Gackt: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• H.I.M.
• Dir en Grey
• L'Arc-en-Ciel
• X-Japan
• L'Arc-En-Ciel
• David Bowie
• Hide

• X-Japan
• David Bowie
• Hide

• Malice Mizer
• Yoshiki Hayashi
• Miyavi
• Hyde

• S.K.I.N.
• Malice Mizer

Born:

Dec 31, 1969 in Okinawa, Japan

Genre:

Rock Music

Decades Active:

1990's|2000's

Gackt, also known as Gackt Camui, is the Japan's polyglot pop rock star, forging a career in the 2000s with his hardrocking, but unbelievably slick songs performed in Japanese, English, French, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin. He is famed for both his work in the highly successful band Malice Mizer and solo performance, the latter of which included numerous songs for anime series, TV dramas and video games.

Gackt's exact age is not disclosed to public. But it is known that he was born and raised on the southern island of Okinawa, receiving musical education since the tender age of three. It was, however, limited to classical music and enka, the traditional Japanese pop, so his acquaintance with rock music was delayed until his late teens, with Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" playing a pivotal role in his decision to study rock guitar.

He toiled for a while as a band technician and founded the band Cains:Feel, but his public career really began in 1995, when he joined Malice Mizer as a vocalist. The band went on to become one of the staples of the visual kei genre, a branch of gothic rock famed for its predilection to theatrics and elaborate costumes, but Gackt, who was the main lyricist, but took small part in writing music, stuck around only until 1999, suddenly prompting a pretty scandalous split and moving to become a solo artist.

Debuting with the EP Mizerable (1999), Gackt soon shot to stardom, engaging in very diverse activities, as the Japanese celebrities are wont to do. He kept a steady flow of releases, recording seven studio albums and 27 singles during eight years of his career, playing throughout the Far East on numerous occasions, including a stint in Beijing in front of a 50,000 audience in 2002. He also releases the "Jyuunigatsu no Love song" each year in a different language, the first version being recorded in 2001. In 2007 Gackt joined the newlyformed supergroup S.K.I.N., founded by Yoshiki of XJapan fame and containing prominent pop/rock musicians Miyavi and Sugizo as well. The band had its debut gig on the Anime Expo convention in California, but remained a parttime involvement for all its members, despite the plans to record an album.

Gackt's involvement with the TV/movie world was as successful, his songs having been selected for various TV dramas and anime series, and the success of his collaboration with the Gundam franchise even prompted his to release a "Gundam album" 00790088 (2007), based on the anime's theme songs (the name of the album combines the serial numbers of some of the giant robots that the metaseries is centered around). His nonmusical achievements include appearing in a huge lot of commercials; voiceacting and motioncapturing for Bujingai and Final Fantasy VII video games; a role in a period TV drama Furin Kazan; and a vampire movie Moon Child (2003) for which he wrote the script, as well as starring in it himself together with Hyde of L'ArcenCiel, his good buddy and another Jrock guru. Gackt is also set to star in a 2009 Hollywood movie Bunraku with Josh Harnett and Demi Moore on board.

- Alexey Eremenko, All Music Guide