One of Japan’s biggest rock stars, Yoshiki, has directed his first music video, which he opted to shoot in 3D using a handheld camera provided by Panasonic.
Yoshiki It’s but one of the many new creative endeavors the multi-talented artist is undertaking, most of which are aimed at broadening his profile in Hollywood. That endeavor landed him prominently in the pages of the Los Angeles Times with a profile of the artist in July.
Twenty-eight years after co-founding X Japan, which would become one of the most popular rock bands in Japan in the 1990s with sales of more than 30 million records and videos, 44-year old Yoshiki Hayashi would like American audiences to discover the band.
That is why X Japan, which reunited in 2007 after a ten-year hiatus and played the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago last month, is launching a seven-city North American tour today in Los Angeles that will include stops in Oakland, Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago, and Toronto before winding up in New York on Oct. 10.
“Debuting in the U.S. was always our plan, so finally we can start doing it,” the artist known simply as Yoshiki told HollywoodInHiDef.com / 3DHollywood.net Friday in a telephone interview.
But Yoshiki is also interested in directing and composing Hollywood film scores for movies such as his favorite “Twilight” franchise. “Completely, that’s my goal,” he said. “I don’t always want to be known as somebody with crazy hair; I want the music to become popular.”
In July he undertook the challenge of helming the video of a new song called “Born to be Free” from the band’s upcoming album slated for early 2011, and then intensified the first-time experience with the added complications of 3D production for the video in which he was also performing. “It was difficult; I was trying not to make people too dizzy,” he said. Even more virgin territory lies ahead for Yoshiki when he begins editing the video in 3D after the tour ends in October. “I like challenge,” he concluded. He is unsure where or when the 3D video will premiere, saying it may depend on how many homes have 3D TVs by the time it is finished and ready for release to help promote next year’s album.
The band, including co-founding vocalist Toshimitsu “Toshi” Deyama, is used to massive audiences in Japan, where they played to 65,000 fans two nights in a row last month at giant Nissan stadium.
Yoshiki, who plays drums and piano and does most of the song writing, said Friday he is expecting about 2,000 people at the Wiltern Theatre tonight. “We have not played to a crowd that size in many years,” he said, “but it will be fun because it will be more intimate.”
Having collaborated with other artists such as Queen drummer Roger Taylor and Beatles producer George Martin, and having produced several bands through his Extasy Records, Yoshiki is anxious to tackle some new frontiers, such as expanding on his experience composing a movie score for the little-seen 2007 horror film “Catacombs,” by writing for a major Hollywood production.
“Completely, that’s part of my goal. I would love to do that for the future,” he said, citing Hans Zimmer as one of his favorite movie composers. “Doesn’t he do everything?” Yoshiki said of the composer of more than 125 scores, including prominent and diverse movies ranging from “Rain Man,” “Black Rain,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Days of Thunder,” and “The Lion King” to “Gladiator,” “Pearl Harbor” “The Last Samurai,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Dark Knight,” and “Inception.”
X Japan’s single “I.V.” produced in 2007 for “Saw IV,” only whet Yoshiki’s appetite even further, as did a multi-million dollar live performance of the X Japan song “Jade” in January high atop the Kodak Theater in the Hollywood & Highland complex with more than seven thousand screaming fans on Hollywood Boulevard below.
“It was very exciting but at the same time I was kind of nervous,” Yoshiki said in reference to the plexiglas stage that jutted out over the street and through which he could see the street and throngs of fans immediately below him.
His plans for directing and composing are on hold for the moment. For the next 2 ½ weeks, Yoshiki’s focus is on the North American tour. But will there come a time, perhaps in his 50s, when he will want to solely focus on film scores and his more classical oriented piano music?
“I do not want to give up rock music,” he said. “I enjoy doing a combination of many things.” But after a slight pause and a chuckle, he added, “When I become 70, I may become only a classical composer.”
