Luna Sea

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Luna Sea
Luna Sea in 2000 (from left to right: Shinya, Sugizo, Ryuichi, Inoran, J)
Background information
Origin	Machida, Tokyo, Japan
Genre(s)	Hard rock Pop
Years active	1990 - 2000
Label(s)	Extasy Records Universal Japan
Website	www.lunasea.co.jp
Former members
Ryuichi Sugizo Inoran J Shinya

Luna Sea was a significantly popular Japanese visual rock band of the 1990s. Joining forces in 1989 out of high school, its members consisted of Ryuichi (河村隆一, Ryuichi Kawamura) on vocals, Sugizo (杉原悠, Yasuhiro Sugihara) on lead guitar and violin, Inoran (井上清信, Shinobu Inoue) on rhythm guitar, J (小野瀬潤, Jun Onose) on bass, and 真矢 (山田真矢, Shinya Yamada) on drums/percussion. Discovered by X Japan guitarist hide in a club, the band then known as Lunacy were signed by the famous Yoshiki, the grandfather of all Japanese modern rock labels, Extasy Records. Their self-titled album, Luna Sea (1991), was the first of eight full-length original albums that found Luna Sea notoriety and superstardom.

In their heyday, effeminately gothic Luna Sea were second only to visual kei pioneers X Japan in popularity. Yet Luna Sea's combined efforts finally came to a conclusion in a two day farewell concert, The Final Act, that started on December 26, 2000 and was held in the sold-out Tokyo Dome.

Since then, the band members have pursued solo careers with varying degrees of success. Notably, Ryuichi has stepped into a modest acting career and has quickly become a modern pop icon, having groomed himself easily into a princely "playboy". Guitarist Sugizo has also considerably mellowed down his image, due in part to him having become a father, and now acts as a prominent mouthpiece for various humanitarian endeavors; musically, most significantly, he has formed his own band and has also collaborated on various symphonic projects with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and now Sugizo is part, with Yuna from Lazy Knack of a new project that has the aim to open hearts of people, The Flare. Inoran, always second guitar to Sugizo while in Luna Sea, has now joined-up with Ken Lloyd of Oblivion Dust to form the popular rock band Fake? as both songwriter and lead musician. He left Fake? in October 2005. J, ever the fan of aggressive Californian punk rock, has released a few albums under his own name since Luna Sea's disbandment.

Ryuichi and Inoran have a new band, Tourbillon, with Hiroaki Hayama from D-Loop. Their first single was released on September 7th and the first album will be released at the end of November 2005.

Shinya, for the most part, has retired from the spotlight of the music industry, having wed one of the members of J-Pop girl group Morning Musume Aya Ishiguro and started a family. He has also gone on to start an ambitious new project in the form of 'Potbelly', with himself and a 22 year old singer, named Milky. They released their first single on August 22nd, 2005. In 2006, Shinya is now a support member for Fake?.