Glay (band)

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GLAY
(from left) Jiro, Teru, Takuro and Hisashi
Origin	Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan
Years active	1988 – present
Genres	Rock Pop
Labels	Toshiba-EMI
Members	Jiro Teru Takuro Hisashi

GLAY （グレイ）is a rock/pop band from Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan formed by guitarist Takuro and vocalist Teru during high school in 1988. GLAY primarily composes songs in the rock and pop genres, but they have also composed songs in reggae to gospel styles. Although virtually unknown outside Asia, they are a successful band in their home country.

Contents 1 Name 2 Members 2.1 Main members 2.2 Past and current support members 3 History 4 Music style 5 Discography 5.1 Albums 5.2 Singles 5.3 Videos 6 Ranking 6.1 Top 10 best-selling GLAY albums 6.2 Top 10 best-selling GLAY singles 7 Trivia 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Name

Officially, the name "GLAY" is a deliberate misspelling of the word "gray", representing the style of music they wanted to play; a mixture between rock (black) and pop (white).

"We know it's not how you spell the color in English, but it's our way of being different." - GLAY

It is thought by some English speakers that the misspelling of the band's name may actually have been due to a genuine grammatical error, and the official reason was only decided in retrospect. In support of this, they point out the R and L is a very common mistake amongst Japanese speakers of English and on English signage in Japan, as there is no differing pronunciation between them in words containing these letters.

[edit] Members

[edit] Main members

• Takuro: real name Takuro Kubo : guitar (leader and primary songwriter)
• Teru: real name Teruhiko Kobashi : vocals
• Jiro: real name Yoshihito Wayama : bass
• Hisashi: real name Hisashi Tonomura : guitar

All members were born in Hakodate, Hokkaido except Hisashi, who was born in Hirosaki, Aomori. When he was a student in elementary school, he moved to Hakodate.

[edit] Past and current support members

• Yuta : real name Yuta Saitou : Keyboard (2004 – present)
• Toshi : real name Toshimitsu Nagai : drums (1995 – present)
• Sakuma : real name Masahide Sakuma : guitar, keyboard, producer (mid-1994 – present)
• Shige : real name Shigeo "sk55" Komori : keyboard (1998 – 2004)
• D.I.E. : real name Daijiro Nozawa : keyboard (1995 – 1998)
• Nobumasa : drums (1994)
• Akira : drums (1993 – 1994)

[edit] History

During GLAY's early years in high school, members (particularly drummers) were constantly joining and leaving the band. Upon the unexpected resignition of their vocalist, drummer Teru made a tape of his singing to give to Takuro and was immediately recruited as the new vocalist. On the search for another guitarist, Hisashi was asked to join but turned down the offer, as he was already part of a locally well-known heavy punk/rock band called Ari, which better suited his taste in music. When Ari disbanded, Hisashi accepted Takuro's offer and became the lead guitarist of GLAY.

By the time of Takuro and Teru's graduation, GLAY had become quite popular in their hometown of Hakodate and were playing in full live houses. Following Hisashi's high school graduation in 1990, the three of them moved to Tokyo to try and further expand their musical career. However things did not seem to improve for them in Tokyo. Their gigs only attracted a few people, and sometimes none at all. When their bassist quit, Takuro had heard that Jiro, who was also from Hakodate and had played with the indies band Pierrot (different from the now disbanded Japanese rock band PIERROT, that enjoyed mainstream popularity), had moved to Tokyo and invited him to join GLAY. He too declined the offer, insisting that he was already heading in the right direction for himself. It wasn't until Takuro asked him to play at just one show to fill in for their missing bassist that he decided to go. Following that show Jiro continued to receive invitations to play with GLAY, and in 1991 he had become GLAY's official bass player, finalizing the official four member lineup.

They promoted the band by handing out flyers on the street and giving out demo tapes. Eventually they became more and more well known on the Tokyo live house circuit, and began drawing larger crowds. During one of these shows in October 1993, Yoshiki, the former drummer for X JAPAN, saw their show and offered them a contract to his label Extasy Records. In 1994 their debut single "RAIN" was produced.

From the time of their debut GLAY steadily became more widely recognized by people all over the country. Their 4th single "Freeze My Love" made it onto the Oricon, debuting at #19. Two months later their first album "SPEED POP" debuted at #8. Their first #1 hit was in 1996 with their second album "BEAT out!" which was marked as a major turning point in GLAY's career. From then on they became increasingly popular at an extremely rapid rate, and in August 1997 they released the hit single "HOWEVER" becoming their most well-known song to date. The next two years to follow were arguably GLAY's most active years, in which they were constantly touring Japan in sold out stadiums and continuously producing one #1 hit after the other in a short time span.

On July 31th, 1999 GLAY held a concert called "GLAY EXPO 1999 SURVIVAL" at Makuhari Messe, gathering a total audience of 200,000 people making it the largest single concert to ever be held in Japan. There was an huge amount of publicity leading up to this concert, including having their faces printed on the sides of Japan Airlines jumbo jets. In 2001 and 2004 two more GLAY EXPOs were held. GLAY EXPO 2001 was divided into four separate performances at three different locations (Tokyo, Ishikari, and Fukuoka), and accumulated a total audience of over 280,000. GLAY EXPO 2004 celebrated their 10th anniversary, and was held in the parking lot of Universal Studios Japan selling out the 100,000 tickets in under 15 minutes.

Throughout the years GLAY has appeared on countless numbers of TV programs, and graced the front covers of every famous band/music magazine in Japan at least once (and some more than fifteen times), such as GIGS, What's In?, BPASS, ongaku to hito, PATIPATI, NEWSMAKER, etc. Kadokawa Shoten has also produced two special edition GLAY only books, and every member of GLAY (excluding Teru) has written a book of their own (Jiro has made two). Besides appearing in magazines and on TV, Teru, Hisashi and Jiro each have their own personal weekly radio shows (aired on bayFM, FMFUJI, and FM802, respectively).

[edit] Music style

In addition to recording most of their albums and singles in Japan, GLAY frequently travels overseas to places such as Los Angeles, New York and London to produce their music. In 2001 they released the New York produced album "ONE LOVE" which shocked long time GLAY fans, as the sound of "ONE LOVE" was completely different from that found on earlier albums. The style change was warmly welcomed by fans, and GLAY went on to hold a very successful "ONE LOVE" concert tour. The following year, "UNITY ROOTS & FAMILY, AWAY" (UR&FA) was released which was something entirely different from "ONE LOVE" and all their previous works. "UR&FA" presented GLAY fans with a strong gospel sound in many of its tracks.

"…people like my family members, lovers, friends, staff, acquaintance relationships, and the people I have around me greatly influence my work, and I wanted to make one album about that. My keyword was "roots". And, after that I had "unity". …I wanted to do this theme one time. We did a gospel sound in order to represent these people the closest." (Takuro)

Following the release of "UR&FA", in February 2003 GLAY released two compilation albums composed mostly of B-side tracks from their singles that hadn't yet been put onto an album. It was not until 2004 that they released a brand new album entitled "THE FRUSTRATED". This album was a huge success, and spawned a documentary DVD about the "making of", a special fanclub members only concert tour, the theme of GLAY EXPO 2004, and a fall concert tour that travelled across the country.. In 2005 GLAY took their new sound to yet another level, and produced a collaboration single with the vocal/dance group EXILE which was a tremendous success.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

1. 灰とダイヤモンド(Hai to Daiyamondo) - EXTASY RECORDS May 25 1994
2. SPEED POP - Platinum Records March 3 1995 (re-released in 2003/Toshiba-EMI)
3. BEAT out! - Platinum Records February 7 1996 (re-released in 2003/Toshiba-EMI)
4. BELOVED - Platinum Records November 18 1996 (re-released in 2003/Toshiba-EMI)
5. REVIEW~BEST OF GLAY - Platinum Records October 1 1997
6. GLAY SONG BOOK - Platinum Records February 25 1998
7. pure soul - Unlimited Records/mustard July 29 1998
8. HEAVY GAUGE - Unlimited Records/mustard October 20 1999
9. GLAY Drive ~complete best~ - Unlimited Records/mustard November 11 2000
10. ONE LOVE - Unlimited Records/mustard November 28 2001
11. UNITY ROOTS & FAMILY, AWAY - Unlimited Records/mustard September 19 2002
12. GLAY rare collectives vol. 1 - Unlimited Records/mustard February 5 2003
13. GLAY rare collectives vol. 2 - Unlimited Records/mustard February 5 2003
14. THE FRUSTRATED - Unlimited Records/mustard March 24 2004
15. -Ballad Best Singles-WHITE ROAD - Unlimited Records/mustard January 19 2005
16. LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL - TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records January 31 2007

[edit] Singles

1. RAIN - Platinum Records May 25 1994
2. 真夏の扉 - (manatsu no tobira) - Platinum Records June 15 1994
3. 彼女の"Modern・・・" - (kanojo no "Modern… ") - Platinum Records November 16 1994
4. Freeze My Love - Platinum Records January 25 1995
5. ずっと２人で・・・- (zutto futari de…) - Platinum Records May 17 1995
6. Yes, Summerdays - Platinum Records August 9 1995
7. 生きてく強さ - (ikiteku tsuyosa) - Platinum Records November 8 1995
8. グロリアス - (Glorious) - Platinum Records January 17 1996
9. BELOVED - Platinum Records August 7 1996
10. a Boy~ずっと忘れない~ - (a boy~zutto wasurenai) - Platinum Records November 11 1996
11. 口唇 - (kuchibiru) - Platinum Records May 14 1997
12. HOWEVER - Platinum Records August 6 1997
13. 誘惑 (yuuwaku) - Platinum Records April 29 1998
14. SOUL LOVE - Platinum Records April 29 1998
15. BE WITH YOU - Unlimited Records/mustard November 25 1998
16. Winter, again - Unlimited Records/mustard February 3 1999
17. サバイバル - (SURVIVAL) - [video single] Unlimited Records/mustard May 19 1999
18. ここではない、どこかへ - (kokodewanai, dokoka he) - Unlimited Records/mustard August 25 1999
19. HAPPINESS -WINTER MIX- - Unlimited Records/mustard August 25 1999
20. MERMAID - Unlimited Records/mustard July 19 2000
21. とまどい - (tomadoi) /SPECIAL THANKS - Unlimited Records/mustard August 23 2000
22. Missing You - Unlimited Records/mustard November 14 2000
23. GLOBAL COMMUNICATION - Unlimited Records/mustard April 25 2001
24. STAY TUNED - Unlimited Records/mustard July 4 2001
25. ひとひらの自由 - (hitohira no jiyuu) - Unlimited Records/mustard September 19 2001
26. Way of Difference - Unlimited Records/mustard February 27th 2002
27. またここであいましょう - (mata koko de aimashou) - Unlimited Records/mustard July 24 2002
28. 逢いたい気持ち - (aitai kimochi) - Unlimited Records/mustard July 31 2002
29. いつか - (itsuka) - DVD video single Unlimited Records/mustard March 5 2003
30. BEAUTIFUL DREAMER/STREET LIFE - Unlimited Records/mustard October 16 2003
31. 時の雫 - (toki no shizuku) - Unlimited Records/mustard January 28 2004
32. 天使のわけまえ - (tenshi no wakemae) /ピーク果てしなくソウル限りなく - (PEAK hateshinaku SOUL kagirinaku) - Unlimited Records/mustard May 25 2004
33. Blue Jean - Unlimited Records/mustard August 4 2004
34. ホワイトロード - (White Road) - Unlimited Records/mustard December 8 2004
35. SCREAM - (collaboration single as GLAY×EXILE) - avex/rhythm zone July 20 2005
36. G4 - TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records July 12 2006
37. ANSWER - (collaboration single as GLAY feat. KYOSUKE HIMURO) - TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records August 2 2006
38. 夏音/変な夢 ～THOUSAND DREAMS～(natsu oto / hen na yume ~THOUSAND DREAMS~)- TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records September 13 2006
39. 100万回のKISS - (100 man kai no KISS) - TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records January 17 2007

[edit] Videos

1. VIDEO GLAY - Platinum Records May 17 1995
2. VIDEO GLAY 2 - Platinum Records May 2 1996
3. 無限の déjà vu - (mugen no déjà vu) - Platinum Records January 29 1997
4. HIT THE WORLD - Platinum Records December 3 1997
5. VIDEO GLAY 3 - Platinum Records February 4 1998
6. "pure soul" TOUR '98 - Unlimited Records/mustard August 5 1998
7. "SUMMER of '98" pure soul in STADIUM - Unlimited Records/mustard December 9 1998
8. DOME TOUR "pure soul" 1999 - Unlimited Records/mustard July 7 1999
9. VIDEO GLAY 4 - Unlimited Records/mustard April 5 2000
10. EXPO '99 SURVIVAL LIVE IN MAKUHARI - Unlimited Records/mustard July 31 2000
11. Best Video Clips 1994–1998 - Unlimited Records/mustard September 5 2001
12. GLAY EXPO 2001 GLOBAL COMMUNICATION LIVE IN HOKKAIDO - Unlimited Records/mustard January 1 2002
13. GLAY EXPO 2001 GLOBAL COMMUNICATION LIVE IN HOKKAIDO SPECIAL EDITION - Unlimited Records/mustard January 1 2002
14. GLAY DOME TOUR 2001–2002 ONE LOVE - Unlimited Records/mustard August 28 2002
15. GLAY ONE LOVE in Beijing - Unlimited Records/mustard October 13 2002
16. VIDEO GLAY 5 - Unlimited Records/mustard November 20 2002
17. GLAY ONE LOVE in Beijing Live & Document - Unlimited Records/mustard December 18 2002
18. GLAY HIGHCOMMUNICATIONS TOUR 2003 - Unlimited Records/mustard September 26 2003
19. The Complete of THE FRUSTRATED－RECORDING DOCUMENTARY&LIVE - Unlimited Records/mustard June 16 2004
20. GLAY Acoustic Live in Nippon Budokan produced by Jiro - Unlimited Records/mustard November 3 2004
21. GLAY ARENA TOUR 2000 “HEAVY GAUGE”in SAITAMA SUPER ARENA - Unlimited Records/mustard November 3 2004
22. GLAY EXPO 2001 “GLOBAL COMMUNICATION”　in TOKYO STADIUM - Unlimited Records/mustard November 3 2004
23. LOVE&THANKS ~hondosuru shion~ GLAY EXPO 2004 in UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN "THE FRUSTRATED" - Unlimited Records/mustard December 15 2004
24. GLAY DOME TOUR 2005 "WHITE ROAD" in TOKYO DOME - Unlimited Records/mustard June 22 2005
25. Re-Birth ~ROCK'N'ROLL SWINDLE at NIPPON BUDOUKAN~ - TOSHIBA-EMI/Capitol Records October 4 2006

[edit] Ranking

[edit] Top 10 best-selling GLAY albums

1. REVIEW ~ BEST OF GLAY
2. DRIVE~GLAY complete BEST~
3. pure soul
4. HEAVY GAUGE
5. BELOVED
6. BEAT out!
7. ONE LOVE
8. UNITY ROOTS & FAMILY, AWAY
9. -Ballad Best Singles-WHITE ROAD
10. SPEED POP

[edit] Top 10 best-selling GLAY singles

1. Winter, again
2. Yuuwaku
3. SOUL LOVE
4. HOWEVER
5. BE WITH YOU
6. Tomadoi/SPECIAL THANKS
7. Kuchibiru
8. Kokodewanai, Dokoka e
9. BELOVED
10. MERMAID

[edit] Trivia

• Their first compilation album, "REVIEW ~ BEST OF GLAY", was the best selling album of all time in Japan in 1997. As of 2006, it is ranked at #3.
• In 1998 Japan's telephone service was temporarily put out of order to allow for the mass number of fans to reserve tickets to their upcoming tour.
• Their contract transfer from Pony Canyon to Toshiba EMI is the most expensive transfer in Japan's history, at 4 billion yen.
• The live held in Beijing (a sold-out live of 35,000 audience members) in October 2002, is the most expensive gig in China's history.
• "Yuuwaku" was the biggest selling single in 1998.
• Takuro has written/composed songs for Namie Amuro ("LOVEBITE"), Misia ("fuyu no etranger"), Hikaru Utada ("Time Limit") and Mika Nakashima ("hitoiro" and "EYES FOR THE MOON"), among other artists.
• Hisashi played the guitar parts in the beginning of Hikaru Utada's song "Letters".
• Teru is an avid artist, and designs many of the tour goods himself.
• Takuro and Hisashi appeared in the movie CASSHERN.

[edit] Notes

1. ↑  Japan Times, Article, Japan Times, 2001 (date unsure)
2. ↑  The Japan Zone Newsletter. The Japan Zone Newsletter. (Interesting Facts)
3. ↑  The Japan Zone Newsletter. Modern Japan - Famous Japanese - GLAY. (Name)
4. ↑  GLAY Official Homepage. HAPPY SWING SPACE SITE. (Article information)
5. ↑  TIME Magazine Article. TIME - The Day the Phones Died. (Trivia and Name)

1. ↑  Teru also happens to be married to Puffy AmiYumi's Ami Onuki. Together they had a child.

[edit] External links

• HAPPY SWING SPACE SITE - Official site (Japanese)
• Buggy Crash Night - Jiro's radio website (Japanese)
• Cyber Net City - Hisashi's radio website (Japanese)
• TERU ME NIGHT GLAY - Teru's radio website (Japanese)
• GREATEST SHADOW - Unofficial - information, news, radio and TV interviews, etc. Updated regularly (English)
• centigrade-j - lyric translations for many various Jrock bands, including GLAY (English)
• Reaching for the Global Communication - Unofficial - news, multimedia, and more. Updated regularly (English)

v • d • e  GLAY
Studio albums
Hai to Diamond | SPEED POP | BEAT out! | BELOVED | pure soul | HEAVY GAUGE | ONE LOVE | UNITY ROOTS & FAMILY, AWAY | THE FRUSTRATED | LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL
Greatest Hits/Best Ofs
REVIEW | GLAY Drive ~complete best~ | GLAY Rare Collectives vol. 1 and 2 | WHITE ROAD
Television Shows
GLAY Global Communication
Members
Hisashi | Jiro | Teru | Takuro