The Suzan consists of the sisters Rie and Saori and friends Nico. Their music is a multi-genre, wild song and dance that put the POP in pop! Today they premiere their song “DESIRE” to put all the grooves back into your heart. We chat with them about their new video and how they keep their music fresh.
We can’t get enough of how visual this video is! Can you tell us about the concept and how it came to be?
Yu Nakajima, our director said, “The title of the song ‘Desire’, and the way the track and lyrics repeat in a mystical way soon inspired me to make a collage-type video. From there I just carried on filming through that inspiration.I started developing my ideas from a book in the 90s about bizarre Japanese inventions, as I thought it fully demonstrated human desire.
I followed the title “Desire” and planned on filming a lot of human-desire-themed shots while 10% of it would be improvised. However, we started enjoying it so much on the set, that over 30% of the video ended up being improvised. (haha) THE SUZAN trusted me and gave me freedom so that our crew could enjoy filming on the set, and as a result, I believe we were able to embody the feeling you get from the song that excites people’s childish curiosities.”
There are many setups involved, were you both around for all of the filmings or was there a lot of trust in the collaboration with you and the director? * If it was self-directed: How was it filming all of the setups for this video?
We, THE SUZAN, had 100% trust in the director, Yu Nakajima’s vision towards this project. We met in NYC a while ago and became good friends. He was even riding in our van to film our US tour in 2013. He said that he wanted to avoid filming a cliché with us performing and lip-syncing in a studio and we agreed. Apart from the few shots that we filmed together (with Yu also being in the video), we weren’t fully aware of what he had planned or what he had already filmed.
In this day and age, it is so hard to keep people’s attention throughout a full music video (unfortunately) but you have completely mastered this here and it’s wonderful. I’ve watched this video several times and each time I catch something new and unique. Do you both have favorite parts you like best?
My favorite part of the video is a segment in which we crush a paper balloon. An elderly lady happened to pass by when we were doing this strange thing made it even funnier.
And we like a toilet paper folder which is attached to a hat like a thing on a person so he/she can sneeze anytime and never run out of kleenex, a shampoo hat like device for avoiding getting splashed with ramen soup when you slurp ramen noodles. Those represent human desire to do something with less labor!
This is off your new EP that just came out, what can you tell us about it?
KONICHIWA is the last of the trilogy of EPs we have been releasing for the last year. The songs on this EP are of different characters and they are really catchy so you can sing along with us after just one hearing.
We hope this means there are tour dates in the works?
There are no tour dates to be announced at this moment, but we will put up a show or two in Tokyo. We would love to play overseas. Meanwhile, we will be making new songs in the near future.
Yu Nakajima, our director said, “The title of the song ‘Desire’, and the way the track and lyrics repeat in a mystical way soon inspired me to make a collage-type video. From there I just carried on filming through that inspiration.I started developing my ideas from a book in the 90s about bizarre Japanese inventions, as I thought it fully demonstrated human desire.
I followed the title “Desire” and planned on filming a lot of human-desire-themed shots while 10% of it would be improvised. However, we started enjoying it so much on the set, that over 30% of the video ended up being improvised. (haha) THE SUZAN trusted me and gave me freedom so that our crew could enjoy filming on the set, and as a result, I believe we were able to embody the feeling you get from the song that excites people’s childish curiosities.”
There are many setups involved, were you both around for all of the filmings or was there a lot of trust in the collaboration with you and the director? * If it was self-directed: How was it filming all of the setups for this video?
We, THE SUZAN, had 100% trust in the director, Yu Nakajima’s vision towards this project. We met in NYC a while ago and became good friends. He was even riding in our van to film our US tour in 2013. He said that he wanted to avoid filming a cliché with us performing and lip-syncing in a studio and we agreed. Apart from the few shots that we filmed together (with Yu also being in the video), we weren’t fully aware of what he had planned or what he had already filmed.
In this day and age, it is so hard to keep people’s attention throughout a full music video (unfortunately) but you have completely mastered this here and it’s wonderful. I’ve watched this video several times and each time I catch something new and unique. Do you both have favorite parts you like best?
My favorite part of the video is a segment in which we crush a paper balloon. An elderly lady happened to pass by when we were doing this strange thing made it even funnier.
And we like a toilet paper folder which is attached to a hat like a thing on a person so he/she can sneeze anytime and never run out of kleenex, a shampoo hat like device for avoiding getting splashed with ramen soup when you slurp ramen noodles. Those represent human desire to do something with less labor!
This is off your new EP that just came out, what can you tell us about it?
KONICHIWA is the last of the trilogy of EPs we have been releasing for the last year. The songs on this EP are of different characters and they are really catchy so you can sing along with us after just one hearing.
We hope this means there are tour dates in the works?
There are no tour dates to be announced at this moment, but we will put up a show or two in Tokyo. We would love to play overseas. Meanwhile, we will be making new songs in the near future.
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