If you thought Leetspeak monsters only ever celebrate Halloween then think again! Despite their spooky costumes, the band also likes to greet all manner of seasons and in this case, summer. So with that in mind, they created their most recent single, Beltane, released on April 15.

It’s with Beltane that we were able to interview Leetspeak monsters about the imagery regarding the Celtic celebration, along with what elements fans can experience with this new song.

: Vocalist D13

: Guitarist Yo’shmeer

: Bassist Euskyss

: Drummer DieWolf

Many of our readers get to know about Japanese culture through music, but interestingly, Leetspeak monsters are able to enlighten us about Beltane, a Celtic celebration. What inspired you to write about the festival?

Euskyss: In the Celtic calendar, the year is divided into two parts, summer and winter. Beltane celebrates the warmer months and Samhain (similar to Halloween) celebrates the colder months. This time, we decided that our next release would come out in the springtime, so the theme and imagery of Beltane felt like the perfect balance to our concept of Halloween.

You tend to be quite experimental when it comes to adding new elements to songs. With “Beltane”, you even included an accordion. Can you tell us about this approach?

Euskyss: We select the sounds that match the mood of the song and the images that come to us during the creation process. We wanted to bring Celtic elements to Beltane, so we added some accordion and tin whistle sounds in a few places. It ended up creating a whole new atmosphere for the song.

Normally your music videos are set in fancy houses or even museums, but “Beltane” was outside in a forest. How did the experience differ and what new things did you try?

Yo’shmeer: It was very very, very cold. And we attempted working with flame for the first time. Now I want to use it all the time because it was so amazing. We also included a female dancer for the first time in our videos, performing a witch dance. The movements fit the theme of the ritual and added more magic to the experience.

Euskyss: The cold setting was a little shocking at first, but it created a sharp focus for all of us. The power of our performance becomes really concentrated.

Leetspeak monsters『Beltane』MV FULL

Watch this video on YouTube

We noticed that every member also has a triangle on their face, is this a reference to the four elements?

Euskyss: The triangles drawn on each member’s face represent an element. D13 is “earth”, Yo’shmeer is “water”, Euskyss is “fire”, Die Wolf is “wind”.

Yo’shmeer: Everyone feels like I should be one of the “Water Boys”, so I took on the water mark.

Lastly, what would you like listeners to take from this single?

D13: When I talked about Beltane with Euskyss, we wanted to make a song that can encourage people to move forward with power into the new season. So we hope people will be energized by this new song.

Yo’shmeer: I want you to dance and enjoy yourself when you hear Beltane, and I want you to sing it together with us!

Euskyss: Beltane is a song with deep, meaningful lyrics, so we created the coupling songs to balance that with a lively energy and some dance beats too. We wanted to give you every kind of experience with this single.

DieWolf: I wanted to make people so happy that they couldn’t stop moving! Ooooon!

Thank you Leetspeak monsters for your enlightenment on Beltane! If you’d like to learn more about Leetspeak monsters, check out our previous interview with them about their second album Monster’s Theater II.