Shubarutsu

Last night the announcement went up on the CP website, along with official comments from FujiPro and the four of us.
It's difficult for me to express my emotions fluently in Japanese when I am hardly sure of what I feel in English, so my comment is short and vague.

Schwarz, I think, due to a few factors, has had (and for awhile, will have) a problem figuring out exactly how he wants to properly express himself with the talents he has. If we're going to mention music only, I feel like the CP-formula of heavy and blues played emotionally with nary a love song in sight suited his style just fine, but as a hunch I think he wants to walk a more traditional metal road.

And he has shown signs of restlessness for awhile now. At one meeting conversation quickly turned serious, and I remember thinking that I suddenly had no clue what anyone was talking about. This happened again a few months later, and, try as I might, I had no idea what was going on. Schwarz was pulling away, and I couldn't understand his reasons why. I thought the other two did, but in conversations with them later it turns out that they didn't quite understand.

Tenten and Schwarz discussed things like rambunctious brothers, sort of how I feel like with my own brother--to an outsider it might not look like we even like each other, but the affection for each other feels so obvious to ourselves. Joe tried very hard to get Schwarz to stay, and for a short while it seemed he was successful, but then he dropped the bomb, so to speak.

To tell the truth, I think we were very angry at first. Not only were our efforts to keep our buddy in the fold a failure, there was the timing question to look at. We had already filmed the Praparat video by this point, at the one-man. We hadn't gone into the studio to record it yet. There were all sorts of other things that made this decision a serious royal headache. But we worked out that he'd do the single with us and then that would be it.

Schwarz and Tenten have been working together since last year, before even Joe or I came into the fold. So it does feel a little strange in that sense. When Yue decided to leave Laverite, I have to be honest and say I felt a little relieved. I felt like I could only do so much there and I was looking for another shot. My initial feelings about Schwarz's departure aside, I also feel slightly relieved now, for some reason. Maybe because I just hope that he'll find enjoyment in whatever he does next, and also I have the feeling that we'll be all right.

CP will definitely be back. This is no BS activity pause. Unofficially the goal is to be back before the 3/14 one-man, and this is no vacation. We've been trying to get things in order ever since Schwarz first decided to part ways with us, so don't worry too much.

If you read Schwarz and Tenten's Japanese messages, they strike me as more honest than the typical "oh i am leaving over musical differences, it is so sad oh well" messages you see when someone leaves. Obviously we can't say everything; I don't like it when artists air their dirty laundry with each other, so I'm trying just to illustrate the humanness of these things. But I do want to stress: we still like him. He still likes us (I hope!). We're disappointed, but it's a rare, neat thing when you can get a bunch of dreamers to agree on a dream. And like I said in my Japanese message, it would be nice if both Chemical Pictures and Schwarz are able to keep traveling our respective journeys, keeping in mind the things we learned and the experiences we had together.


Be assured: we began planning out solutions to this the day after Schwarz first told us he'd be leaving, so we're doing our best to come back stronger than before.

I will be glad when we can put this behind us, though.

Oh hey, look forward to our support drummer for the 10/4 show. :)