I'd been asked by Takashi Murakami to collaborate on something, which was an honor for me. I was really pleased. And then he had me as a guest speaker on his radio show, and we were talking about art. I don't think he knew I was interested in the topic - he was really surprised to find out that I own some original Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat works. So, in some ways, I think he simply wanted to see what I have.

If you look at items of clothing like denim or polo shirts, they came from someone else's idea and everyone now makes them, but even so, I sometimes want to buy into the newer thing because it looks good or whatever. I mean, I copy many things - almost everything I do could be called a copy in some way. But I copy with a certain respect. I have a high regard for the original, and so I want to put my twist onto that. It's just like sampling music - when it's done well, the new work communicates a respect for the original source material.

The biggest reason was that when I started deejaying, I'd said that the other DJs in Japan were like salaried employees who I really didn't want to emulate because they didn't even know the titles of the songs they were playing - just that they were playing a hot track or whatever - which I didn't appreciate at all. I realized that I had become just like the kind of DJ that I used to hate, with no knowledge, so I decided that I needed to be honest with myself and quit.

I still feel like I'm really into fashion. I even think sneakers are a fashion item as well. I'm still into sneakers and clothes. Even though I don't wear or buy those things, I find that I'm still like looking for them. I can't wear it, but I still think it's interesting when I see it.

When we started Nowhere, maybe the fashion industry recognized something was happening, but they just thought, Oh, those kids . . . whatever. They didn't know what was actually going on with us. Now we are those people in a sense - the current establishment. So I hope there's something happening that is new and independent that we know nothing about.

I actually came from the fashion side, so maybe I knew more about fashion - and music like hip-hop because I was a DJ - so it was really successful when we mixed it all up together.

I really got interested in the DJ side. I mean, I guess I was some kind of DJ in Japan already, but the hip-hop scene was naturally happening, and I picked up on that style, then brought back from New York the information on records and technique to Tokyo.