Interview - Kana Uemura

Kana Uemura made her debut May of 2005, and let the world have a taste of her unique vocals in her breakout single “Precious Person.” Her songs are fresh and soft, but each piece allows us to feel a distinctive emotion and the love that radiates from the song. To a girl who embraces the honesty and faces her songs head-on, we asked her about her newest song “Milk Tea.”

Junko: When you were young, you decided to sing after you saw the movie "The Sound of Music", and if you listen to the song, there was an object of yearning, but it isn't something gaudily decorated, it is a song that hits much closer to home.

Kana Uemura (Kana): Since I decided at 8 that I'd become a singer, singing has become something that's just natural. For regular people, they think, "I want to become a singer!", and think they're going to work hard, but when I came to assume that I'd become a singer. I was definitely going to become a singer in the future, and I didn't think outside of that (laugh).

Junko: It was just a sense of, "I love music, what else can I do?"

Kana: To say that I hated singing before I saw "The Sound of Music"... I liked them, but I knew I was bad at it. When I saw the movie, I thought, "Songs really are fun and have an amazing power." Songs can bring people together, and you can really feel, in many ways, all the power a song has. I thought, "I want to live this way in the future". I sang songs every day, cheered up with singing, made friends with singing, and just generally connected with people by deciding to do this when I was little. Since then, I've gotten better at singing because I practiced every day.

Junko: And at 19, you started the guitar, and started writing songs, right?

Kana: Writing songs is a job that's half joy and half anguish. Half... well, about 9/10 is difficult, and 1/10 is joy, and that about covers the feelings (laugh). It is fairly hard to do. But, of course, the songs I write are much more "me", and I can say the things I want to say. I have an older sister, and what she said to me was, "More than your voice when you're singing someone else's songs, I like your voice when you're singing your songs". I was really happy to hear that, and think of myself as rather simplistic. I think that I can only truly express myself through my songs, but now that I can finally write my own songs, I think I can put more of my own color into these, and on top of expressing myself, writing my songs myself is extremely essential.

Junko: I honestly feel that your newest self-written work, "Milk Tea" rings more directly than your previously offered song, "Precious Person".

Kana: It's just that I love writing songs, and it's something that I always want to do, and singing the songs that are in me is my first order of business, but when I encounter a song that someone has written for me, like "Precious Person", I always think that I want to sing it. On top of that, I think being able to debut with "Precious Person" was a very good thing, and suddenly being able to work together with big producers like Kameda Seiji, there are a lot of very attractive things about that. On top of that, this current song, "Milk Tea" was born, with no mistake. The road I've come struggling in on wasn't entirely united, but the place I'm aiming for is straight ahead, and suddenly writing my own songs, or having people write my songs for me despite that, somehow I just feel it's necessary. I don't think people often travel down this road, but well, it seems good (laugh).

Junko: The melody on "Milk Tea" is extremely impressionistic. Was this a song that you had a hard time writing?

Kana: I did have a hard time. But the melody came very quickly. It was the lyrics that were troubling because of making the things I wanted to say clear, and how to say that with the number of words I could fit into the song. I did it while crying and saying “No more~" (laugh). I thought, "I've finally made a song by myself, somehow" (laugh).

Junko: What is different about the part of you that wants to sing those types of songs only?

Kana: My attitude towards songs is that it doesn't change from the other songs. I expose the same feelings and the same distance. When I sing, I'm usually not consciously singing. Basically, I'm just really singing with all my feelings put into it. If that's strength, then maybe it becomes something abstract, but I suppose I face my songs head on. I think it's just because I like singing simply and purely. It might be a normal life, and it may be true for this part of my personality, but I want to be extremely natural. I don't think that will ever change.