Ryuichi Kawamura

Overview

Ryuichi Kawamura (河村 隆一, born May 20, 1970 in Yamato, Kanagawa) is a Japanese singer, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He has been the lead vocalist of the rock band Luna Sea (using the band name RYUICHI) since 1989, and the band is regarded as one of the most influential acts of the visual kei scene. He also fronts Tourbillon, produces music under the name ЯK, and is active as a racer.

His first full-length solo album Love topped the Oricon Albums Chart with 1,021,000 copies sold, making him the only male solo artist in the chart's history to sell over one million copies of an album in its first week. It sold 2.788 million copies by the end of 1997 and 3.2 million in total, remaining the best-selling album by a male solo artist in Japan.

Early life

Kawamura was born in Yamato, Kanagawa. Because his father worked in the electrical industry, the household had a high-quality audio system; his father listened to jazz and orchestral music, while his mother was a fan of The Beatles. As a child he would calm himself by listening to music on headphones, and he first felt the joy of singing in kindergarten, when he sang alone for 20 or 30 classmates. His parents began separating when he was in second grade, and he chose to live with his mother. He played soccer and tennis in elementary school, learned acoustic guitar from an instrument given by a relative, and bought a white electric guitar for 15,000 yen in fifth grade. In his second year of junior high he formed a band and began writing original songs, dyeing his hair red or purple.

He attended Kanagawa Prefectural Kurihara High School and then Nippon Institute of Technology's Tokyo Technical High School (now Nippon Institute of Technology Komaba High School), but dropped out to throw himself into the independent rock scene. At 17 he moved to Tokyo, drifting between friends' homes while working part-time jobs and playing in bands.

Career

1986–2000: Luna Sea and solo debut

While still in high school, Kawamura sang in the bands Cradle and Slaughter under the name Rayla. When Slaughter was breaking up, he met Lunacy at a live house in Machida and joined on May 6, 1989, becoming the last of the five members to arrive. In 1991, hide of X Japan discovered them on the indie circuit and helped them sign with Yoshiki's Extasy Records, where they became Luna Sea; they made their major debut in 1992 and have sold more than 10 million records in Japan. In the indie days he wore hair long enough to reach the floor and called fans "SLAVE", cultivating an underground image; around 1994, as the band's popularity grew, he cut it to his current short style. He also sang on the B-side version of hide's 1994 song "Scanner".

During Luna Sea's break in 1997, he began his solo career under his full name, shifting from powerful rock to a pop-idol sound and appearing on variety shows (mainly those hosted by Tunnels) and in dramas. That year he released four singles, a mini-album and Love; all four singles were hits, and the second, "Glass", sold over a million copies. Love includes his cover of "Namida Iro", originally sung by Noriko Sakai with his songwriting. In 1997 alone he sold over six million records, made his first appearance on the 48th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen at year's end, and won the Best Newcomer (Actor) prize at the 13th The Television Drama Academy Awards for Futari. He also wrote songs for many other artists and ranked first among singers in the 1998 high-earners list. He later founded his own production house, RK, and in 1999 produced artists including Azumaya Madoka and Izam.

Luna Sea resumed in December 1997 but disbanded at the end of 2000 with the declaration of "Owari" (the finale). That year Kawamura began his first solo tour and created a subsidiary of RK for film music, composing for the film So Faraway. In mid-2001 his fan club RKF (Ryuichi Kawamura Family) opened, and he released singles including "Shizuka na Yoru wa Futari Iyou" and "Julia", appearing on music shows such as Music Station and Hey! Hey! Hey! After "Kimi no Mae de Piano o Hikou", he landed a role in the film Picaresque, based on the life of Osamu Dazai. He made his second Kōhaku appearance at the end of 2001, four years after his first.

2002–2006: International tour and Tourbillon

In 2002 he performed an exclusive concert in Seoul, his first international solo tour. Back in Japan he held meet-and-greet events at Zepp Fukuoka and Zepp Osaka, selling special merchandise including manga he illustrated and figurines. He starred opposite Yuriko Ishida in the TV Asahi drama Kowloon de Aimasho, playing Kamisanjo Shutaro, and wrote its ending theme "Sugar Lady". A special photobook accompanied his 2003 tour; while pausing album and single releases that year, he produced artists such as Memory Cats and Kiyoshi Hikawa.

In 2005 he formed Tourbillon with Luna Sea members Inoran and H. Hayama, launching with a Nippon Budokan concert (Un Tourbillon) on July 2. In January 2006 his marriage to Kumi Sano, the 2002 Miss Nippon Grand Prix, became public. On May 24, 2006 he released his first cover album, evergreen Anata no Wasuremono, rearranging hits from the 1970s and 80s along with Luna Sea's "I for You", and held his first dinner show at year's end.

2007 onward

He released "Once Again" on October 31, 2007, and the second cover album evergreen anniversary edition on December 5 — a three-disc set with songs chosen partly from fan club and Sports Nippon requests, self-covers of his singles and a live DVD. That year he also sang the national anthem at the Japanese F1 Grand Prix.

A first son was born in June 2009, and on July 29 he announced his move to Avex. In August 2010 he rejoined Luna Sea when the band reunited. On May 3, 2011, at Nippon Budokan, he set a Guinness record by singing more than 100 songs in about six and a half hours at the concert "Genkai no Sono Saki e: 100 no Monogatari". He took part in the 2011 collaboration "OveRtaKerS" with m.o.v.e and SUGIZO, sang "bye-bye my love" as the theme of the stage play Hashire Merosu (2012), and released "Kaze no Uta" (February 6, 2013) as a theme for an Arashi no Yoru ni stage selection. On May 29, 2013 — the 25th anniversary of Luna Sea's formation — he released his 18th single "Nanairo", his first drama theme. In September 2013 he covered "I Can Hear The Rain" under the name RYUICHI on the DEAD END tribute album.

In 2018 he placed second in the celebrity division of The Legend Charity Pro-Am Tournament. He underwent surgery for lung adenocarcinoma on January 11, 2019, and made his first appearance at Momoiro Uta Gassen on New Year's Eve 2020. In early summer 2021 he produced the "Verse o'Clock" series with Swiss watch brands Czapek and Ophion and Turkey's Bosphorus Leather. On December 23, 2021, he announced that after Luna Sea's nationwide tour he would pause activities for surgery to remove a vocal-cord varix, and he reported on February 9, 2022 that the surgery had been completed.

Musical style

With Luna Sea he sings visual kei rock, while his solo work moved toward pop. He has written for many artists, including Shizuka Kudo, Takako Uehara, Noriko Sakai, Saruganseki and Kiyoshi Hikawa, and often self-covers these songs, such as "Shin'ai only one", "Chiisana Hoshi" and "Kirara", which have become live staples. He has openly cited childhood idol Hideki Saijo and DEAD END's MORRIE as influences. After marrying, he said he wanted to sing about everyday happiness rather than only extremes of joy and pain.

Interests

He is known for a passion for wristwatches (his band's name Tourbillon is a watch term), is a car enthusiast who owns a Ferrari 288 GTO and runs his own race team, has competed in drift events, and also enjoys boxing and golf.