and his power was just exploding!
Complete report and articles on the concert, plus photos!

Tak Billy (Sheehan from Mr. Big) said 'Let's do it!' and we got Shane (Galaas from Schenker Group) on board. The four of us met to discuss this and it was decided. Such a great band will bring fresh new feeling to "Green" and other older songs.
Koshi We do rehearsals to bring harmony to the band. The quality of our music has increased so much and next it's my duty to advertise it with my singing.

01 Stay Green ~ Mijyuku Na Tabi Wa Tomaranai
Koshi The bass on this song was played by Yoshida Ken-san.
Tak He said, let's do something together, anything... well, that is realised now. Big loud rock bass matches this song perfectly.

03 WARP
Koshi Just like Matsumoto-san's melody stock, I also have lots of lyrics ready in stock. This one has been kept in there. B'z usual style is 'song first', but for this one, matching the melody with lyrics is an extremely rare case for us.
Tak Reading those lyrics and putting in melody to match it turned out to be very interesting!

04 Signal
Koshi This is the type of song used for game software. It was exciting to work on collaboration with other business beside music.
Tak When we were producing "Eleven", this song was already shaped to certain phase. When we recorded this album, I put in a different guitar solo.

05 Surfin' 3000GTR
Koshi First we had "Surfin'3000 " only as title, and then "GT" was added, finally an "R" was also added. I don't know anymore what it actually means (laugh). This one is completely a song for live show.
Tak This song emerged during the time when we were producing Eleven, right? There are 2 or 3 pattern of arrangement for this song. The best one is one song that has most nuance and feeling of the Ventures. (* The Ventures is an American guitar instrumental band, popular in US and Japan during early 60's)

06 Blue Sunshine
Koshi There's another more hard-rock arrangement of this song. But considering the lyrics, we had to adjust the tempo.
Tak The other pattern is harder and faster, but to balance the feeling of this album, we put in the slower version. Long time no see, nee... this kind of 8-beat.

08 Utsukushiki Sekai
Tak Onozuka-kun's piano is the best ne. When I first started to compose it, the concept was 'something from the past', but after this song made it into this album and I listened again, it's not really 'something old or ancient' feel. There's a certain position of this song in me.
Koshi This song was played during the ending of Livegym Eleven last year.

09 Everlasting
Tak There's another pattern of this song, more to single arrangement version. For the album, we selected this version.
Koshi The grand feeling was created along with the writing of the song.

10 Forever Mine
Koshi We also had two different arrangements for this one.
Tak The other one is 70's disco feel, kinda chic. But we selected this one because of consideration to the whole album's image. I had so much fun playing the guitar riff.

11 The Spiral
Tak Onozuka-kun's piano is great in this song too! In the ending part, as it's slowing down, it feels like Inaba is disappearing (laugh).
Koshi In my opinion, this song might be the most rock-ish in the album. The pauses between melody... there's no definition or certainty here. I can strongly feel the human touch of it.

12 Go * Fight * Win
Tak This one is also good, ne. It was the first number out of all songs we have recorded to be selected in this album.
Koshi The title has the image of wild outdoor, sporty's feel and it became our first choice for this year's LiveGym title. Then "Green" was decided as album title... but "Go* Fight* Win" stays.