What does Maneki neko mean?
Maneki is Japanese in lure and neko means cat. So Maneki neko is an alluring cat that many people mistakenly think is a waving cat. Everyone here must have seen her, because she lives in Asian bistros or convenience stores. Plus, she has a lot of people at home, so do I.
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It is an Asian phenomenon that originated in Japan. It is linked to one legend. A wealthy pilgrim traveled through Japan, but got lost in a storm. He was hiding under a tree when a cat appeared in front of him, inviting him on. It saved his life because he went to her and went to the village, where people helped him. As a token of gratitude, he then covered the village with wealth.
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The lure cat is thus a symbol of happiness, salvation and wealth in Asian countries.
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How did you come up with such a name?
My mom played a key role in that. The record was originally supposed to be called Sayonara, Goodbye in Japanese. When I announced it at home, my parents told me we were crazy, because we had no reason to say goodbye. I explained that I perceived it as a farewell to the covid, with a difficult and sad period. But my dad is a little superstitious and he just told me that we have to change the name and that we have to find a positive one.
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Dad always gave me good advice, so I decided to give it to him. Well, Mom suggested Maneki neko. It should be a symbol of some difficult time. The names of our records do not capture their main theme. They are more a reflection of what stage our band is in.
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So Maneki neko is an album whose title says that we don’t like the covid era, but we suggest trying to look at it positively. If we performed as much as we did before the arrival of the covid, it would probably not be out until a year later. So the positive thing is that the pandemic gave us the opportunity to realize ourselves more as an author and to release a record.
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What’s your new album other than the previous two?
I think he’s bolder. We wanted to move it sound and we are not afraid to build on some synths and beats in some songs. We are happy with it because we now enjoy making music like this. We don’t bend into any kind of music, we play with music and melodies.
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In one of our previous interviews, you said that you started composing with other authors as well. Has it been reflected on the new album?
I’ve never done so many records with any of my bands in the past. Three albums with Mirai is a record for me in this regard. At first I composed myself, then with the other members of the band we gave the songs their final form. Then we started to prosper and there were certain expectations from us. This put a lot of pressure on me as an author and I thought I could try to write songs in collaboration with someone else.
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So I took other people with me, and that led to my approach to writing. The songs Narozeniny a Akorát were created on collective songwriting, a joint composition organized by Jenda Vávra under the auspices of OSA. They were basically ready in a few hours.
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Various author groups were formed on that collective songwriting, in which we wrote songs. I worked mostly with David Stypka and one Polish and one Croatian producer. In a few hours, something came up that, if I was alone, would take weeks or months.
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We composed other songs in collaboration with our producer Ondřej Fiedler, Pokáč or Jenda Vávra also participated in the lyrics. I would like to continue composing together in the future, although of course I do not want to rely on it alone.
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The Mirai group succeeded in the Czech Nightingale poll.
Photo: Universal Music / Ondřej Pýcha
Isn’t collective songwriting more of a song factory?
Maybe the factory is in how efficient it is and how well it works. But the process is extremely fun and gets a person out of his stereotype. When I reach for a guitar at home and want to try to compose something, I still sit on the same couch and squeeze basically the same chords. During the songwriting, I was in the mountains in a great team of people who have the same ambition and support each other.
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It is true that in the past I could not imagine that I would let other people into the relatively intimate process of composing songs be active. Now I’ve let three in at once, and I don’t mind at all. I will be happy to continue working in such a factory.
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How resolutely did you approach the new record?
Before recording, we said to ourselves that it should be fresh, so to speak, and try to pave the way for Czech pop. Mirai is a young band that should do it.
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I am inspired by the Czech rap world, which is progressive and not afraid to do things that are not usual in our country. It is not so progressive in pop in our country. So we weren’t afraid to put beats into the songs that evoke the rap world. They were already in the first single for the album, I’m calling.
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You just called You later recorded in the acoustic version. Given that you used a lot of electronics on the record, can other songs be recorded acoustically?
I’m sure we could play each of the songs on Maneki neko acoustically. When a song is good, it can also be played acoustically, because its mainstay is the song.
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Does your relationship to text content change over time?
I’m still on my way in that too. When I was texting Konichiwa’s first album, I tended to be more cultured, sometimes looking for maybe useless metaphors. How many times was there no reason to have them in the text. I think the new album is more about who I really am. There is commonness, civility in the texts.
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We and our producer Ondra Fiedler had different views on the lyrics some time ago. He is close to the Liberec rap scene and the lyrics that came out of it were colloquial and more lingering. I thought they should have more poetry in pop. We discussed a lot about it. But now I’m breaking the rules I stuck to.
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Which song did it show the most?
About the Birthday song. It’s a personal confession of how all my friends have children, they push prams, while we rock and roll pawns still have nothing. Although it is true that our drummer and bass player already have children. Now, in terms of age, I’m in the band. So we’ll see.
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The lyrics of the songs Yesterday, Openspace or Volám also come to me as civil and ordinary ones. They are written in a language I usually speak.
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At the end of the album is the song Lítej (Davidovi), a memory of the late David Stypka. He came from the same city as you. Is it hard to write a text about a deceased friend?
Honza Vavra and I had a lot of lyrics, maybe fifty, and this one was among them. But it was only slightly sketched, one of those that needed to be found in order to be completed.
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It might never have been written, but it happened that our friend David Stypka died this January. And that was the specificity, the topic. Full of emotion, we wrote the text very quickly. David was also a friend of Honza’s. For example, all three of us supported, encouraged and entertained the mentioned collective songwriting very intensively.
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When writing texts, it is better if the author knows what he wants to write about than if he just cooks out of water. In this case, the subject was clear after David’s departure. We lost someone when he was our great friend and we miss him.
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When will you present the new songs at concerts?
We’ve already played some. We will all play in three special performances, which should take place on November 21 in Prague at the Rock Café club, on November 24 at the Metro Music Club in Brno and on November 29 in Stoun in Frýdek-Místek. These will be concerts for the most loyal fans, so they will take place in smaller environments than they are used to from our performances lately.
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Of course, we will continue to give concerts next year, and on December 10 we would like to give a concert at Prague’s O2 Arena.
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