here I add some info from X-Japan.
X was founded in 1982 while vocalist Toshi and drummer Yoshiki were attending high school together. The band began to actively perform live in the Tokyo area in 1985, its lineup at that time being completed by a number of changing support musicians. A first single, titled "I'll Kill You" was released on Dada Records in June and in November of the same year, the group contributed the song "Break the Darkness" to the samplers Heavy Metal Force III.[10][11]
To ensure a continuous outlet for the band's publications, Yoshiki founded the independent label Extasy Records in the following year on which a second single, "Orgasm", was released.[12] The songs "Stab Me in the Back" and "No Connexion", recorded for the 1987 Victor Records sampler Skull Thrash Zone Volume I[11] mark the group's first material featuring Tomoaki "Pata" Ishizuka as a support guitar player. He formally joined the group later that year. Likewise, guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto and bassist Taiji Sawada both briefly performed with X on separate occasions before completing the group's first steady lineup.[10]
On 26 December 1987, the band participated in an audition held by CBS Sony which would lead to a recording contract with the label signed in August of the following year. In the meantime, the band released its first album, Vanishing Vision through Extasy Records on 14 April 1988 and toured extensively in support of the record.[12][10] The band also appeared in a cameo in the film Tokyo Pop, starring Carrie Hamilton and Diamond Yukai.[10]
X's second album Blue Blood was released on 21 April 1989 and spawned several singles, such as "Kurenai" and "Endless Rain", as well as the group's first home video release, a VHS titled Blue Blood Tour Bakuhatsu Sunzen Gig, containing one of the concerts of the subsequent tour. Recordings for the follow-up album Jealousy took place in Los Angeles.[13] It was released on 1 July 1991 and followed by the band's first performance in Japan's largest indoor concert venue, the Tokyo Dome.[14] Footage from most of the band's numerous shows in that stadium would later be released on CD and VHS/DVD.[15]
By 1992 the band's success in Japan made an international breakthrough appear likely enough to warrant the renaming to "X Japan", in order to distinguish the group from the United States punk band X. Around the same time Taiji left the group and was replaced by Hiroshi "Heath" Morie.[16] Taiji went on to work with Loudness and Cloud Nine.
(taken from wiki)
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