Chad Bowar: How has Sigh's sound changed and progressed from Gallows Gallery to Hangman's Hymn?
Mirai Kawashima: Since Ghastly Funeral Theatre, our concern was to take in as varied music as possible, everything from jazz, classical to Mongolian throat singing, but as far as Hangman's Hymn goes, there are only two main elements on it, namely heavy metal and classical music from the Romantic era. Probably Hangman's Hymn is the most consistent album by us. It's hard to compare Hangman's Hymn to Gallows Gallery as they're too different. Directions are poles apart, but I can safely say Hangman's Hymn is by far the best album done by us in every point.
Why did you decide to bring back harsh vocals for this album?
Gallows Gallery and Hangman's Hymn are two albums that are 100% different. We wanted to express sadness and depression of our lives on Gallows Gallery while Hangman's Hymn is an album full of hate and anger.
Thus, harsh vocals were the best way to create the atmosphere which the Hangman's Hymn world required. We always choose the way which we think is the best.
How did you choose Hangman's Hymn as the title?
There were several candidates like Horned Hangman, Hymn To The Horned Hangman etc. It was nothing but an inspiration. There was no deep reason to choose it.
What were your lyrical inspirations?
I won't call it a concept album as there's no strong storyline or anything behind the lyrics, but all of them are based on my personal hatred. Long story short, I just want all the people to die. I hate greedy people who have no interest than making money. I hate weak people who have to cling to the religious fairytales. I hate 99.9% of people on this earth. I'm not pretending a misanthropist, I mean it. I just want them to burn in hell.
The three big inspirations on the lyrics for Hangman's Hymn are: The Ring by Wagner, Faust by Goethe, and a big fire that burned down my neighbor's house. I don't think we need the explanations on the first two. Last year, my neighbor's house was burned down to the ground, and as it was just a few feet away from my own house, I seriously thought mine would be burned down to when I saw a real big fire through the window. Luckily my house just got roof damage, window cracks etc.. I wrote “Confutatis” the next day after the fire in the smell of a burned down house!
.How and why did you come to sign with The End Records?
Steve Joh from Century Media introduced us to The End Records.
We were looking for a decent label after Gallows Gallery was out, and I thought I should talk to Steve as he had been involved in music industry for a long time and he knew lots of labels. He recommended The End Records and we thought they were a great label too.
What are your expectations for the album?
I just want as many people as possible to listen to our music. And definitely we'd love to play in as many countries as possible too.
You're playing a couple of U.S. dates in July with Mayhem. What are your tour plans after that?
We're going to tour the U.S. for two weeks including the two dates with Mayhem in California. After that, we will play a few shows in Japan, but no other tours are being planned at this stage. I'm thinking of starting writing new material for the new album with Mikannibal later this year.
How come Sigh hadn't played live for five years before your show in March?
Well, after Imaginary Sonicscape was released in 2001, we wanted to recruit a new drummer, but it wasn't an easy job at all to find a good drummer who also understands what we were doing. Also personally I was quite busy with other projects such as Necrophagia, so it took a few years till we finally recorded Gallows Gallery with Junichi Harashima on drums. Even when Gallows Gallery was out, as we got no support at all from the label, we had no chance to play abroad, and I was still feeling that we need another member to reproduce what we did in the studio live, so we decided not to play gigs until the right time came. In 2006 I met Mikannibal, who modeled for Hangman's Hymn artwork and she told me that she was in a band too and gave me a CD. To be honest, I was not expecting much, but after one spin, I was totally blown away. Then I got to see her on stage, I realized she was the one I had been looking for. Definitely now we have the strongest line-up ever and we're totally ready for the gigs.
Speaking of Mayhem, you signed with DSP in the early '90s. You corresponded with Euronymous. Did you ever have a chance to meet him in person before his death? What were your impressions of him?
I often talked with him on the phone, but unfortunately I had no chance to see him in person. He sounded like a really creative person. It was always a big fun to talk with him. Once he told me not to talk about any crime by the inner circle because ICPO could be tapping our phone. I was not sure if he meant it back then, but now I see it could have been true!
What other figures from that scene were you in contact with back then?
At first the black metal scene was pretty small, so I was in contact with lots of now-famous people such as Burzum, Emperor, Enslaved, Satyricon, Ulver etc.
