Austinist Interviews SXSW: Tetuzi Akiyama

What do you find different/preferable about playing by yourself as opposed to with a band?

I like to play in bands, 'cause it is just fun. From the first band I started with my friend when I was 16, I have been improvising and experimenting on guitars. But even when I was thought to be more like an avant-garde guitar player, I have loved those bluesy rock thing. My focus is much more on their tone they make, the sound of the beautifully distorted electric guitar. So some time, maybe twenty years ago, I came to an idea to make solo rock guitar work, to focus on the tone and wildness of the instrument. Also, I wanted to make a new genre, because no rock guitar players have not made this kind of totally solo guitar album which is more common in jazz, classic, avant-garde scene. I wanted to prove there can be "solo rock guitar" on very much bluesy manner. It is based on my ego, so for me, it is comfortable to do it.

What is your approach to improvisation? Why do you find this preferable to having a pre-determined idea of what to play? Are you ever surprised at what your hands come up with?

Almost all the improvisers must have had this kind of experience that they got surprised at what come from themselves. So have I. I like to detune the strings so that I will not know where I am going or come from. Recently, I am more interested in the sound and resonance inside the instrument itself. Also, I am not afraid to make some melodic phrases even in the free-form session. Opposed to the general idea that improvisers should hear what others are doing carefully, I don't listen to others so much to avoid the music going so easily fit to the atmosphere. I think the improvisers should have risk even if it makes sometimes the music bad. At least for me, the reason I do it is to get that moment full of tension.

Do you have any sort of main concept or theory that you work around when it comes to improvisation?

Don't respond [to] others, don't imitate others, forget immediately what you have just now done. Don't make any relation along with the time. Think the time does not exist.

Who do you consider your contemporaries in the avant-garde/improv scene?

Any people I have come across in the scene. My improv partners so far with no specific order. They are all different but good in each way.

Music, in America at least, is a notoriously low-paying profession for most people. Is it a similar situation in Japan? What sort of jobs have you taken to support your music?

It may be the same, or worse. What I am doing is nothing with so-called music business. But somehow I could make enough money from the tours last year to keep my living. I still have a job or two, event preparation, or department store decoration.

You probably spend a great deal of time on the road. In what part(s) of the world do you get the strongest reactions?

This is not diplomatic remarks, but Texan audience I played in front of last year, were kind of strongest so far, indeed.

Where is the most unusual venue you have performed live?

I like to play rather in tiny venues, so for me, it was the opera house in Sydney. It was too large for me.

Tell us about the recording for your last record, Pre-Existence. You laid down the tracks in real-time?

Yes. This album contains about 30 minutes, 8 tracks. I did 10 improv tracks and took 2 out. All the session was done in maybe 70 minutes, including tunings and tea breaks. It was my intention to make this album like that. I had some kind of feeling that I would make it thus, and I just did it. So I say that the music pre-existed.

Any thoughts or feelings about coming to SXSW?

I am not sure what actually it is. I just regard it as a big festival kind of thing. But if the audience like my music, it is just fine.

Tetuzi Akiyama plays March 15th at The Hideout Theatre. He opens for Charalambides in San Antonio, March 18th, at Salon Mijangos.