(** "Doi Hachiro" is the name Tetsu always joked as Hyde's real name. He mentioned it numerous times in lives, radios, magazine intervies. But of course we all know this CAN'T be Hyde's real name...^^;; So why? If someone knows please tell me. But my own guess is that "Hyde" is pronouce as "Haido" in Japanese, if you reverse the name, it becomes "Doi Ha", eventually add an additional "chiro" to make the name complete and sound very dorky....)
HYDE is the "mysterious" bishonen-looking vocalist of L'Arc~en~Ciel. He has a very beautiful voice and powerful vocal. He writes all the lyrics and many songs for the band, as well as playing blue harps (harmonica) and guitar. Even though he's so fit to be a vocalist, his true love is guitar. He used to be the guitarist of the band "Jersarems Rod". After disband, he and the drummer PERO were recruited by TETSU and form L'Arc~en~Ciel.
Sorry to say, HYDE is very "vertical challenged"....^^;; not even over 160 cm tall! He and TETSU were among the first who wore those six+ inches tall platform shoes. So eventually, L'Arc~en~Ciel is probably the band that popularized the "platform shoes" trend among J-Rock scene right now....^^;;
HYDE is the only son in the family. His mother wanted a girl so HYDE was raised like a "daugther".....like wearing girl's clothes and using red back pack (boys used blue ones). HYDE was also a wimpy "cry baby" all his childhood. He cried so often that he admited that he was a very "useless crying worm"...^^;; His father decided to make him stronger by taking him to learn "Sho-lin" Kung Fu (a very famous chinese traditional monastry martial arts) when he's 5th grade. His personality changed and stopped crying. He made many friends and got voted by 6th grade classmates as the "#1 most funny" student in class.
He met a group of camping friends when he went to Junior high/secondary school. He graduated from an art highschool, and went on pursue art while working in Mr.Donut in part time. He was into heavy metal and wanted to be a guitarist. He thought vocalist is the most un-cool part in the band.... (becoz he didn''t like the type of vocalist that were popular at that time,
like Motley Crue's) ^^;; His most favorite/influential vocalist is MORRIE from "Dead End" (japanese band). Other artists influenced him are Dead End, Off Course (JP artists), Duran Duran and David Sylvian (UK artists).
In indies days, HYDE has very beautiful image--white gown + curly brown hair. Strangely, he never had really heavy makeup when compare to Tetsu and Ken. Now with short hair he looked like a cute little boy. My favorite image of him is the "slick hair" look---gel all his hair way back. (ex: in "Kiss me Deadly" Tour) He looked so gorgoues and classy!! (and cute too)
Although he kept his birth year secret, he's known to be over 30 years old already. SAKURA is the youngest member in the band and he's 28. TETSU is the 2nd youngest and he's 30. HYDE is probably around 31 (since model/idol Hinano said that Hyde is 13 age difference between them...and she's 18....^^;;). KEN is the oldest member.
HYDE loves to cook curry rice, also love chinese food. He said himself he's the best fighter in the band (Tetsu agrees ^_-), sure cuz' he learned Sholin Kung Fu!! ^_- Also his favorite beverages is "VITA Vitamin In." Also notice he always "recycles" his clothes....^^;;; (like the shoes he wore in 98/99 calendar
are the ones he wore in Heavenly album....) Also HYDE fans must check out every issue of "R&R NewsMaker", he has a corner "Self-Portrait". (Hyde's picture + poem he wrote). We all know LARUKU members come from Osaka, which they speak in a unique Osaka dialects and accent. They usually pretend to have a "normal" Tokyo's dialects. Like one time HYDE said something in the wrong way on TV programs and got "correct" by the host, HYDE said "but that's how SAKURA taught me....." ^^;; (SAKURA is from Tokyo). Though I dunno Japanese well, according to my Japanese friends, it's SOOOO weird to see HYDE speaking in Osaka dialects, so un-match with his image..... BTW, in Japanese, HYDE is pronouced as "Hai-do".
