Yoshiki was born on November 20, 1965, in Tateyama, Japan. The X Japan co-founder, drummer, pianist and principal songwriter brought classical training into heavy metal. His ballad “Endless Rain” puts that range in focus: the musician behind the drum kit was also writing music built around the piano.
He began piano lessons at four. After his father died when Yoshiki was ten, his mother bought him a drum kit, giving him another way to express his grief and anger. In a 2014 interview with Louder, he recalled the impact of seeing Kiss at his first rock concert. Their theatrical presentation opened up possibilities for the young musician, who had previously concentrated on classical music.
In 1982, Yoshiki and his childhood friend, singer Toshi, formed X, the band later renamed X Japan. Getting its music released became another part of Yoshiki’s job. He founded Extasy Records in 1986 to issue the single “Orgasm,” learning the practical work of running a label along the way. As he recalled in the label’s published history, he visited pressing and printing companies to establish manufacturing costs and investigated everything from recording to magazine advertising. Extasy released the band’s debut album, Vanishing Vision, in 1988. The arrangements and performances could develop on the band’s own schedule, with recording sessions continuing into the early morning.
The major-label debut Blue Blood followed in 1989, carrying “Endless Rain” into that next stage. Yoshiki told Tokyo Weekender in 2022 that Sony had asked him to write something slower. He was initially uncertain about the request, but the resulting song became what he described as his first ballad. It gave his piano training a direct place in X’s recorded identity. Alongside the heavier “Kurenai,” Yoshiki singled it out as a song that helped define the band.
That connection between rock songwriting and classical arrangement expanded on his 1993 solo album Eternal Melody. Yoshiki selected the material and oversaw the project, with George Martin producing and the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing. Songs from X’s repertoire were recast for the orchestra, including “Endless Rain,” which Martin arranged, and “Kurenai.” Recording took place at AIR Lyndhurst Hall in London. The project let Yoshiki hear compositions developed for his band carried by a much larger ensemble, while working directly with a producer whose orchestration experience he valued.
He later explained how those sessions affected his approach to X Japan. In an interview published by GRAMMY.com in 2014, Yoshiki said working with orchestras had led him to think of the band as an orchestra in miniature. He began compositions on a written score regardless of genre. “Drums give me the sense of rhythm, and piano gives me the world of melody,” he said. Both instruments fed the writing, even when the finished arrangements took different forms.
His orchestral work also brought him back to the band that had helped draw him toward rock. For the 1994 tribute album Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved, Yoshiki contributed an arrangement of Kiss’s “Black Diamond” with the American Symphony Orchestra. He approached it as a piano concerto, applying the classical training that preceded his first drum kit to a song by his early rock heroes.
