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When I was about 8 or 9, one Saturday afternoon, I went to a big department store with my mum. When we walked through the ‘toy section’, my eyes were glued on a ‘toy drum set’, which sat up on the top of the shelves. I don’t know why, I suddenly wanted to get this drum set. I asked my mum to buy it for me, but it was too expensive and my family could not afford it. From that day forward, I kept annoying my mum to buy it for me.
A few weeks later, I was at the ‘toy section’ of the department store with my mum. What were we doing? I was going to get the ‘drum set’!!
After I got back home, I opened a package. I couldn’t explain the feeling in words, but it was beyond my wildest dreams. This drum set had a bass drum, snare drum, 2 toms, and 2 cymbals. Every piece had a very elaborate design, such as the bass drum had a foot pedal.
Since I got this drum set, it became my treasure. I displayed it, and just looked at it every day, and I imagined myself behind the drum set as a drummer.
2 years later, I joined the brass band club, and played snare drum. I wasn’t interested in other instruments. As time went by, I was really allured by the drums. Every time I watched music shows on TV, I paid 100% attention to the sound of drums. Before encountering ‘the real drum sound’, I already had enough foundation to enter the world of drums. The rest is history!!
When I was at elementary school, my brother was listening to “The Ventures”. I was really attracted to the drummer. It was my first encounter of the world of drums
Whilst in junior high school, I really got into Deep Purple. At that time, I was in the Kendo Club. I snapped a bamboo sword into pieces to use as drum sticks, and school textbooks were my drumset. When I was 15, I bought my first drumset. It was an introductory model of the “P-Company”. I will never forget that great feeling!
Just after entering high school, I formed my own band and was doing live gigs all the time. Around that time, I just listened to “Deep Purple”. Ian Paice was my hero, and I had learned so many things from his drumming style. All of my bandmates were interested in different genres of music, so naturally our setlist was very diverse. At school festivals, I was a superstar…… Maybe.
After I graduated high school, I had decided to play music as a hobby, and got a full time job in a different area…… But I couldn’t resist the charm of music, and I started my band again. We had gigs in different areas, and were getting more fans. But sadly, my band split up because of problems within the band.
After my band split up, I moved to Tokyo without any real plan or secure job. I was doing large amounts of part time jobs such as ‘wiping building windows’, ‘washing dishes in cafe´s’ to earn enough money just to live. Around that time, I had been working as a ‘roadie’ for studio musicians.
One day, I got a call from a guitarist called Tatsuya, so I went to the recording studio. In the studio, I met the bassist Tomohisa, and lead singer Maki, who were going to form LINDBERG with me later. When I did the session with them, it was just total chaos. But I felt a very positive energy, which made me decide to form a band with them.
From 1989, my debut as as drummer of LINDBERG until 2003 LINDBERG sold more than 100 million copies of CDs in Japan and is still selling records.
Since 2003, I started as session musician. I worked with various musicians from different genres like heavy metal to pop music.
In 2004, I started sessions with guitarist MOTO and singer MYM. I had already known MOTO for few years. His guitar sound and MYM’s very pure voice matched with the sound I had in mind for my new project.
2005 Debut as Drummer of GaGaalinG. In 2007, bassist JUN joined the band. With GaGaalinG, I want to create sounds that are heavy, thick and are rich in sonic tapestry. I want to create pure and clear melody lines like Evanescence and other bands of this Gothic Rock genre.
2007 I joined a new band. The members are Travis White (guitar), Roy Wilders (vocal) and Craig Calhoun (bass). This is to follow a dream of mine to tour the world in a foreign band. This dream stems from my connection with Deep Purple and of course, Ian Paice.
