Riccaギターの低音って、実はベースのGの音とほとんど同じ音が出るんですよね。だから誰も気づかなかったんだと思います。（※Eyes of Truthの楽器隊はドロップGチューニングを採用しており、一般的なベースの4弦を鳴らすと出るGの音と近い音域になる。一方でEoTのベースは、本来のGよりさらに1オクターブ低いGの音を鳴らしている）
Eyes of Truth are a metalcore / post-hardcore band working in VRChat. The four of them layered the Japanese word keigan — a discerning eye — onto the name Eyes of Truth. We asked them about the difficulty of playing in a headset, their experience of real-world shows, and the “accident” at their first live that people still talk about.
Interview and text by Shido99 (OKEANOS GROUP)OKEANOS MAGAZINE / AERSEA Interview No.4
01It started by just sort of sliding into place
How did the band come together?
RiccaHonestly, I don't clearly remember how we decided to start a band or who said it first. Around the time we started VRChat there was talk that apparently you could play live here, and we thought, that sounds fun, let's try it.
BABORicca invited me. For the first few months it really did just sort of slide into place.
KATEI met each member one by one, and eventually it became, shall we do this with these people. I met Omu (omuriceegg) at one of Babo's (BABO) events, and while we were hanging out it came up that she's a good singer. A few months later someone let slip, don't you want to try a band? And that's where it started. I remember we were all watching the Avengers while we talked about it (laughs).
02The meaning of keigan, layered into the band's name
Where does the band's name come from?
RiccaIn Japanese it means keigan — an eye that sees through to the essence of things. We layered that meaning onto Eyes of Truth.
KATESo that's what it meant. I think I might be hearing this for the first time right now (laughs).
Ricca
03How the songs get made — composing, writing, and thinking in images
Tell us about your genre and how you go about writing.
RiccaThe genre is post-hardcore leaning towards metalcore — loud rock, to put it plainly. Hardcore elements drifting through a clean, emotional atmosphere.
RiccaFor now I write all the music. I send the finished thing to everyone, have the vocalist sing a rough melody, and then we all listen and make small adjustments — but I finish the basic structure of the song on my own before handing it over.
BABOWhen I write lyrics, I hear the song title Ricca gives me and build a story from there in my head. I look for words based on things I've experienced, and I change the point of view from song to song. Some songs I write like a narrative; others are just what I felt towards someone inside VR, written down as it was. I like using difficult words, so I do a fair amount of looking things up while I write.
RiccaThere's something I always do when I write: I build a picture or a moving image in my head and then bring it down into music. I can't draw and I can't make art, so a song is just the only way I have to express it. Honestly I don't really differentiate between VR and real life, and of course that has its downsides.
“I build a picture or a moving image in my head and then bring it down into music.
BABO
04Playing through the narrow gap under a headset
Are there difficulties in playing that are specific to VR?
RiccaPlaying with a headset on is extremely hard. Even a phrase I could normally play changes difficulty so much that the moment the headset goes on I'm thinking, I have to play this? When I'm writing I'm not thinking about any of that — I'm just going, this line is cool — so it happens all the time that I get into trouble later when it's my turn to play it.
KATEI play with only a sliver of vision through the narrow gap under the headset. I've got much more used to it than at the beginning, though.
05An awareness built on real-world stage experience
Do you have particular ideas about movement and performance?
KATEI'd played real-world shows before this. Practising on the assumption that an audience is watching was normal for me, so the angles and movement — whether I look at my hands or at the audience — were things I was conscious of from rehearsal. So honestly, not much changes when it's the real thing.
BABOAt first we'd never even headbanged, so we had someone film us and tell us, move something like this. On the day, nerves make you tense up and the movements get too big. Lately my left arm — the one not holding the mic — ends up sore after a show. My headset has gone flying off before, too.
omuriceeggOn stage the adrenaline is up and my voice comes out a little differently. I think I sing in a more live way than in ordinary practice. People often tell me that when I think I'm headbanging, watching it back it just looks like I'm bowing (laughs).
omuriceegg
06The failure they can't forget — that “accident” at the first show
What's the moment that has stayed with you most?
KATEThe one that stays with me is our first live, at our own venue called RiotAbyss. During the show I thought we'd played brilliantly, but afterwards, when we opened it up, I realised the bass hadn't been coming through at all. Nobody in the audience had noticed, but I was down about it for ages. We did a rematch show a month later.
RiccaThe low end of a guitar actually puts out almost the same note as the bass's G. That's probably why nobody noticed.(Note: the instrumentalists in Eyes of Truth use drop G tuning, which sits close to the G produced by the fourth string of a standard bass. EoT's bass, meanwhile, sounds a G a further octave below the original G.)
KATEOther VR-specific trouble: the internet in my building went down right before a show and I couldn't perform that day. And once, with Ricca away, we had to line up the backing track and the vocals at short notice, and it never lined up right to the very end. Adjusting it with one hand while playing bass — that was genuinely rough.
“The bass wasn't coming through at all. That felt like trouble you only get in VRChat.
07Lighting and world staging, worked out side by side with the staff
How do you build the lighting and the world staging for a show?
KATEI build basically all of the worlds, and I plan the lighting together with the staff. We put it into a spreadsheet — from second zero to second such-and-such of the song, show this lighting and these particles — and build a plan for each track. Lately Ricca has started using Blender too, so we've begun making things together.
KATEIt's only been a little over a year, and honestly there's still a huge amount I don't know. We keep at it anyway. But “I want it more like this” keeps coming, endlessly, so there's no ceiling in sight — I'm stuck on it, in a good way (laughs).
KATE
08People they could only have met through VRChat
How did you meet your members and staff?
KATEWe've brought in no staff from outside at all — every one of them started as a gaming friend. It's a relationship where we know we can trust these people, and on that basis we ask them for the impossible. The members too: some of us got close through mutual acquaintances just after starting VRChat, and some were invited by people we already knew in real life who said, apparently you can do live shows like this now. That's how it gradually connected up.
KATESince starting this, we've come to know people from fields we'd never have crossed paths with in real life. Pop musicians, dancers, people doing theatre and stage swordfighting. Talking to people I'd assumed I would never have anything to do with, and having conversations about putting on an event together — that was really refreshing.
09A “that's cool” that crossed genres
Are there words from listeners or fans that stayed with you?
KATESomeone who had never listened to metal told us, this is the first time I've heard this genre and it's really cool. It was quite a shock that someone who'd never heard it could think we were cool. Metal tends to be a marginalised genre, so it made me even happier. We're not putting in any novelty element — this is something we put out purely because we thought it was cool, and people are saying it's good exactly as it is. That made me really happy.
RiccaIt's also a nice surprise how many bass fans there are. Quite a few people say, by name, that the bass is great.
omuriceeggBeing able to give a performance that moves someone is a remarkable thing, I think. Being told “that moved me” — that's what makes me happy.
10What matters most is the sound itself
What do you value most in playing live?
RiccaI care enormously about the sound. The vocals, the instruments — the part that actually reaches the audience's ears is what I value most. Of course I want people to hear the songs and the singing, but first I want them to properly hear the sound itself, as in: this is what we sound like.
KATEWe also do a lot of adjusting to suit the acoustic character of each venue.
11To people about to start out
Do you have advice for people who want to start making music or playing live in VR?
RiccaIf you're going the heavy route, you can probably do it as long as your spirit doesn't break. Things go wrong with members and all sorts happens, and what matters is whether you can hold yourself together. If you're doing it as a group rather than alone, work with people you can actually talk things through with, people you can communicate with. Without that it really is difficult.
BABOFor me it started with a chance to sing as event cast. Even if you don't know how far it will go, I think you should just try it once. There are more and more events where you can have a go, and plenty that welcome beginners, so I'd like people to start from somewhere like that.
Editor's note
The four of them laughed throughout, and “please cut that bit” flew back and forth more than once.
The field of view through the gap under a headset can't be very wide. Even so, what these four are looking at felt far wider and far further off than that narrow slot. Behind it lies an accumulation of patient practice — filming each other and correcting the movement, struggling with timing that never quite lined up. The name keigan was not for show.
