Hideto Matsumoto 松本 秀人 (December 13, 1964 – May 2, 1998)

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Hideto was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter who went by the stage name hide (pronounced hee-day, and yes, he spelled it with a lower case ‘h’) and was in the same band as Taiji Sawada of X Japan. He was also successful in his solo career with the band in addition to co founding the US based band Zilch which also featured members of Killing Joke, Danzig, and Queens of the Stoneage.  His last band, Spread Beaver, was formed prior to his death.  Jennifer Finch and Demetra “Dee” Plakas from L7 supported hide on several television performances in 1993 prior to the creation of Spread Beaver.


Upon entering high school in Zushi, Kanagawa, he joined the brass band club but eventually quit because he preferred the trumpet. After that he switched to the guitar and formed the band Saver Tiger. hide was first turned on to rock and roll when he was 15 through the album Alive II by Kiss; later that year his grandmother purchased him his first electric guitar.

In 1983 hide entered cosmetology and fashion school in Roppongi Hills and eventually became a licensed beautician. X Japan is credited with founding the Visual Kei movement in which complex hair styles, flashy costumes, and intensely colorful makeup are sometimes paired with an androgynous aesthetic.

hide was a heavy drinker and became depressed and under stress after he left X Japan. His lyrics were often dark and discussed suicide, frustration, and alienation. Journalist Neil Strauss commented, “He despised the music business and wanted to change it…he felt trapped in the image of a pop star…he represented a generation of fans who felt alienated, and his death represented the end of a genre.” hide died at the age of 33 after a night of drinking by hanging himself with a towel tied to a doorknob in his apartment in the Minami-Azabu district of Tokyo. Although his death was officially ruled a suicide, his friends and colleagues believe it was an accident; he didn’t leave a suicide note and Taiji commented in his autobiography that he may have been using a technique to relieve upper neck and back pain which guitarists suffer from due to constant shoulder strap use. He believed that hide might have passed out after his night of drinking and accidentally strangled himself. Over 50,000 people attended his funeral and streets had to be shut down in the Tsukiji district of Tokyo as television networks broadcasted the funeral live. Nearly 60 funeral attendants were hospitalized and 200 received medical care in first aid tents due to screaming themselves sick or fainting. Within one week, three teenage fans died in copycat suicides while 2 others were unsuccessful in their attempts.



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