Hizaki

Hizaki (stylized as HIZAKI, born February 17, 1979) is a Japanese visual kei metal musician. He is best known as the guitarist of the symphonic power metal band Versailles. He is also a member of Jupiter and has a solo career. Before forming Versailles, he was in several independent bands.

== Early life == Hizaki grew up in the countryside of Shiga Prefecture. He liked classical music in kindergarten, especially the violin, but his parents refused to let him learn the violin or piano. When he was in sixth grade his older brother started to learn guitar, and after Hizaki's first time playing with it, he "dove into music." Even at that young age he hated playing other people's songs, and wanted to create his own. Already a fan of Loudness and X Japan, Hizaki wanted to play lead guitar, but was not skilled enough for their songs at the time and so created his own guitar exercises. After studying diligently, Hizaki was quite skilled by middle school, but had no one around him at his level. He entered high school during Japan's band boom and so finally had others to play with in a band, but had to lower his skill level in order to fit in. While unwavered in his love of metal and visual kei, his friends preferred punk or grunge. As such, Hizaki said he had no fun in the band and that his high school days were "quite gloomy."