Yoshiki was the leader of X. Not only that, he was also the
drummer and the pianist as well as the main composer of the band. A musical genius, Yoshiki also edit and produced most of
X Japan songs *I saw the video when they were producing Dahlia when hide and Toshi in the studio, so cute XD*. The story of
X Japan starts with him:
Young Yoshiki had a dream of establishing his own rock band.
Right after high school, the then-seventeen Yoshiki persuaded Toshi to go to Tokyo with him to make their own band. Toshi
agreed and off they went to Tokyo. The path that they had chosen was not easy. The members of X kept changing and changing
over the first 4 years, Yoshiki had trial-and-error-ed many people but he still was not satisfied with the members. Yoshiki
even said that X was like a dying hair company. When everyone joined X, their hair was normal, black and short. After they
left, they had long, spiky brown hair, lol... Even then, with all temporary members, X continued to grow and their name was
getting famous in the Indies world.
After hide, Pata and Taiji joined the band, they faced another
problem: finding a recording company. Couldn't find anyone to produce their song, Yoshiki decided to establish his own recording
studio, Extasy Records, in 1986. At first Extasy Records was established purely just to release X's work. However, Vanishing
Vision was a huge sold-out and the following artists that they produced kept having successes that the number of staff increased
and the company continued to grow. Extasy Records is still around until today, helping Indies bands to release their stuff
and get their songs heard. Not only Extasy Records, Yoshiki also founded several other recording labels such as Platinum Records
which first band was Glay, and also Extasy Japan and Extasy Records International in the year 2000. Unfortunately ERI, which
office was in Los Angeles, is no longer around, I believe. Yoshiki had some problem settling the copyright issue with US government
and ERI was closed down somewhere last year or two years ago.
Yoshiki wrote most of the band's songs, and he wrote them
well, be it a ballad or a hard rock song. Yoshiki is able to write highly ecstatic hard rock songs, like Vanishing Love or
Kurenai, to rock-with-a-hint-of-classic song, like Rose of Pain or perhaps even Silent Jealousy, to beautiful, almost sad,
ballad songs, like Forever Love or Tears. Many people said that over the years Yoshiki tended to write more ballads than rock
songs. I can see the truth in it. I mean, look at the number of rock songs in Blue Blood and Jealousy album and compare them
to Dahlia album. Never the less, Yoshiki still had not lost the touch of writing hard rock songs. Dahlia itself was a hard
rock song, even though it was surrounded by many beautiful ballads.
Yoshiki's ability to play instruments is as great as his
composing ability. Having learned the piano since the age of 4 and the drums since he was 10 years old, Yoshiki played both
instruments skilfully and passionately. Not only that, he's also good at arranging songs. Not many people can put an arrangement
of strings in the middle of a hard rock song and still sounded great (Silent Jealousy, Dahlia)! Sometimes I can get scared
watching his drums and piano solos... He looked really absorbed in what he's doing that it's scary. If earlier fans had the
same intuition as me, then they were so correct:
In 1995 Yoshiki injured his back, badly. He was sent to hospital
in the middle of a concert due to his back problem. He was ordered to wear a cast over his neck for the next few months and
was unable to drum. In fact his doctor asked him to stop drumming because it could be dangerous for his health. However, Yoshiki,
being as Yoshiki as he can be, continued to drum. Thank God now he always wears his neck support whenever he drums. If you
thought that playing piano is less dangerous than drumming, be prepared to hear the otherwise. Yoshiki had proven that playing
piano can be as damaging to your body as drumming. In the year 2002, Yoshiki was asked to compose a theme song for 2005 Aichi
Expo. He composed the song I'll Be Your Love and practised hard for the piano part. In fact he practised too hard that he
got a tendon problem *tennosynovitis?? Not sure what it was* around the releasing date of the song. He had to wear wrist support
on both of his wrists and, just like in 1995, was not allowed to play piano for several weeks. Now, several years after that
incident, I still often see Yoshiki with his wrists support during interviews or photo shots. Poor Yo-chan... I do hope he
find a girlfriend soon to take care of him before he destroy his whole body...
Yoshiki is also a perfectionist. He said he was quite hard
on Toshi when they were recording. Yoshiki could ask Toshi to sing up to 10 tracks and he's still not satisfied. However,
after Toshi had finished singing and Yoshiki had gotten the sound that he wanted *sounds so sadistic, eh?* he was the one
who would be working hard. He could edit a line of the song up to 1 hour! If you're familiar with X Japan songs, you know
that they're mostly at least 5 minutes long. Can you imagine how many lines he had to edit and how much time he spent on each
songs? He always put his 100% on each song and on each project.
When Yoshiki heard about hide's death, he was extremely shocked.
He flew to Japan immediately. He was still thinking whether hide was playing dirty pranks on him or not *poor Yoshiki* but
when he reached Japan, he realized that all those news were indeed true. He grieved so much that he had to visit the psychiatrist
in L.A. Yoshiki was blaming himself and kept thinking, If only he had not met me, he wouldnt end up like this and all sort
of things that when you read youd feel how deep hides death had wounded him. Not only his plan of reuniting X Japan in the
year 2000 was dashed, he also lost a dear good friend, a listening ear and an advisor. Yoshiki had lost his father when he
was 10. X Japan, which was ultimately his life, had just disbanded in 1997 and at the same time he 'lost' his best friend
since kindergarten, Toshi. Now, barely 1 year after the disbandment, he lost his best friend. Many people thought that Yoshiki
would just break down because of all the stress. hide's death had affected him much more than any events of his past had done,
he thought that he wouldn't have anymore good friend after this and he grieved so much. From his interviews, I heard that
he still keep hide's phone number, still asking himself when he would get a call from this number again... Man, I got to stop
this, I feel like crying
Yoshiki spent the whole of the following year behind the
scene, mourning. In fact he mourned for about 2 whole years. He rejected any interviews, he stopped showing himself in public,
he simply vanished from the limelight. During those hard times, he was constantly working, trying to numb his feeling by producing
other artistes works and his solo work. One of the artistes that he produced was the famous JRock band, Dir en Grey and a
female artist Shoko Kitano. Did I mention that Yoshiki has sharp eye in noticing great talents? Dir en Grey was not the only
band whom Yoshiki had spotted, though before Yoshiki took the band under his care Dir en Grey, which original name was La:Sadies,
had produced an Indies album *I need help in this, did I make any wrong assumption or provided wrong information?*. Before
Yoshiki cut his hair short, which means before 1995, he also spotted the band Glay and produced them. Both bands were under
his care for awhile, some says that they did not want to stay under Yoshikis shadow all the time.
Yoshikis first public appearance after hides death, apart
from the speech that he delivered to calm hides fans from being hysterical, was when he played his song Anniversary for the
10th Anniversary Enthronement of the Emperor of Japan. Yoshiki received the request to make the song for the event
and he asked his mother whether he should receive it. His mother encouraged him to *bless her* and thus Yoshikis appearance
in the front stage again. His appearance brought him back to his senses. He realized that he belongs to the stage and hearing
his fans cheering for him just made him determined to make a come-back to the stage. Go listen to the song, its a beautiful
song! Even the emperor himself made a short haiku* on the next day about the song. (* a short Japanese poem)
Yoshiki had experimented with many artists. He had produced
some songs with Roger Taylor, the former drummer of Queen and they produced the songs Foreign Sand and Final Destination.
Yoshiki also produced The Eternal Melody album with George Martin, the producer of The Beatles. Eternal Melody was the orchestral
version of many X songs, and it was an awesome album. Thank God he's now working on the Eternal Melody II. Yoshiki had some
projects with Tetsuya Komuro, the founder of GLOBE and they formed V2. They produced some songs, Eyes of Venus and Virginity
and they are great songs! Yoshiki and Tetsuya both made the songs and played the piano. Apart from producing Glay, Shoko Kitano
and Dir en Grey, Yoshiki also had done a song with Saijo Hideki and produced several other foreign artists under ERI. The
latest of his experiments was him joining the trance band, GLOBE. Yoshiki who was a friend of Tetsuya Komuro said that he
enjoyed the company of GLOBE and he accepted the offer to join GLOBE straight away. Yoshiki wrote the song Seize the Light
for Globe and, even though the sound was so trance, I can find a hint of Yoshiki in the song.
Now, apart from producing X's works like The Last Live CD and DVD
and the Art of Life DVD, Yoshiki is producing his solo work, Violet UK. In this band he played not only the keyboard, piano
and sometimes the drums, he also played the guitar! Man, which is just like a one-man band, isnt it? Yoshiki said that hide
inspired him to take up guitar and hides style had influenced his style a lot. He still wrote the songs and produced them
himself. In December 2002, Yoshiki held a concert called Yoshiki Symphonic 2002 with Tokyo Philharmonic and Violet UK where
he introduced some of Violet UK songs. However apart from the concert 2 years ago, there are still no signs of Violet UK debut
album being released soon. *sighs* Nonetheless, we're still waiting, Yo-chan! Ganbatte ne!!
