¡°I don¡¯t think of this as a reunion. We didn¡¯t break up; we just paused our activities and came back to life,¡± says Sugizo, guitarist and violinist of rock group Luna Sea. Sitting next to bandmate Inoran, he speaks calmly and softly, his eyes looking back at me through tinted sunglasses. ¡°Words like ¡®reunion,¡¯ ¡®business,¡¯ ¡®plans¡¯ . . . those things were never priorities. If we had thought about business first, then we wouldn¡¯t be doing things this way.¡±

It¡¯s tempting to write off the ¡°reboot¡± (as it¡¯s officially referred to) of Luna Sea as just another rocker reunion; the band announced a ¡±²õ³ó¨±³¾²¹°ì³Ü¡± (curtain call) gig in 2000 and had been dormant for almost a decade before returning to the public eye in 2010. But take a look at Luna Sea¡¯s output since: a digital single titled ¡°Promise¡°; an updated re-recording of its self-titled debut album; a 23-minute single called ¡°The One -Crash To Create-¡°; and its eighth studio album, ¡°A Will,¡± which was released in December. Combine this with a ton of recent electrifying gigs and it seems that Luna Sea is, as Sugizo says, simply picking up from where it left off ¡ª every bit the hardworking, boundary-pushing rock band it has always been.

¡°Each member has his own important solo projects, but in order to express ourselves to our maximum potential within a rock-band format, there was only Luna Sea,¡± Sugizo says.