The former bassist of X was quite a loud person. He was also a highly talented bassist. Taiji often have disagreement with Yoshiki about the way X was run. Most of the songs that they produced were written by Yoshiki. Taiji demanded that his songs and songs written by the rest of the members were produced too. I understand that many fans who are fond of Taiji was angry with Yoshiki for firing Taiji. However, things were actually not the way it seemed to be. From his book, Taiji wrote that at first he was angry with Yoshiki. But a few years later, when he thought about it again, he actually realised that Yoshiki was not acting purely on his own will. Taiji remembered Yoshiki said, "Sorry," after he asked Taiji to go, but at that time he didn't think much of that. He didn't realise that Yoshiki might be facing pressure from the management of the band and the recording company to fire him, because who decided which songs to produce and which songs to be released? Not Yoshiki alone but also the recording company! Besides, when Yoshiki asked Taiji to go, they had not performed Hamettsu ni Mukatte concert yet. The management refused to let Taiji played on the concert, but Taiji was even more stubborn. He said, "Let me play for the full concert, then I'll leave." The management disagreed, but Yoshiki backed him up, finally they agreed to let Taiji played for the full concert.

After leaving X, Taiji went to join Loudness for a while. His story after that became blurred and I'm not sure exactly what happened to him except that he went through a really tough time during which he tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself twice. Now he's recovering and started to pick up music again. Just like the rest of the members, hide's death was a hard blow for him; they used to be quite close during X time. From the translation of his book, I can see how much hides death had affected him. However, it was also one of the reasons for him picking up music again. Way to go, Taiji! We still love you! ^__^