Miyavi: Artist, family man, delight to the nostrils

On his website, Miyavi states that he's a 'Dior addict'. He's not lying. Time Out can quite honestly say we've never interviewed a man whose smell enters the room before him, but here he is, otherwise quite modest in manner and appearance (other than an obvious taste in designer togs), a delight to the nostrils.

That's not what he's principally known for, of course. About to launch a new world tour on the back of What's My Name, his seventh album, the man whose mum named him Takamasa Ishihara has already sold out venues as far flung as Poland and will be dropping by London, Paris and Moscow, amongst others, en route. That he's in demand is not surprising — a brief mooch across his YouTube channel demonstrates the appeal. Miyavi is a magnetic performer and a uniquely talented guitarist to boot — the kind of artist that comes along every so often, rarely these days, and grabs an audience on his own merit.

The sheer height of his international popularity may cause other Japanese acts to stop and think, however: on his 2008 world tour, Miyavi hit 33 cities in 14 countries. Selling out many of the venues, it was the most successful international tour undertaken by a Japanese artist in history.

You'd think robust accolades of this nature would do hazardous things to a man's ego, but in the hour we spent in Miyavi's company, we found only a softly-spoken family man — all make-up left at the stage door; his loyalty to Dior offering the only pungent reminder of unprecedented success. His English, too, was impeccable, delivered with an amazingly accurate Californian twang, and it is on that subject that our conversation began.