Glay is one of the best, if not the best japanese rock bands ever.
The name 'Glay' is originated from the English word 'Gray' (R sounds like L in Japanese) -gray because thier music is a mixture of white/pop and black/heavy metal. Glay's songs are a mixture of pop and rock and range from beautiful ballads to hard rock songs. Takuro, founder and band leader who writes most of Glay's songs and music, is a BIG Beatles fan, so you can hear influences from English bands as well as American rock bands in thier music. Teru's amazing voice also plays a BIG part in Glay's music style.
Glay's story begins in the late 80's in Takuro's highschool. Back then, Takuro was in a local rock band called 'Gestapo', but because he wanted to be in a group the could playboth punk/rock and melodic ballads he formed Glay. Since Takuro played the guitar, and the bassist from his former band was going to play the bass, he immediatley syarted looking for a drummer and a vocalist. The first member to be recruited was Takuro's classmate and friend Teru. Teru played the drums for another small local band, so he was the firt person Takuro thought of when looking for a drummer. They would practice and play music without a vocalist until one day Teru handed Takuro a demo of thier songa with him singing the vocals. It was then that Takuro realized Teru had a good voice and how, with some practice, Treu would be better at singing than he was at the drums. Another classmate who caught Takuro's attention was Hisashi, the guitarist ofanother local punk band called 'Ari'. At the beginning, Hisashi was not interested in being with Glay, sence he thought thier music was very different from his, but once Hisashi's band broke he decided to join Glay. He admired Takuro's dreams of making Glay a big band and how he was able to put words to thier music. As soon as Glay became a complete band act, they started preforming small gigs in thier town. Thier first live show was a sucess. Glay had dreams of going to Tokyo looking for stardom, but Tokyo ended up being bigger and harder then they expected. Tokyo was a big city full of people like them with many dreams and it was difficult to compete and get oticed among the many indies bands there. Times were hard then... and they even started talking about breaking up. It was depressing to play a gig and have less than 10 people come to see them. It was at this time when they met a bass player in a band called 'Pierrot', his name was Jiro. Thier bass player had left the band so they asked Jiro to join them. It was also the time that they decided to chane thier look. Until then, they all looked like the rest of the visual rock indies bands with long hair, make-up, and flashy outfits... It was when they changed thier image with less make-up, shorter hair, and a bit more of a conservative look, that they started getting more attention and became popular. Then, thier big break came one night when they were preforming in a Tokyo club and a representative of Extasy Records spotted Glay and loked the sound. It only took Yoshiki ( from X-Japan) one time to listen to Glay and offer them a record deal. With Extasy, they released thier first single 'Rain' ( Written by Yoshiki and produced in L.A. ). It was soon after they reterned to Japan that they found themselves with a busy schedule full of TV, radio, magazine, and live appearances! Rain was a hit and Glay's popularity grew fast, becoming one of the most popular Japanese acts ever...Releasing hit singles and albums one after another, year after year, with sold-out concerts and fans all over the world..... myself included. |
