Yoshiki’s Red Swan

Yoshiki Hayashi, who is a legendary musician, composer, songwriter and a producer turned 53 on November, 20^th.

He is also a founder of the cult-favourite rock band X Japan, for which he is the drummer and the pianist. Before the birthday he had been meeting his friendsand colleagues live day-to-day on his Yoshiki Channel. They had presented him with quite a lot of cakes decorated with edible photos of  his  achievements.

Only in 2017 – 18 there were plenty of them: X Japan’s performance on Wembley Arena in London, a concert with Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, New York, where he played the piano solo. Yoshiki was shot as a model for the cover of Vogue Japan and took part in Yves Saint-Laurent’s show. He cooperated with Sarah Brightman, who sang his song “Miracle”. There was a triumphal X Japan’s appearance in Los Angeles festival Coachella, where Marilyn Manson, who is Yoshiki’s old friend, was the guest singer. In 2018, Yoshiki released a song titled “Red Swan” featuring Hyde, which is the opening theme song of the third season of the Attack on Titan anime, as a result the song topped the charts in dozens of countries. Yoshiki and his band several concerts in autumn, the last of them was held in the empty auditorium. That time the typhoon hit Japan and all the audience had been asked not to come to the concert to avoid accidents (All the tickets had been returned). But the band performed in full swing and the show was broadcasted live not to disappoint their fans.

All the above mentioned events are Yoshiki’s things. Who would have thought that this young, energetic, cheerful and sympathetic man was not sure in keeping his career going as lately as 10 months ago? That time Yoshiki was staying in a five-star hotel in snow-covered Moscow near the Kremlin. He was trustingly demonstrating a bright-red scar on his neck and telling about a complicated surgery he had come through. He underwent emergency cervical artificial disc replacement surgery. Doctors banned Yoshiki from playing the drums, but due to his fortitude and constant practice, he has regained his form is ready for new achievements.

Life has never been too kind to Yoshiki. He comes from a wealthy Japanese family. He started playing the instruments in his childhood. The boy could have become a classical pianist, unless he had experienced the first tragedy – his father committed suicide. The tragedy made the young musician change his life. Yoshiki would take his pain and despair out on the drum set. His love to heavy metal and to the band Kiss helped to form the unique Visual Kei style, characterized by an aggressive and brisk manner of playing combined with outrageous look.

Beginning from 1982 the band X, later transformed into X Japan, started conquering different peaks, selling millions of CDs, performing in the most famous Japanese venues, and recording their songs in the best studios. They even succeeded in projecting influence on other countries, on the U.S. in particular. Everything came to an end in a blink. In 1997 the band broke up, because their vocalist Toshi was “brainwashed” by a dangerous Masaya’s group called Home of Heart. In 5 months Yoshiki’s close friend, a talented band’s guitarist Hide died (reportedly – he committed suicide.) Back at that time Yoshiki experienced serious health problems.  After everything that had happened he decided to lie low. But his depression turned to be very prolific. He produced a number of bands, released a musical piece Anniversary at the request of the Japanese government in honor of the tenth anniversary of Emperor’s Akihito enthronement, and composed the official theme song of the world’s fair, Expo 2005 and of the Golden Globe Awards.

After the band’s reunion in 2007 they went Global. X Japan successfully performed in Madison Square Garden in 2014. The show is depicted in the film We Are X. Yoshiki came to Russia twice to promote the film. All in all he has visited our country four times. But he gave only one concert of neoclassical music Yoshiki Classical in 2014.  As far as this year has been announced Russia – Japan cross-year, Yoshiki’s fans hope he and his band to come with a great show.

Chief editor: Evgeniy Fedorov
Author: Ella Molochkovetskaya
All the photos are taken from the public records.