Luna Sea is a Japanese
rock band. It was formed in 1989 by
Ryuichi Kawamura,
Yasuhiro "Sugizo" Sugihara,
Shinobu
"Inoran" Inoue,
Jun "J." Onose and
Shinya
Yamada, a lineup that remained consistent until the band's
breakup in 2000. They released seven studio albums and several
singles and
VHS/
DVD releases
throughout the 90s.
History
1989-90: The Origin
The band was formed in August 1989 by
J
and
Inoran when they were in high school,
using the name "Lunacy." Together with some senior members, they
played at occasional live houses and radio music contests. When the
senior members were graduated from school in 1989, Lunacy recruited
Sugizo and
Shinya from the band Pinoccio to be guitarist
and drummer, respectively. After searching for a few months, the
band recruited Ryuichi from the band Slaughter to be the lead
vocalist.
That year, Lunacy debuted on stage at the 100-seat capacity Machida
Playhouse on May 29. They released their first demo including "Time
Is Dead" and "Nightmare" for the sold out 100 copies. The band's
second demo would be released three months later including
"Suspicious," "Shade," and "Search for reason," which again sold
out for 1,000 copies. On December 17, the band played their first
official live concert at Machida Playhouse with all 150 tickets
being sold out.
In 1990, Lunacy played a handful concerts with other popular bands
such as Wood Pecker, Dools, Billy & the Sluts, Jooly Pickels,
and
Tokyo Yankees. They released their
third demo, "Lastly," and played an additional live at Machida
Playhouse.
1991: Luna Sea
Lunacy were discovered by the late
Hideto Matsumoto (then lead guitarist of
X Japan), and then signed by X Japan
co-founder
Yoshiki Hayashi to his
independent label Extasy Records, on which they released their
self-titled debut album in 1991. Upon their first album release,
the band's name Lunacy was changed to Luna Sea.
After signing with
Sweet Child label, Luna Sea held bigger live performances
throughout the year with their first tour, "Under the New Moon
Episode I-III" The band's popularity started looming when they
played at the Nippon
Budokan
for the Exstasy Summit concert among other
same-labeled bands including X Japan, Virus, Gilles de Rais, and
Tokyo Yankees. At the end of the year, Luna Sea announced
they had signed with MCA Victor.
1992: Image
After the official fanclub "Slave" was set up in January. Luna Sea
released their first official MCA Victor-labeled album "Image" on
May 21. It reachd No.9 best selling album in Oricon Chart. Luna Sea
then held the concert "Luna Sea Concert Tour 1992 Image or Real"
for 7 nights, where one of the events was taped and released in a
VDO format, which reached No.1 in Oricon Chart. Correspondent to
the looming popularity, the concert "After The Image Tour" would be
held during October. Luna Sea closed the year with another Exstasy
Summit concert at Nippon Budokan.
1993: Eden
During the band's short break, Inoran, J, and Sugizo helped
collaborate in the new album "Dance 2 Noise 4". The song
"Revive~walts for reminiscence of mind" was produced by Sugizo.
Inoran and J joined
Hide to set up a
temporary unit called "MxAxSxS" to produce the song, "Frozen Bug",
which was later put in the album "
Hide
Your Face". On February 24, Luna Sea's first single "Believe"
was released, reaching No.11 in Oricon Chart with the total sale of
200,000 copies.
The band started working on its second album and held the album
premier concert since April 16, "Luna Sea Concert Tour 1993 Search
for My Eden" throughout the country. Their second album, "Eden" was
released on April 21 where it reached No.5 best selling album in
Oricon Chart. The band then released next single, "In My Dream
(with Shiver)" on July 21, reaching No.9 in Oricon Chart. The
concert "Luna Sea Concert Tour 1993 Search for My Eden Encore" was
then held during August, with the final performance on August 30
was taped and released in the VDO format. Luna Sea then released
"Sin After Sin" VDO which included performances from smaller venues
during the year.
1994: Mother
Luna Sea held various live tours since late previous year until
February titled "Luna Sea Concert Tour '93-'94 The Garden of
Sinners". On February 12, they were supposed to play the final
concert on time but had to delay for an hour due to massive
blizzard nearby. This was the third time the band experienced this
phenomenon, thus some media joked that Luna Sea were "the natural
disaster" In any event, Luna Sea released their next single,
"Rosier" which reached No.3 in Oricon Chart and sold more than
400,000 copies in its first week release. After a handful of live
performances, the band released fourth single, "True Blue" which
topped the Oricon Chart with more than 450,000 sales during its
first week.Responding to the popularity, Luna Sea released their
third album, "Mother" on October 26. The album sold 700,000 copies
in the opening week and was No.2 in Oricon Chart. The release of
album 'Mother' led the band into a more progressive rock approach
with songs like 'Genesis of Mind', 'Face to Face', and 'Mother'. In
any event, the video "Rosier" was awarded "The Best Music Video"
from Nippon Award Taisho (Japan's record award) on December
31.
1995: First Live In Tokyo Dome
In January, Luna Sea went to Ireland to film the video "Mother".
The single was then released in the following month, reaching No.2
in Oricon Chart with total sales of 300,000 copies. Between March
to May, the band had performed in the concert "Mother of Love,
Mother of Hate" to promote the album. On May 24, the first video
collection release was out with the title, "Eclipse I" which
reached No.1 in Oricon Chart. The same thing would happen to their
next single, "Desire" on November 13.
This year, the
popularity had reached the point at which it would headline the
Tokyo
Dome
, Japan's largest indoor live venue titled "Lunatic
Tokyo". More than 55,000 tickets were sold out prior to the
event.
1996: Style
The new single, "End of Sorrow" was released on March 25, reaching
No.1 in Oricon Chart. The same thing would happen to their fourth
album release, "Style" in May. On July 15, the single "In Silence"
together with the Lunatic Tokyo live VHS were released. Luna Sea
had performed in the tour "Unending Style" later that year, with
the encore live being held on December 23 titled "Unending Style
Tour Final Christmas Stadium ~ Mafuyu No Yagai~" from an outdoor
Yokohama Stadium. Luna Sea made an announcement during the concert
that the band would plan for a temporary year break in 1997 for
each member to pursue solo careers.
1998: Shine
Luna Sea returned with the releases of singles "Storm" and "Shine",
both of which went to No.1 in Oricon Chart. In July, it was
followed by additional single "I for you", which was the ending
theme of the popular Japanese dorama (Precious Time) starring
Takeshi Kaneshiro and
Kyoko Fukada. The fifth studio album, "Shine"
was then released and went to No.1 in Oricon Chart. The song
"Breathe" was used in the Japanese release of Walt Disney's
Mulan animated movie. They started making
frequent appearances on popular music television shows including
Heyx3, CDTV, and
Music Station. The
band appeared at the Music Station's Super Live 1998 during
Christmas following their concert from Yokohama Stadium titled
"Manatsu no Yagai".
1999: 10th Anniversary
Luna Sea's
popularity had reached overseas to neighboring countried in Asia
,including Hong
Kong
,Taiwan
and China
. They
held their first Asian tour in Taiwan ,Hong Kong and Shang Hai
,respectively. To celebrate the 10th year anniversary of the band
,Luna Sea released the first live album 'Never Sold Out' along with
the concert 'Luna Sea 10th Anniversary Gig ∞'. The concert was
attended by approximately 100,000 people.
2000: The Final Act
After releasing nothing for 1.8 year, Luna Sea came back with a new
single "Gravity", which topped the Oricon Chart. Some of their
songs were used in the movie including "My Lover", which was used
in the movie
Another Heaven. The song
"Sweetest Coma Again" was also used in the Japanese release of the
James Bond movie,
The World Is Not Enough. Following
the release of singles "Tonight", Luna Sea released the sixth
studio album 'Lunacy' in July. The album mixed the elements of
progressive rock, hard rock, and metal. They held two concerts
titled "Luna Sea Concert Tour 2000 The Brand New Chaos". During the
latter concert, the band made the announcement they were "dropping
the curtains" at the end of the year to pursue solo careers. The
last single "Love Song" and album "Period" were then released. Luna
Sea held their two-day farewell concerts at Tokyo Dome on December
26-27.
Solo Careers
Since then, the members have either pursued solo careers (Ryuichi
and J), new bands (Inoran with
Fake?) or
collaborations with other musicians (such as the short-lived The
Flare by Sugizo and Lazy Knack vocalist Yuna). Shinya, marrying
Aya Ishiguro of the
pop girl group
Morning
Musume, has been playing drums for other musicians such as
Nanase Aikawa,
Maki Ohguro, and
Miyavi.
More recently, Inoran has left Fake? and reunited with Ryuichi to
form
Tourbillon in 2005, while
Sugizo has joined the
supergroup
Skin in 2007, which also
features pop/rock artists
Gackt and
Miyavi, as well as Yoshiki.
2007-08: The Reunion
Luna Sea reunited for a concert on
December
24,
2007.
The concert was aired live on Japan's
NHK
BS Hi-vision
Satellite channel, with a few songs cut from the track list.
The full-length
DVD of the concert will be
available on
March 26,
2008 and is already available for order. Luna Sea will
now only play live shows occasionally because they thought the
reunion shouldn't be permanent.
Luna Sea performed at the "Hide Memorial Summit" on May 4, 2008.
During their respective oversea tours in Hong Kong, both Inoran and
Ryuichi teased in their interviews regarding the possible reunion
of the band.
Luna Sea celebrated their 20th year anniversary on May 29, 2009.
According to the band's official website, they are planning to sell
music worldwide via iTunes.
Members
As with numerous other Japanese bands, the members of Luna Sea were
usually credited with their
given or
stage name.
- – Vocals
- Yasuhiro "Sugizo" Sugihara (杉原有音 Sugihara Yuune) –
Lead guitar and violin
- Shinobu "Inoran" Inoue (井上清信 Inoue Shinobu) – Rhythm
guitar
- Jun "J" Onose (小野瀬潤 Onose Jun) – Bass
- Shinya Yamada (山田真矢 Yamada Shinya) – Drums
Discography
- Albums
- Singles
- "Believe" (February 24, 1993)
- "In My Dream (With Shiver)" (July 21,
1993)
- "Rosier" (July 21, 1994)
- "True Blue" (September 21, 1994)
- "Mother" (February 22, 1995)
- "Desire" (November 13, 1995)
- "End of Sorrow" (March 25, 1996)
- "In Silence" (July 15, 1996)
- "Storm" (April 15, 1998)
- "Shine" (June 3, 1998)
- "I For You" (July 1, 1998)
- "Gravity" (March 29, 2000)
- "Tonight" (May 17, 2000)
- "Love Song" (November 8, 2000)
- Compilations
References
External links