Dir en Grey¸Š‰ī.

Dir en Grey (DEG) are just about as visual as a visual kei band can get. (with the exception of malice mizer) As can be seen, a very large part of this band is centred around its look.Eventhough recently they have toned down this look to a more 'normal' hard rock look, they still remain a visual band. However, the image is only part of the band. Dir en Grey are also serious musicians, even if they may only seem to be all look and no play if you forgive the pun. Their music, while being based primarily on the style of hard rock, is often very hard to clasify, swinging to a wide variaty of styles. And once I again, I would like to point out that in case you didn't know, every person in this band is a guy.

It all started in 1996 when they were called La:sadies. In this group there was Kyo(vocals), Shinya(drums), Die(guitar), Kaoru(guitar) and Kisaki(bass). Kisaki was soon to leave the group and was replaced by Toshiya. With his arrival, the group changed its name to Dir en Grey. (This name means grey coin. Each word has been taken from a different language, and as a result is actually meaningless when put together. But this is the meaning that they wanted) As Dir en Grey they released their first mini-album called MISSA. Fame was to reach the band with the single 'i'll' in August 1998, which reched the number 7 in the Oricon charts. This was to attract the attention of many people including one Yoshiki of XJAPAN fame. Seeing the potential in the group, he took them to his studio in Los Angels and turned them into better musicians and helped clean up the music.(For Shinya, this was his true dream come true as Yoshiki was his hero) The end product of this union was GAUZE, their first official album.

However, eventhough they had much success with GAUZE, the band found that working under a record company resticted them, and decided that after this they would go at it alone, by setting up Firewall Division. This alowed them to work by themselves. They now produce their own albums. In this respect, we know that 100% is DEG. With this they creatively spread their wings and release MACABRE and Kisou, two very interesting and unique albums which contains a very large amount of different styles of music, while still keeping that hard rocking style in many of the tracks.