YOSHIKI and Josh Groban‘s collaborative recording of “Forever Love (Live)” was released for streaming worldwide on Aug. 28. The ballad, originally released in 1996 as X JAPAN’s 14th single, gets a new rendition, one born from a live performance which the two artists gave together at YOSHIKI CLASSICAL 2026 IN LOS ANGELES AT WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL “VIOLET NIGHT” on July 17, 2026.
Billboard JAPAN sat down with YOSHIKI to talk about how the collaboration came together, the raw emotions behind the original song, his ongoing commitment to philanthropy and what’s next.
Could you explain what led to Josh Groban singing “Forever Love” with you, and then to releasing the song?
I first met Josh at an event during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City in 2016, when the documentary “WE ARE X” premiered there. I’ve spent over half my life living in LA, so when I put on YOSHIKI CLASSICAL 2026 IN LOS ANGELES, I thought it would be good for the show to include friends that I had a personal connection with. This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of “Forever Love,” and I had this intuitive feeling that if Josh sang it, it would turn out amazingly. I added English lyrics to the verse, making kind of a “bilingual version.” I wanted to create a perfect balance for listeners everywhere, easy to understand for both English listeners and Japanese listeners.
When Josh came to Japan and performed at Bunkamura Orchard Hall earlier this year, on February 21, you appeared as a special guest, right?
Right. I just happened to be in Japan myself at the time, and the decision for me to perform was last minute, the day before the show. We played “ENDLESS RAIN,” and Josh sang some of the lyrics in Japanese. That’s when I realized that he was good at singing in Japanese, too.
In the new release, the listener can feel the power of his singing voice and your delicate piano playing like they’re right there at the show. Was there anything you paid special attention to in the concert to create that kind of dynamic sound for the listener?
First off, I freely change up the key of my music to match different vocalists. “Forever Love” was originally written for X JAPAN, so it was in a very high key. I lowered it by a seventh for Josh. I listened to dozens of his songs to find the right range, and I thought that this would be around the right range for him, so I suggested it to him, and he sang it in that range.
What kind of emotions were you feeling when you first wrote the song, three decades ago back in 1996?
I’d been living a really chaotic life. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t expect I’d be living for very long. I had a very pessimistic view on life, partly because of the fact that my father took his own life. I figured that one day I’d just vanish somewhere. But, my music might just live on forever. That’s why I named the song “Forever Love.” I remember, when writing the song, thinking that while everyone will eventually disappear from this Earth, perhaps love was eternal. I never imagined that I’d still be here, alive, thirty years later.
It seems clear that you poured a lot of emotion into the song, because it’s still touching people’s hearts even now, three decades later.
I find the whole thing profoundly moving. On the one hand, I’ll wonder to myself, “How have I managed to stay alive so long?” But I feel like I’ve lived because of the support everyone has given me. I feel so thankful. I think that’s why the song could cross the language barriers and national borders through this performance with Josh.
In addition to your music, you’ve been heavily involved in philanthropic activities. You’ve donated generously and you’ve taken part in support activities to help people around the world. What are your feelings on the world today? Is there anything you’d like people to do?
I think this connects to what I was talking about just now, wondering why I’m still alive, but when I think “Why am I still here? Why am I alive?” I’ll often slip into thinking “Should I even be alive?” This applies to creative work, too. But then I’ll think “Maybe this song will help someone out there,” and it really motivates me to create. I think that’s why I’ll have these runs of releases. I write a lot of music, and the same kind of concept applies (to my philanthropy). I feel like if what I do through my charity work helps someone, then my life has meaning. That, in turn, saves me. When I think that my existence helps others, then I feel like it’s okay for me to live. Doing charity work for others saves me, in turn.
In a video interview before the concert, you said that “life was a series of challenges.” So, are you constantly taking on challenges in order to live, and in order to keep making your music?
I think my fans and my friends have given me a second or a third lease on life. I feel like if you’re going to live anyway, you’ve got no choice but to really live your life. For me, that covers a lot, but if I can, I want to live my life giving it full gas and really take all that life has to offer. I think the very fact that we’re granted a life means that we’ve got a mission to accomplish. I’m not sure if life consists of finding that mission, but I want people to know that it is for everyone too, not just me. If you’re going to live, you have no choice but to live your life to the fullest. I think that philosophy is part of “Forever Love,” too.
We’re all looking forward to what you do next.
I’ve been writing music for years, and even now, I’m writing at breakneck speeds. I’ve collaborated with all kinds of artists over the past few years, crossing over genres three or four times, including pop and rock. If I try to release something to represent a culmination of all of that, I’ll never end out putting it out. Instead, the approach I’m trying to take is suddenly putting out a piece of music, like I did this time. And eventually making all of those individual releases come together. For example, I’ve been an artist for decades, and I still find the concept of an album really important. But I’ve trapped myself by that idea, and for this reason or the other I haven’t been able to put out an album. It’s been like that for a few years, and it’s very frustrating. So I’ve started feeling, quite strongly, that I need to free myself from this fixation on the concept of albums, and instead just keep putting out individual songs. I’m writing all these new songs, but then I’m also putting out a song that I wrote 30 years ago. But I think that’s totally fine, too. For me, “Forever Love (Live)” feels like the first breakthrough in a process of freeing myself from these preconceptions and fixations.
—This interview by Takayuki Okamoto first appeared on Billboard Japan