– How and why did you decide to make your own label in the first place?
[My motives were actually very simple : I was releasing my own solo work and wanted a label, a logo mark to go with it. At first though, it was a virtual label, a label in name only.]

– But now, a few more artists belong to it, right?
[Since I made it, it’s taken on the form of a true label, but it still doesn’t have much of a function. It’s got three other artists besides TETSU69, and they’ve got indie releases but that’s really a coincidence. Sometimes we met when recording, but it was by chance, it really feels like a natural flow of events. I never decided to collect artists, never held any auditions, but I knew some people who wanted to release stuff, and so I said “So, how about we work together for a bit?” Just casual offers like that.]

– Well then, do you have a vision for the kind of label colour you want to acquire?
[No way, I’m not thinking of it on such a large scale. It’s going to take a long time before it gets to the stage where a real colour can be determined, and I think I’ll need a lot more artists, too. It might never get that far. If I get a little bit more staff, then I might. Since I haven’t got that much staff yet, I don’t think the label can take such a big step right now.]

– The name SPROUSE is a word you made from “sprout” and “rouse” isn’t it? How did you come up with that word?
[I thought that the printed trademark didn’t suit the space it was taking on the releases, so I quit using it, then I was wondering what to use and checked a dictionary, looking for something. The first word I saw was “sprout” which means when a new bud starts to grow or something like that, and I thought it was perfect, but “sprout” was taken by someone else so I didn’t take it as a registered trademark. Then, I looked in the dictionary again and saw the word “rouse,” meaning to awaken, so the meaning worked well, and it sounded good, so I thought I’d try combining the two words. Since it’s a made up word, it was sure to be available as a registered trademark. But, SPROUSE.com was taken by someone in America, so I figured there must be someone in the world who came up with the same thing.]

– Was the logo mark made to reflect your own inclinations, tetsu-san?
[Yes it was. I made it look like both a crown and an arrow. The top feels like it’s stretching out, too. Oh, and since I like soccer, I made it look a bit like a soccer team’s logo, too (laughs).]

– What’s the best part of having a label? What’s most interesting?
[There’s more awful stuff involved than interesting stuff, actually. I started by getting a barcode, first. Then the CD numbers, I had to request them so that it would match up with the standard for all the CDs in the world. Each maker has a distinct number, so for instance Sony has SRCL, Ki/oon has KSCL and so on. I wanted SPROUSE to get SP or something, you know? But Sony had already taken SP. The first two letters represent the maker’s name, then the third one, C, is C as in CD. Then, the last letter is totally up to the maker. If it’s the first part of a series for instance, then you can use 1 then 2 or A then B, it can be anything you like. SPROUSE has LSCA-1001, and so on like that.]

– Why did you make it LS?
[There wasn’t much else left. One of the available ones was LS, so the label SPROUSE is LS, and it has L like in L’Arc, so that’s good. Then, I heard from the people in charge. They said to me “What are you going to do with all this once you have it?” “It’ll be three figures, right?” and all that other reasonable stuff (laughs).]

– Concerning label management, have you experienced anything you hadn’t before?
[Well, I made arrangements with the merchants who handle circulation. It’s just that I got to understand the way finances work, but I had to study a lot to do it. As an artist, I don’t speak as selfishly anymore (laughs). Before, I could only relate to how artists felt, but now I think I can also understand the staff’s feelings. I understand their excuses, now, too. Even before that, though, I intended to be more understanding than other musicians. I thought about whether to sell something completely different or not, when not to release the results, and when not to say what I want to say.]

– Do you have an image of what you want to make the label into in the future?
[There are a lot of difficulties involved in implementing that sort of thing. First of all, if the artists don’t want to sell their stuff, then there’s nothing that can be done. Right now, the whole label revolves around making money for TETSU69, but if the other artists don’t want to sell, then I can’t do anything. In the end, it takes money to do what you want to do. Normally, as the number of staff increases, the first promotions are done properly, the products get completed and so on, but so far there hasn’t exactly been an established system. We’re in an era where CDs don’t sell, too. I think the name SPROUSE will remain, but it might go back to being only virtual, I really don’t know what’s coming next.]

Interviewer : Hasegawa Makoto
Translated by Natalie Arnold