Musicians who used to be Visual Kei, but now are in normal bands

[zaa_zaa 208]

Basically, Visual Kei stands on its own. We know about some transitions to Visual Key - Nokubura and Deviloof are examples of it. But we don't hear that much about guys who used to be visual kei and became (semi-) successfull in "normal" bands. Basically, most of those guys are virtually unheard of on MH.

 

There are several exceptions, though, notably:

 

- Yeti - all of the member are from relatively famous j-rock bands. Except, they are quite unpopular based on what I heard

- The drummer from "Brick Break" did everything well - he played in several metalcore bands before joining Abstracts. That it quite impressive - from Dear Dolce band to Abstracts is quite a jump.

 

Any others you might know about?

[suji 8317]

Not famous examples, but here's some from the top of my head:

Vo.Rei (ex-JIVE, マルコ (Marco)) is in a non-visual session band called 名無シノ演者/No Name Actors. Along with him are Gou (ex-JIVE, GE+IM support), Sera (ex-Cindykate, GAMEOVER, etc.), and Jun (ex-Jisedai Excite)

Dr.Shouma (ex-MARIA'N † ROSA) is now in Reptile

Vo.Satoru (ex-ZεR'0-ゼロ) is now in BLIND GRAPH

Ba.Junna (ex-Mercurius, Envy Project) is now in a doujin project called Ariabl'eyeS

[violetchain 912]

I'm not sure about the timeline, but apparently Yuichi and Hiroshi from ROTTENGRAFFTY used to be in a VK band called TWIST JET.

 

^"PIERROT came back, huh. Congratulations. When PIERROT were in their indie period, there was a band called TWIST JET that was active in Kyoto. ...what!? In the middle of the second row, the person on the left and the person on the right look familiar~."

 

Here's one of the only videos I could find of them:

 

 

Also Yuma from el-Ethnic Legist- ended up becoming the singer for the regular metal band LIGHTNING and one of the three main vocalists for the doujin metal band IRON ATTACK! (Although both bands are also pretty campy and mostly known for performing overseas a lot, I think IRON ATTACK! are probably better known than el are at this point. Especially since YAMA-B started singing for them more regularly.)

 

Here's a comparison of the three:

 

 

 

IRON ATTACK!

 

LIGHTNING

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by violetchain

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Gackt, L'arc,  and Miyavi are probably the most notable standouts of the "we used to vkei but now we don't want to even say that word" group.

 

DEG would have been on that list too, but recently they've been blurring that line more and more, both as a band and in terms of individual solo projects.

 

 

TM Revolution was in a vkei band as well, but I don't think he found his success there.

 

The weirdest transition is probably Junna from MerCurius who is apparently now a big name in the Touhou scene??? From what I remember, videos with his circle's music have over 1mil hits.

[suji 8317]

2 minutes ago, Peace Heavy mk II said:

The weirdest transition is probably Junna from MerCurius who is apparently now a big name in the Touhou scene??? From what I remember, videos with his circle's music have over 1mil hits.

I edited my first post with Junna's new project, but yeah he's in a doujin project called Ariabl'eyeS with two female vocalists. Strangely he still has the vk look going, so that's good to see~

 

[Tokage 5930]

Psycho Le Cemu's vocalist Daishi has his band The ROMEO, basically just your standard rockabilly.

Shinjuku Gewalt & FLOPPY's Toda Hiromu is (was? idk if they're still around) also involved in a band called NESS, as far as I know they're not really tied to the VK scene.

Sasabuchi Hiroshi (ex Plastic Tree) has gone on to play in the shoegaze bands Tokyo Shoegazer and CQ

I believe Shuuji 1 (ex cali gari) went on to be in a bunch of punk bands, never really saw member pics of any of them so idk how visual they were

 

Would The God and Death Stars still count as VK? Otherwise I guess you could add Aie to the list as well, his project The Madcap Laughs was definitely not VK at least  

Edited March 19, 2019 by Tokage

[violetchain 912]

Oh, I can't believe I didn't mention ZIGZO! I'm sure most people know them, but because I saw someone who thought Tetsu dropped off the map or something once:

ZIGZO is made up of Tetsu from MALICE MIZER, Sakura from L'Arc~en~Ciel and Ryo and Den from BY-SEXUAL.

 

 

Plus Tetsu also has the bands nil, The JUNEJULYAUGUST, THE BLACK COMET CLUB BAND and Indies Denryoku, although ZIGZO is probably the only project of his that qualifies as "successful".

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by violetchain

[ChimeraKei 13]

The only ones I really remember right now are Kasumi and Shiren (Yukimura) from Unlucky Morpheus. Kasumi was the owner of the Visual Kei label Dear Dolce and his friend Shiren was in the Visual Kei band Raddock.

 

I think Waggaki band had members that were part of Visual Kei scene too.

Edited March 20, 2019 by ChimeraKei

[returnal 543]

first thing to come to mind is 和亥 (kazui) from Missalina Rei most recently being in the very un-VK band arrival art

58 minutes ago, suji said:

I edited my first post with Junna's new project, but yeah he's in a doujin project called Ariabl'eyeS with two female vocalists. Strangely he still has the vk look going, so that's good to see~

this is a legendary combination

 

[suji 8317]

oh wow how did I forget Saica (ex-the:O, Ridiot, etc.) who was in Blood Stain Child for a good 5 minutes???

[Tokage 5930]

... does Nigu (cocklobin)'s old band tosinn count as vk or non-vk?

[yomii 834]

oh and of course the legend we must never forget 🙏

 

[doombox 4421]

There's also Ryohei ex.Megamasso/Ayabie's band Migimimi Sleep Tight.

 

idk if I'd call them "successful" really. But they're still going.

 

Edit: Oh yeah MTR's (IV from ViViD) band Smoking on Bitter Moon too. But I think they may be inactive? 🤷‍♀️

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by doombox

[akiko 260]

Tatsuhi ex. ZORO is now in band named c'pool and changed his name to tatsuya.

 

 

Also Takeru ex. SuG in his solo project sleepyhead.

 

 

[Himeaimichu 1535]

2 hours ago, ChimeraKei said:

I think Waggaki band had members that were part of Visual Kei scene too.

Yup. Kurona (who was the vocalist) and Hibiki (AKA Daisuke Kaminaga, who later left) both used to play in CrowXClass, as well as Heaven's Dust.  

The Taiko drummer of CrowXClass, Saku (Hidemasa Hanahara) is originally from a group with his brother called Mugen, and they're still active.

All the other members have their own stuff. I believe the Shamisen player, Kanade (Michiaki Shirata), did the Shamisen for the Naruto Shippuden sountrack (who Kurona's brother did the Taiko for). Mikage (Masaki Nakamura), the Shakuhachi Player who didn't leave, did some stuff for the Kantai Collection soundtrack, and Shin Ichikawa (Shion, Koto player) did something with one of the Yoshida brothers. All of them, minus Saku, were in a group called Zangetsu, which was basically just a traditional instrument group. 

Sadly, in like 2016, CrowXClass had a few performances... but then just stopped and for a while, their website was down (but now is back)

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by AimiGen7

[LIDL 692]

Does GLAY counts? They're the same generation as L'arc, I suppose? 

 

This was them once upon a time

 

 

 

 

 

[nekkichi 6043]

20 hours ago, zaa_zaa said:

But we don't hear that much about guys who used to be visual kei and became (semi-) successfull in "normal" bands.

because this generally never happens, with the most consistently successful more or less recent example being, probably, girugamesh. VK builds clout like no other indie scene does.

 

there's probably a small chance that some members ghosted and reappeared under their real names that the gya were never aware of, but other than that, I can't name anyone making it really big after departing VK.

miyavi is a d-list actreuse with an illusion of a domestic career, and Gackt is not releasing shit (and still probably living off MM/visual era career savings/investments/acting cheques.)

 

16 hours ago, Tokage said:

... does Nigu (cocklobin)'s old band tosinn count as vk or non-vk?

non-vk, however closely associated (through their prev. bands that also spawned that awful hollowgram chanteuse.)

 

 

they're now all retired with exception for nigu too.

Edited March 20, 2019 by nekkichi

[Laurence02 185]

3 hours ago, nekkichi said:

because this generally never happens, with the most consistently successful more or less recent example being, probably, girugamesh. VK builds clout like no other indie scene does.

 

there's probably a small chance that some members ghosted and reappeared under their real names that the gya were never aware of, but other than that, I can't name anyone making it really big after departing VK.

miyavi is a d-list actreuse with an illusion of a domestic career, and Gackt is not releasing shit (and still probably living off MM/visual era career savings/investments/acting cheques.)

 

non-vk, however closely associated (through their prev. bands that also spawned that awful hollowgram chanteuse.)

 

 

they're now all retired with exception for nigu too.

Do you count T.M.Revolution as successful? He sung in Luis-Mary (which I would like to argue was pretty popular - it went major!), but his solo career was quite very successful for a while - anime openings, concerts, Budokan, the whole shebang.

[nekkichi 6043]

8 minutes ago, Laurence02 said:

Do you count T.M.Revolution as successful? He sung in Luis-Mary (which I would like to argue was pretty popular - it went major!), but his solo career was quite very successful for a while - anime openings, concerts, Budokan, the whole shebang.

I count her as a has-been jpop act if that helps x

[Reiko 75]

 

The singer of Ray went on to have a fairly mainstream career as Cune

 

 

 

 

[Masato 365]

Why does no one mention Yoshiki? 

Nowadays he is doing anything but rock music... master of procastination and missguided self-marketing.

 

Also keiya from purple stone is now doing these anime songs, too...

 

https://sp.nicovideo.jp/mylist/37892459

 

 

 

[CELESTIAL CIEL 985]

RAY from EX-ANS is performing with rockabilly oyajis

https://twitter.com/kozysuzy

[CELESTIAL CIEL 985]

Also, SHI-NO from Deshabillz and JE*REVIENS was doing something related to anisongs and dj activity... The last time I heard something about him, he was a regular guest of k-pop liveshows with his gyaru wife.

[xriko 165]

藍架(aika) from WERKMARE (probably is most known project) is now doing pop (poop?) stuff

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by xriko

[Anne Claire 392]

I think Yukina from Madeth Gray'll could be on this list as well.  In the early to mid-2000's (pretty much after madeth gray'll disbanded)  we was in the non-vk band Qyubere.