L'Arc~en~Ciel (UNOFFICIAL) on purevolume™

Rock / World / Classic Rock

Biography

L'Arc~en~Ciel

was formed in February of the year 1991, by Tetsu, bassist and band leader. His fellow members were Hide (now called Hyde) on vocal, Hiro on guitar and Pero on drums. The name L'Arc~en~Ciel was chosen by Tetsu, based on a movie he'd seen. The name L'Arc~en~Ciel literally means "an arc in the sky", also "rainbow".

Guitarist Hiro however left the band in 1992. As a replacement came Ken, a childhood friend of Tetsu, who abandoned university to join the band. In December of the same year, drummer Pero also left L'Arc~en~Ciel. Tetsu had seen a drummer named Sakura play in a live show and despite not knowing him very well, asked him to join the group all the same. Sakura agreed to come and see L'Arc~en~Ciel play, and decided to join them in 1993. That same year, they released their first album, Dune.

In 1997, during a peak in their career, Sakura was arrested for something drug related and he decided to leave the band. After a short break, they came back with drummer Yukihiro (ex-Die in Cries, ex-Zi:Kill) for the single Niji and he has stayed with them ever since.

In 2001 they released a collection of singles titled Clicked Singles Best 13. After this, they went on hiatus for a while and each member had his own solo project. And after three years, just when fans began to loose hope of L'Arc~en~Ciel ever getting back together, they announced an upcoming single and a couple of months later they released a new album, Smile.

In the mean time the band members all continued with their own solo projects. They also returned with something new. In their time with Sakura they had done some work under the name of DArc~en~Ciel, in which the members switched positions. This time they released b-sides under the name PUnk~en~Ciel.

For their 15th anniversary the band re-released their old singles and the albums ark and ray. At the same time they actively continue as a hugely successful band, from which we will definitely hear again in the future.