In late November 2013, Shibuya Channel’s Artist File #32 sat down with another sunnyday just before the release of their third album, YOLO (27 November 2013). Vocalist Fumiaki Ito and drummer Shinpei Nakayama walked through the record track by track — how opener energy appears by accident, why music videos stay deliberately silly, and why the band still treated a first long tour as unfinished business.
The conversation is a time capsule of mid-2010s Shibuya indie rock: Tower Records in-stores, live-house ladders toward O-WEST and O-EAST, and a four-piece whose members already had serious résumés elsewhere.
Who was in the room
another sunnyday formed in 2010 around:
- Fumiaki Ito — vocals (ex-serial TV drama)
- Jun Oyama (OJ) — guitar (Straightener)
- Shinpei Nakayama — drums (Straightener)
- Hajime Mito — bass (THE RODS)
They released siesta (2011) and My Freedom (2012), then kept momentum with limited and digital singles — including re-recorded “Bucket Mash,” “Prelude,” “O-halo,” and “Natsu no Sairai” — before packing those songs into the twelve-track YOLO. The Artist File pitch was explicit: experienced players still hunting for a band identity that felt popular and original at once.
Album as itinerary, not manifesto
Asked why YOLO feels easy to replay morning to night, Ito pushed back politely. From inside the writing room, every song felt like maximum effort — a full course where every plate is meat. Nakayama agreed after mastering: listening to all twelve in a row landed heavier than they expected. The joke that saved the metaphor was variety — different cuts of meat, not the same dish twelve times.
Track order itself was improvised logistics. On a car ride back from Nagoya, Ito and Nakayama sat in the back seat with iPods, singing openings and closings until a sequence felt right.
Track-by-track notes from the interview
1. “MORNING STIR”
Listeners heard a classic opener: bright momentum for the start of a day. Ito said he usually brings melody and lyrics, then the band wrestles the rest in the studio. When the melody arrived sounding “first-track-ish,” they finished it as a morning song. Nakayama stressed they did not set out to write an opener — the label stuck once Ito was singing over the band bed.
2. “Bucket Mash”
Released as a single on 24 April 2013 with “Natsu no Sairai.” Nakayama admitted it also felt opener-shaped, but they wanted a new song in slot one, so “Bucket Mash” became track two — and sat there better than expected. He called it an obvious push song with a laugh.
3. “Marine” (マリネ)
Another breezy pop cut. Ito described lyric writing as desk-bound escape: he wants to travel, cannot, so he invents elsewhere. This one was written in a summer mood when the ocean felt like the right imaginary destination.
4. “Euglena” (ユーグレナ)
The rock outlier. Nakayama said they did not write it as a live weapon — at first they doubted whether it was even playable. Rehearsal proved otherwise. The intro tom pattern was invented during recording. Ito’s rapid-fire vocal stretch still made them laugh; Nakayama noted Ito often skips that section in rehearsal, and Ito promised to make it cool by show time.
5. “Shot in the arm”
Aggressive from the intro. Ito called it an early leftover rediscovered when the album was locking — “oh right, we had this.” They had already tracked it; hearing it again after writing many new songs made them put it back in.
6. “Natsu no Sairai” (夏の再来)
Nakayama framed it as the band’s royal road — instrument arrangement came easily even when Ito struggled with melody and words. The assigned theme was simply “summer.” Ito said summer vocabulary arrives too easily and turns cheesy, so he leaned into a slightly uncool surface that still says something serious underneath. The gap was the point.
7. “Prelude”
Already released 25 December 2012 and treated as a signature. Nakayama half-joked it would be called the album’s finest song — and recalled Ito saying a bad recording session would have made it a failure. In rehearsal it felt stretched and unfinished; layering guitars in the studio finally filled the space they were aiming for.
8. “Halo Glare” (ハログレア)
YOLO’s only ballad — and not planned as one. Nakayama said it became a ballad by process. Ito rarely dictates arrangement, but here he specified chords to break studio sameness, then kept intervening on transitions after the chorus arrived quickly.
9. “Wrapping City”
Ito had been singing nonsense-English placeholder vowels in the studio; the sound was good enough that he fitted Japanese lyrics to that contour, aiming for stop-start tension and a raw edge.
10. “Yomichi no Highlight” (夜道のハイライト)
Started as a song OJ brought in, then dismantled and rebuilt. Nakayama “unreasonably” handed the finish to Ito — who delivered. The chorus came fast; the A-melody refused to settle until Ito pushed for a stranger contour with a hint of Japanese flavor against an otherwise too-clean frame.
11. “O-halo”
Also a prior Christmas-season release. Nakayama called the writing playful Weezer-ish mischief — “vibe and bad vibe.” He named its lyrics his favorite on the album; Ito said melody and words arrived cleanly and that fans request it live. The catch: they had never played it on stage. Nakayama refused to attempt it unless the floor was already warm — he did not want to perform a joke song under cold stares. Encore-or-nothing energy.
12. “Lionel Baby” (ライオネルベイビー)
Bonus-track energy by design. High tension used as a getaway car. OJ got a “this needs a guitar solo, right?” push from Nakayama. Lyrics again followed fake-English syllable shapes into Japanese. Concept was vague velocity until a catchy melody appeared; recording then went gleefully off the rails. Crowd noise at the top came from drunk videos on Mito’s iPhone, including a mysterious shout of “Future! Future!” that somehow survived the edit.
Why the videos look like comedies
Asked about the band’s comic PVs — including sudden cameos by Tanashin, bassist of Good Morning America — Nakayama took ownership. He grew up on MTV eras when Foo Fighters and Beastie Boys could make a great song look ridiculous on purpose. He loves that sabotage. Once a shoot was booked for “Prelude,” Tanashin’s schedule was the first call; “Euglena” later reused the cameo as a punchline sequel. Ito would not rule out a third appearance.
Tour hunger and a Shibuya ceiling
Nakayama treated the upcoming YOLO TOUR as the band’s first truly long run — growth only happens onstage, and they still had never fully sold out a date (“two tickets left” does not count). Ito eyed the Daikanyama UNIT finale and said he eventually wanted Shibuya O-WEST and O-EAST nights too — the same live-house ladder other Artist File subjects treat as proof of arrival. For the street layer fans still push through on the way to those rooms, the Shibuya Crossing live camera reads the same basin density Tower Records queues and evening live-house traffic feed off.
After the tour history, how to watch Japan live bridges archive interviews to the cameras still pointed at the same city.
Release and event notes preserved from the page
3rd album YOLO
Released 27 November 2013 · DQC-1167 (STNR-010) · ¥3,000 (tax included)
- MORNING STIR
- Bucket Mash
- Marine
- Euglena
- Shot in the arm
- Natsu no Sairai
- Prelude
- Halo Glare
- Wrapping City
- Yomichi no Highlight
- O-halo
- Lionel Baby
Tower Records Shibuya in-store — 10 January 2014, 19:00, CUTUP STUDIO (B1F). Entry lottery tickets prioritized buyers of YOLO at selected Tower Tokyo stores from release day.
YOLO TOUR (ticket ¥3,300; general on sale 30 November 2013) included Chiba LOOK (11 Jan, guest The Challenge), Niigata CLUB RIVERST (17 Jan, HaKU), Kanazawa vanvanV4 (19 Jan, HaKU), Sendai HOOK (23 Jan, indigo la End), Sapporo COLONY (26 Jan, indigo la End), Hiroshima NAMIKI JUNCTION (1 Feb, THE ORAL CIGARETTES), Fukuoka DRUM SON (2 Feb, THE ORAL CIGARETTES), Matsuyama SALON KITTY (15 Feb, LOST IN TIME), then one-man dates in Nagoya APOLLO THEATER (22 Feb), Osaka LIVE HOUSE Pangea (23 Feb), and Daikanyama UNIT (1 Mar).
The original Shibuya Channel page also embedded the then-new “Euglena” music video and linked the band site at anothersunnyday.net.
