EGOIST, the virtual band born out from the anime Guilty Crown, consists of ryo(supercell) as the composer and chelly providing the vocals. Originally formed to produce theme music for the series, the duo has continued producing ever since the end of the series.
In 2011, supercell held auditions from May 25 to June 19 to find a vocalist for their third studio album “Zigaexperientia” . At the same time, ryo(supercell) was also searching for the vocalist of EGOIST, a fictional band featured in Guilty Crown.
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Out of more than 2000 applications, then 17-year-old chelly was chosen to sing under the persona of Inori Yuzuriha, the fictional band’s vocalist. Describing her feelings during the audition period and what made her go for the auditions,
“Firstly, about the audition…what was it (laughs). Because it was my first audition, I was super nervous and shaking , but it was a new experience and I managed to enjoy myself. I was not expecting to get selected and was surprised by the result.
“As for why did I try, I actually knew supercell when I was younger and really liked them. a close friend of mine showed me the (supercell) website and told me about the audition, and I thought: “maybe I should give this a shot” and decided to participate.”
chelly’s first debut single as EGOIST was “Departures －Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta－” , released on 30 November 2011, was the first ending theme for Guilty Crown. Subsequently they released “The Everlasting Guilty Crown” on 7 March 2012, which was the second opening theme for the series.
After the end of Guilty Crown, EGOIST went on to release their new single “Namae no Nai Kaibutsu” on 5 December 2012, and the ending theme for the series Psycho-Pass, which reached the 6th spot on the “Oricon Weekly Singles Chart“. Similarly, EGOIST’s fourth single “All Alone With You” , the second ending theme for the series, also reached 6th spot on the “Oricon Weekly Singles Chart”
EGOIST then proceeded to release their first debut album “Extra Terrestrial Biological Entities” on 19 September 2013. chelly describes her experience working with ryo(supercell) to come up with new songs for EGOIST:
“During pre-production for new songs, since ryo-san is always busy, the demo tape comes in pretty late, so I have to practice really quickly, so it is very challenging for me.”
“During recording, I try to sing in different manners in-front of the mic to listen to how it would sound like, and ryo-san would give me advice from there.”
EGOIST’s songs are relatively diverse, relying quite heavily on chelly’s unique and coarse singing voice to their advantage. The songs are vocally dynamic, requiring her to reach very high notes at some points. We asked her which song is the most vocally challenging:
“All of the songs in EGOIST are difficult, but they are all different kinds of “difficult”. There are those that are difficult to express, and there are those that are difficult to pronounce, since they are too fast and I am not really good at pronunciation (laughs) “
“If I had to choose the most difficult one recently, it would be “Fallen“. It is technically challenging because of the large range of pitches in the song.”
EGOIST is relatively well-known here in South East Asia, with many fans in the region that listen to her music. When asked to comment on how that made her feel:
“Currently, I have been able to have more performance worldwide. I didn’t expect anything of this scale to happen when I first debuted, so it makes me extremely happy.”
Her first ever performance in the region (and also her first live overseas) was during Anime Festival Asia 2013, which was held in Singapore. Describing how she felt coming back again to perform her own solo concert:
“I felt that it was very thought-provoking. The last time I came to Singapore, it was my first live overseas, and I didn’t know anything about live concerts back then, so I was very nervous and worried. However, it turned out well and I had a lot of fun.”
“Being able to come back again I feel very thankful and grateful that I am able to perform for a longer period of time in front of everyone.”
“I am very grateful for my chance to be here.”
EGOIST is set to release their new single “Reloaded” on 11 November 2015, containing the theme songs for the movies Genocidal Organ, Harmony and The Empire of Corpses.
Lastly, we asked her how she came up with the name “chelly”, she had only this to say,
“To put it simply, it comes from my real name in some way.”
