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Born January 29, 1972 in Setagaya, Tokyo, Hideki is best known for being the lead singer of the energetic rock band known as Siam Shade, which he started the band with his high school friend, and future leader and bassist, Natin. After years of member changes, Siam Shade finally became complete in 1994 with the arrival of drummer, Junji. After releasing their first album, “Siam Shade,” they soon gained fans very quickly and got the attention of major record label, Sony Music Entertainment. The rest, as they say, is history (and a pretty great history if you ask me).
As lead singer of Siam Shade, Hideki stood out in a huge way. His goofy personality showed on stage through his wild antics and his FOREVER changing hair color and style. Hideki’s over the top energy caught the attention of many fans. He was able to hype up fans and have them jumping up and down while singing every song. His vibrant personality was on stage, all the time.
After 10 albums and 16 singles, Hideki would no longer sing lead for Siam Shade as the 5 men decided to go their separate ways, and disband. Hideki did not allow this decision to slow him down. Barely a month after Siam Shade’s disbandment Hideki opened his own official website, myclosefriends.com, and promised that he would release his new solo music for his fans to listen to. Hideki’s first solo album, “Punk Drunker,” was released on September 10, 2002, an album which Hideki said showed off the “punk” in him. Hideki showed his fans how different he can be creatively and vocally, as some songs on his album featured very soft ballets. While working on his album, Hideki was also working hard for his charity, The Hideki Romania Charity (formerly called the Siam Shade Romania Charity). He performed later that December in an event to which all proceeds went to AIDS prevention.
Hideki decided to further show off the punk within by releasing “Punk Drunker II” on April 23, 2003. The album featured six songs including “Wonder Wish,” “Flight Advisor,” and the extremely popular and many fans favorite “Rain Knell.” Hideki performed his first solo live the next month. The show was very successful and prompted Hideki to do another solo live performance. Although his solo career began looking very promising, in July Hideki shocked fans by saying his solo career days were over. He had decided to start a new band, which he called Acid. People auditioned for Hideki in order to become members of this new band. The final lineup included Hideki, Junpei, Daisuke, Masamitsu, Kim, Yuta, and Sei-ichira. With much influence by Hideki, the band entered the studio in late 2004 to record their first album, “1.5 Punk Drunker.” Although Hideki’s stage presence is powerful, it is also dominating, and because he wanted all Acid members to be recognized, he decided to play keyboard for the band and support Junpei, who was the lead vocalist for Acid. Feeling confident about Acid’s future, Hideki left Acid in June 2005. He has said that Acid was his pride and he’d like to see them play in Tokyo Dome one day.
With his departure from Acid, Hideki began back his solo career. For his third solo album Hideki worked with many famous musicians. His album, “Toki ga Owaru Made Tada-Strat,” was produced by Masahide Sakuma, a producer Hideki long wanted to work with since his early days in Siam shade. He describes in an interview being overcome by the atmosphere, and hopes to one day work with him again. Four months after the release of his third album, Hideki began working on “Gekkan Hideki,” or for the English speakers (including myself) Monthly Hideki. Monthly Hideki consists of a single from Hideki and a magazine. He also hosted “Shuhkan Acid.Hideki Channel, or Weekly Acid.Hideki Channel, every Thursday live on odoroku.tv. The weekly show consisted of Hideki and acid answering fan questions, playing music, and interviewing guest.
In the middle of 2007, Hideki started a new band, DETROX, with two friends and talented musicians, K-A-Z(guitarist) and MJ Nagai(sound engineering) and they soon released their first PV, ''Dark and Light'', which made many Siam Shade fans excited with their former vocalist’s new music. The mixture of electronic beat and heavy guitar made it all clear that Hideki was not planning to sound like anything he’s done before. In the end of 2008 MJ Nagai left the band to pursue his other personal projects, saying it was not cool with DETROX not to be able to give himself 100% to the band.
In the beginning of 2009, Hideki changed the kanji of his name once again(he has been ''Future'' and ''Glory and Happiness''): he’s now DET, probably a reference to DETROX’s name. Currently, DETROX is getting bigger and bigger, playing in many venues and still doing the series of live concerts known as Damnation, and Hideki has finally found the essence of his new music, with masterpieces like ''lonely'', ''Wash Away'', ''Long Way Round'', ''No Mercy'' and many more that certainly make great setlists for DETROX.
--Written by Kersha and Luna.
