EXCITE: You’ve worked hard for ‘D-LITE D’scover Tour 2013 in Japan ~DLive~’. Like what we have seen, apart from the excellence of the songs, D-LITE’s own charm has also infected the whole venue. How do you feel now that the tour is over?
D-LITE: I really learnt a lot through this tour. From the staff to everybody present, I realized all of us could be one. I think this is the biggest discovery.

EXCITE: Bigbang members came for the concert too, did all of you talk about your thoughts for the concert?
D-LITE: We did not (laugh). As we are all men, we don’t really speak with such details. But they said I’ve worked hard, which actually has a deeper meaning in it. Right now all of us are busy with our own activities, when they came for my concert it was quite hard. So they used “You’ve worked hard!” to represent everything.

EXCITE: Just through a “You’ve worked hard” and you can sense so much. It’s because of your trust within each other right?
D-LITE: Yes, it’s like this.

EXCITE: For your first solo single, ‘I Love You’ will be released on the 31st of July. I heard that this song was also covered in Korea before and it was also quite famous. Any thoughts about that?
D-LITE: At the start it was covered by a Korean band called POSITION. ‘I Love You’ was originally a song that I liked. The Koreans love this song so much they thought that this song was from Korea, it is very famous in Korea. Afterwards, I saw Yutaka Ozaki’s video and I think that the original song is still the best.

EXCITE: Yutaka Ozaki is a special artist where everybody will still carry his passion on even after he passed away. Any artist covering this song will also feel pressurized. What mood did you bring to sing this song?
D-LITE: Definitely, when I was covering this song it was very stressful. Because the original song was so good thus it was already perfect just being the way it is. I feel that it is most important to add all types of feelings into the original song. Without ruining the original song’s vibe and adding my own colours in naturally is very important. After listening to ‘I Love You’ by me, you will feel the charm of the original song and also my personality. I wanted listeners to experience this effect which is why I wanted to re-arrange the song. As this is a solo single, it is most stressful. As ‘D’scover’ is an album, in the re-arrangement of the songs, I can do some variations about it. The whole album is done based on what I want. But for the single, I have to consider about the original song and adding my thoughts in it. I am a little worried about that.

EXCITE: Yutaka Ozaki uses falsetto to perform the song’s climax which is at the latter half of the song. However, D-LITE used a strong voice to sing it. In this part I can feel D-LITE’s personality, however, how do you decide between “I would like to change this part” and “I would like to keep this part”?
D-LITE: It was decided after listening to the original songs many times and basing on my image. This time, I want to try listening to the songs of other artists who have covered ‘I Love You’. Up till now, there have been countless of artists who have covered this song. For example, Hikaru Utada, Masaharu Fukuyama, Ayaka and Kobukuro etc. At the start, I asked my manager to bring me all the songs of artists that covered ‘I Love You’. I listened to about 12-13 songs. These songs cannot be similar but it is also not allowed to put aside the colors of the original songs, but I still have to add my own colors in naturally.. Due to this I’ve thought a lot, I kept on researching and trying and finally completed the song. I think what’s most important is how I blended my colors in naturally.

EXCITE: So I see. Wouldn’t it be difficult to search for a balance like this?
D-LITE: Very difficult (laugh). However I am not alone this time, I also have producer Seiji Kameda and violinist Hakase Taro working with me. So I was able to receive different inspirations from them and produced good works.

EXCITE: Hakase Taro spoke of how he obtains energy from his violin sounds, what is this “energy”? Does he mean that this sound gives him the idea of his works?
D-LITE: Before recording, I will think of how to produce this song using my own voice and vocal style. After that, I will record and feel the mood around me and make slight changes to it. But I think what’s most important is how I co-ordinate with my instruments. The player of the instrument appears only during recording, isn’t this how the instruments holds power? If you try and listen a few more times, you will understand. Try to feel, try to do it with co-ordination… However I understood Hakase Taro’s violin sounds only after one time [Ah, the atmosphere was so good], I had a clear path of my musical works. Thus, it took me only a short while to record this song.

EXCITE: This “image”, are you talking about the sights and colors?
D-LITE: Yes… If I explain this song in colors, it would be a color of blue and purple mixed together. Loneliness, intense, sombre (not quite though) and beautiful. I think it has all types of colors added in it. Same goes to the content of the lyrics, although it is a love not accepted by the world, it still felt great just feeling the love of the two of them. POSITION san’s lyrical content is slightly different, it was more flowy and it was really beautiful. I focus a lot on the original song’s lyrics which is why I would like to emphasize this image. Direct, lonely, courage and a little risk-taking factor. I like this very much.