Yoshiki Hayashi

Yoshiki Hayashi (Google Images)

Yoshiki Hayashi is a Japanese musician, composer and producer that was born on November 20, 1965 in Tateyama Japan. He formed his first and most successful band, X-Japan in 1982 as the drummer/pianist and was titled with the band as the “pioneers of Japanese Visual Rock”. Yoshiki still produces tunes with X-Japan mostly as theme songs for international productions including the soundtrack for Saw IV. Apart from X-Japan, he is involved in many other successful ensembles including the “supergroup” S.K.I.N which he also found, the classical ensemble Violet UK another one of Yoshiki’s productions in which he collaborated with the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, and the Japanese dance pop group Globe.

Yoshiki was exposed to music at a very early age most likely because of his mother’s occupation as a piano teacher; he began learning the piano at the age of five and the drums at the age of 10. By the end of high school (1982) he was adept in both instruments and started his first band (X) with a long-time friend since kindergarten, Toshimitsu “Toshi” Deyama, as the vocalist. The dynamic duo along with the help of temporary support musicians did live shows consistently in the Tokyo area for both exposure and experience. Yoshiki’s mother, after seeing consistently the endless passion her son had towards his music for five years, sold the family business to support his musical future. Yoshiki, with the aid of his mother, founded his own record label, “Extasy Records” to start some major recording and producing. Shortly after the establishment of Extasy Records, X released their first successful single, “Orgasm” and also signed two bands (Glay, Luna Sea) that are now considered some of Japan’s most successful bands. By 1987, X was able to attract permanent members including the internationally renowned guitarist, Hideto “hide” Matsumoto. X, now known as X-Japan to differentiate from the American Band “X”, remained with the same line-up of members until hide’s death in 1997; there has been no replacement in hide’s position as X’s lead guitarist.

As reflected in X-Japan’s music, Yoshiki has a very wide range in interest of music. Being the composer of the band, he often incorporates his knowledge in classical music and American Hard Rock when composing most of his songs. With Yoshiki’s exposure of symphonic orchestral rock to the Japanese music scene, many Japanese bands that are now part of the Visual Kei movement such as Gazette and Dir en Grey have adopted the style.

Apart from X-Japan, Yoshiki is part of many different musical groups around the world including Violet UK, a Tokyo-British symphony that he composes the music for with Nicole Scherzinger (Pussycat Dolls) as the lead singer. He was also once part of the popular Japanese Pop-Dance group called Globe in which he collaborated with Japan’s top pop artists. During his X-Japan days, he was renown internationally as a hard-rock musician and worked with many famous American legends such as Roger Taylor from hard rock band Queen and George Martin of the Beatles. As a producer he has consistently produced many different bands throughout Asia including the Korean band, TRAX.

In addition to all of his musical successes, the thing that makes him my idol and hero and that differentiates him from other talented Japanese musicians is that he is the one that brought Japanese music overseas to both Europe and North America. J-Rock Revolution is the only festival in North America meant solely for Japanese Bands and Yoshiki was the one that founded J-Rock Revolution. Because of Yoshiki’s active endorsement of Japanese music, J-Rock is now a genre of music that is popular around the world.