IORI “TAISHO” WAKAKI

When’s your birthday?
July 5th 

Where are you from?
The Land of the Rising Sun

What are your hobbies?
Reading urban legends and reading in general, collecting Dragon Ball items, watching YouTube and studying Russian

Why did you become a musician?
When I was 12, the band Tokio was what made me want to be in a band. Then I saw the heavy metal band Sex Machineguns on a music program. Their head-banging style was linked to this band in a cartoon (Bremen 無頼男). That blew my mind and I knew I wanted to play heavy metal music then and there.

Who are your musical influences?
Power metal bands like Dragonforce, Power Quest, Helloween, Avantasia, Cellador, Aquaria plus early Sex Machineguns, Raphael, early Janne Da Arc, The Lethal Weapons, Slayer, Dokken, Stryper,  AOR music, Faye Wong too… 90′ and 00’s J-pop, anime themes, old video game music and pretty much anything catchy works for me.

As a guitarist I was influenced by Anchang, Herman Li, Steve Vai, George Lynch, Kazuki(Raphael), Mikio Fujioka, and others.

What other musical projects have you worked on?
I played lead guitars for the song “都立家政のブックマート” which is part of the band The Lethal Weapon’s history.
I was also working on an album of video game music covers, but that project is currently on hold.

What’s your favorite Spielfreude song?
Kingdom In A Dream and Starblast Apocalypse are very special to me.

What are your goals with Spielfreude?
I’d like to do a world tour, including concerts in Japan, and to be an Ibanez spokesman.