hide

ideto "hide" matsumoto (ŞQĄ»¨q¤H) was born in 13th of december 1964, in kanagawa, yokosuka. his blood type was ab and he played guitar. he was the member of Saver Tiger, X, X Japan, hide with Spread Beaver and Zilch. he also had solo works. he is undoubtfully one of the greatest guitarist in jrock history, and his voice is also unique and cannot be imitated.

when hide entered primary school, he was very fat weighted 80 kg, almost a double of his classmates. hide was teased and expelled by his classmates, so he was determined to lose weight. during the process, he found that personal responsibility was more important than other's opinion, and that made him a bit egocentric, reluctant to express himself to others. hide's parent made him participate in many hobbies like piano, caligraphy and so on. they even brought hide to united states for a month-long home stay in primary 4 to make him more "international". however, hide did not enjoy his childhood much.

hide's love for rock music began in secondary 2, when he listened to Kiss, an european heavy metal band. in Secondary 3, hide got his first electric guitar which was a gibson, and his classmates started calling him "gibson" too. Since then he spent most of his spare time listening to Kiss songs and playing the guitar, which made him even more introvert. during high school, hide formed his first band "Saver Tiger", but it was banned by the school. so Saver Tiger went to live houses in tokyo to practice and play publicly.

however, saver tiger was not going well. members kept joining and leaving, and hide was too strict to other members. as hide was not a socialable person, the members lacked coordination and they always argued. finally, Saber Tiger broke up and hide went to study in a costume school (on a side note, years later Saver Tiger reformed with new lineups and is still active right now). however, a call changed his life.

when hide nearly graduated from costume school, he received a phone call from yoshiki, leader of another indies band "X", which was facing disolution due to member loss. yoshiki asked hide to join X, and hide replied with only one word - "fine". when they met in a live house for the first time, yoshiki introduced himself first, "how do you do, I'm X's yoshiki"; and hide replied, "I'm hide, how do you do". that was not dramatic at all, but it definitely changed hide's life dramatically.

X was formed in 1982 by yoshiki and his schoolmate toshi, but not until 1985 did they release their first single "I'll kill you". in february 1987, X had its formation settled down, with leader yoshiki on drums, toshi on vocal, hide and pata on guitar, and taiji on bass.

Source: http://www.jrocker.com/hide/profile.html