HEY HO! (that sounds stupid -.-
Tsukiko-chan and Gazettastic your drawings are great!
Here is part two and three from the Reita interview thing. Credits to djwoman on LJ.
ESP Guitars Artists Series – the GazettE Reita Special Interview (2/10)
ESP: As I expected, everyone wanted to try Luna Sea.
Reita: When I was exactly in middle school, if I may say, the first rock band that I got to know was Luna Sea.
ESP: So you didn't play that much, is that right?
Reita: You're right. I only copied one or two songs, and after that I noticed that I didn't even touch the electric guitar. (heh)
(me: I wonder if Reita and Uruha played guitar together, and if Uruha was better than him, or just as lazy XD. and if they did, who started first)
ESP: So after that you switched to bass? What kind?
Reita: Certain Y-company. It was a green one. I believe it was about ¥30,000.
(me: HAHA he says Y-company because either he forgot, he's embarrassed to reveal the real company (maybe it was an illegal knockoff XD) or if there really exists a company called Y-company... PS company exists after all, why not Y company? XD and ¥30,000 is about $250-300 I think)
ESP: What kind of melodies did you copy with the bass?
Reita: Luna Sea's song Precious.
ESP: Oo~! The first stage!
Reita: That was with Uruha. We listened together while playing the CD.
(me: obviously, first stage means first steps)
ESP: At the time you already knew him, huh.
Reita: Yes. We grew up together since elementary school.
(me: AWWWW ♥ in hev'n magazine translations Uruha said he met Reita in 4th grade on the soccer team. Uruha had joined in 2nd, and Reita joined in 4th, and that was where it started! he also said his first impression of Reita was that he was a short, black haired and pouty boy XDDD)
ESP: So the first band you made was with him.
Reita: Yeah. So far there hasn't been a band where Uruha was not a member.
(me: yep, and they started with the band Karasu. Ruki joined in on their next, which was M'adie Kusse)
ESP: Were there any other bands that you copied?
Reita: Luna Sea and X... but 90% was Luna Sea.
(me: I like Luna Sea better than X-Japan too ♥. Though I think X-Japan is more legendary.)
ESP: Then was J a big influence on you?
Reita: It was big. After the bass from Y-company, I bought J's Edwards model. Even though I was a freshman in high school, I took a loan of ¥4000 per month. (heh)
(me: ¥4000 is a little over the price of an import album, so I say it's around $35-40 ish?)
ESP: What! You took out a loan in freshman year!!!
Reita: It was a red TVB model. After that, from copying songs we advanced to making originals, and I thought it was bad if we couldn't produce any original sound, so I changed the color of my bass.
(me: Reita, you're hilarious. like the color would seriously make a difference XDDD)
ESP: What color?
Reita: Purple!!! (hehe)
(me: Uruha's color! sorry, couldn't resist hehe. ReixUcchan is my OTP ♥)
ESP Guitars Artists Series – the GazettE Reita Special Interview (3/10)
ESP: Oooh!
Reita: After that, I thought I will paint around it with white spraypaint and it ended up quite an ugly color. (heh)
(me: I can only imagine... o___O)
ESP: Or, quite an intense appearance... a punk appearance?
Reita: Yes... originality seeking. (heh)
(me: credit for creativity indeed XD)
ESP: When you were a high school student, did you always use this Edwards?
Reita: Yes. Soon after I graduated fromhigh school, I bought a new one.
(me: Edwards is the level between GrassRoots and ESP. like an evolution sort of thing. ESP is the highest and strongest form! ~XD)
ESP: What did you buy?
Reita: The next was already ESP.
ESP: Ooh!
Reita: It was from the ESP store in Ochanomizu.
(me: ... that's where Uruha got his too! maybe they went together? maybe it was a date? XD)
ESP: What was the model?
Reita: Nnnn... the name of the model... I sort of can't remember but... at the time the catalog keyword was written, "resound through your whole body" model. (heh)
(me: now this was really hard to translate. "resound through your whole body" was actually one of those 4-character idiom things that you often see in Chinese, and in Japanese kanji, and literally it read something like "resonating in your 5 torso 6 organs" -__- not sure, since even my sensei was confused. but she said it basically meant vibrating through your whole body, which makes sense as we can feel bass pound through our bodies all the time anyway)
ESP: W-whole body??? ...Please wait a bit... now, I will bring the catalog from that time.
Reita: (looks at the catalog from back then for a while) Ah... it's this one!!!
ESP: Oo! It's BB-IV! It really does write "resound through your whole body"! I had completely forgot! (heh)
Reita: This is on the expensive side. On the side of ¥440,000.
(me: it's about $4000 o____O)
ESP: Uwaa... for someone right out of high school, ¥440,000 is amazing huh...
Reita: This was already... a 3 year loan, huh.
(me: I told you the man squanders money on himself and his basses XD)
ESP: A man's 3 year loan!!! (What determination!) Within the several ESP lineups, why did you choose this model?
Reita: I didn't want to use the same bass as other people. Somebody I knew had something like a Forest, and I think it's good to have a different bass. I hadn't really seen this bass before, but I liked red. It was like having a crush at first sight.
(me: it probably would have been more appropriate to say love at first sight, but crush was kind of the nuance I got and I thought it was cute so I used it XD I have a mental image of Reita blushing with sparkly eyes as he gropes his new bass XD)