“The two albums ended up representing the counter points in life,” says lead guitarist Takaakira ‘Taka’ Goto. “Light and darkness, hope and hopelessness, love and loss, the emotions which can’t be expressed – pain which you can’t put into words, happiness which you can’t simply measure. We also, at the same time, felt and hoped that they could be something to exceed the darkness.”
Despite being their eighthLP, Rays of Darkness contains the first ever Mono song to use vocals. The Hand That Holds the Truth features the vocals of Tetsuya ‘Tetsu’ Fukagawa, vocalist of another Japanese cult-favourite, Envy.
“Personally for a long time, I always wanted to collaborate with Tetsu,” says Goto. “He’s been a good of friend of ours for so long, so I’m really glad it became a reality. Even during the time I was writing the song, I could clearly hear how his vocals would fit in together. When we actually collaborated I didn’t really give him any instructions, but he already knew what I was hoping to achieve. The song turned out to be such an incredible piece and we’re all very proud of it.”
Over the course of their eight LPs, Mono’s sound has been in a constant state of transit. They’re known to shift from shimmering, shaken guitars to flourishing orchestral arrangements. The latter element has been a considerably large part of the band’s more recent works, leading some to classify Mono as a contemporary classical, or neo-classical, outfit. It certainly raises the question of where Mono’s sound might go next. According to Goto, it’ll have more to do with what he and his bandmates get from the creative process as opposed to public expectations.
“If I were to borrow Beethoven’s words, I think music is something that ignites fire in men’s hearts and brings tears to women’s eyes – and, of course, vice versa,” he says. “Every individual reflects their own life through music like spiritual travels, like every cell in your body getting triggered unconsciously. After experiencing fantastic movies, books or art, there is a power that allows you to see and feel new values of your life which you didn’t really notice. We really hope we can create the same kind of experience to people. We have been trying to find something new in rock guitar music which no one has done before. Now I am thinking we should focus on what we want to do more than what we should do.”
Commendably, Mono have maintained the same core lineup for the entirety of their career – Goto, guitarist Hideki Suematsu, bassist Tamaki Kunishi and drummer Yasunori Takada. Goto formed the band toward the end of 1999, and they’ll have reached their 16th birthday by the time they arrive in Australia for a run of headline shows over the next couple of weeks. When asked to explain what’s kept Mono going this entire time, Goto attributes it to one thing.
“It’s truly lucky that we have a strong mind as a team – like family. We have travelled the world together every year for the last 16 years, and we feel like we all grew up together gradually as children to adults. Everything we saw was fresh. Everything we did was an adventure with continuation of facing the unknown, excitement and setbacks. The whole process was like learning all the essentials of life through our music and travels.”
Mono’s Australian dates will be their final shows for the year, wrapping up an exhausting tour schedule which has seen them spend more than half the year playing in support of The Last Dawn and Rays of Darkness. However, Goto doesn’t begrudge this lifestyle one bit.
“This year was very, very busy. We’ve played about 170 shows, including a South American tour. We just came back from a European co-headlining tour with Solstafir from Iceland. We will tour with Shellac in Japan soon, then we will play a Chinese festival and then we will go to Australia and New Zealand. All moments and opportunities are fantastic. We feel we can share something special with Australian fans really deeply as an art. We are very very excited to come back there soon.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
