Taiji Sawada (Japanese: 沢田 泰司, Hepburn: Sawada Taiji; July 12, 1966 – July 17, 2011), also known mononymously as Taiji, was a Japanese musician and songwriter. He is best known as bassist of the rock band X from 1986 to 1992. The band rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, credited as founders of the Japanese visual kei movement. After leaving X in January 1992, Taiji went on to work with many other recording acts, including Loudness and D.T.R.
In July 2011, Taiji was arrested in Saipan for a violent outburst that took place on the flight there. Facing federal charges in the United States-affiliated commonwealth, he attempted suicide by hanging in his jail cell, which left him brain dead. Taiji died in a hospital on July 11 after his family decided to turn off his life support. In 2018, readers and professional musicians voted him the best bassist in the history of hard rock and heavy metal in We Rock magazine's "Metal General Election".
Taiji Sawada was born in Ichikawa, Chiba, on July 12, 1966. He was the second son of three children. His younger sister Masayo is a singer. When Taiji was two years old, the first joint of the middle finger on his right hand was amputated in an accident. In interviews, the musician claimed this made it easier for him to play. Although bassists typically pluck with their index and middle fingers, Taiji used his index and ring fingers. When he was five years old, Taiji was hospitalized for over eight months with life-threatening nephrosis. As a child, he was athletic and often got into fights, although he claimed he never started them and likened himself to the fictional hero Kamen Rider who fought for "justice". In his third year at Ichikawa Daiichi Elementary School, Taiji joined the soccer team and a local baseball team. When he entered junior high school, he gave up soccer due to back pain and joined the table tennis club.
Taiji learned to play acoustic guitar just from watching his father play the one they had in the house. In his second year of elementary school, it took him three months to learn "Kinjirareta Asobi". At the same time he performed on stage for the first time at a school event. This saw him fall in love with guitar and music, including The Beatles and Queen. By junior high school, he was obsessed with Western music and bands like Kiss, Rainbow and Motörhead. He obtained an electric guitar upon entering Chiba Meitoku High School, which he chose simply because they had a light music club. However, he dropped out after only one year.
After dropping out of high school in 1982, Taiji continued to play guitar in the band Trash, which he had formed with classmates. One of the members was future Ladies Room vocalist Hyaku. Since the other members were still in school, Taiji paid most of their studio-rental expenses with money from his part-time job making signs. They broke up after one year. After meeting the leader of the heavy metal band Dementia at a studio, Taiji was invited to join them at the age of 17. He switched to bass and adopted the stage name "Ray". At his mother's request, he left home and became a live-in employee at the love hotel in Shibuya where he worked part-time. After a year, which saw the release of Dementia Live!, Taiji quit the group. In his autobiography, Taiji writes that he had visions of forming a band named Dead Wire, but there were no other members and only a single song was written, which was performed by his friend Tetsu's band Saver Tiger. However, some sources state that Tetsu and his fellow Saver Tiger and D'erlanger bandmate Kyo were actual members of the short-lived Dead Wire. Taiji then played briefly with the heavy metal band Prowler for about three months.
In October 1985, Taiji was invited to join X by their drummer and bandleader Yoshiki. He agreed on the condition that other member changes be made, as he felt the then-current lineup would not be able to play the songs that he would arrange, leaving X a trio where he played both bass and guitar. However, Taiji was unhappy when he still occasionally had to play guitar even after they recruited a guitarist, and left the band after only two months. But he officially rejoined X in November 1986. His first recordings with them were "Stab Me in the Back" and "No Connexion" for the 1987 omnibus album Skull Thrash Zone Volume I. X released their first album Vanishing Vision in April 1988 and toured extensively in support of the record. They became one of the first Japanese acts to achieve mainstream success while on an independent label. X are also widely credited as one of the pioneers of visual kei, a movement among Japanese musicians comparable to Western glam. During their independent years, Taiji acted as hairstylist for the other members and created almost all of their costumes. Their major label debut album, Blue Blood, was released in April 1989 and debuted at number six on the Oricon chart. Its success earned the band the "Grand Prix New Artist of the Year" award at the 4th annual Japan Gold Disc Awards in 1990. Their third album Jealousy was released in 1991 and debuted at number one, selling over 600,000 copies. It was later certified million by the RIAJ.
Taiji wrote a handful of songs in X, including "Phantom of Guilt", "Desperate Angel" and "Voiceless Screaming". He claimed that the arrangements to most of the band's songs were done by Hide and himself. He notably played acoustic guitar on "Voiceless Screaming". Pata described how Taiji gave him pointers on how to play the song during the Violence in Jealousy Tour in 1991, and encouraged him to write his own, which lead to "White Wind from Mr. Martin ~Pata's Nap~". Some unpublished songs from Taiji's time in X were later released in 2001 as Rose & Blood -Indies of X-, an album not sanctioned by the band.
In early December 1991, Yoshiki asked Taiji to quit X and the bassist acquiesced as long as he could perform at their three upcoming Tokyo Dome concerts. In his autobiography, Taiji speculated that the main reason was because he often insisted to bandleader Yoshiki that the members should share the royalties equally. He said this issue dated back to the recording of Blue Blood, when he suggested they record songs written by other members, and eventually resulted in him being the only member of X with the contract of a studio musician. He also noted that Yoshiki and Hide had already had various discussions about his behavior and future in X, and the royalty thing might have been the trigger to finally kick him out. While he admitted to frequently causing arguments with Yoshiki by speaking his mind, Taiji said it was all done out of his love for the band. When asked about Taiji's departure in 2016, Yoshiki said that while he respected Taiji's musical skills, he "crossed the line of our band's rules" and "To this day I still don't know if the decision was right or wrong, but we didn't have a choice."
Taiji's last concerts with X were titled Tokyo Dome 3 Days: On the Verge of Destruction, three consecutive sold-out nights at the Tokyo Dome on January 5–7, 1992. His departure from the band was announced on January 31. Taiji's final show was later released on home video and CD, with the latter reaching number three on the charts. Seven months after his departure, X held a press conference at Rockefeller Center in New York City where they introduced their new bassist Heath and announced that they were changing their name to "X Japan".
1992–2006: Loudness, D.T.R, and Cloud Nine
Shortly after leaving X, Taiji was invited to join the heavy metal band Loudness in April 1992 by Akira Takasaki, one of his role models when he was learning guitar. He was recommended by their outgoing bassist, Masayoshi Yamashita. Taiji quickly took part in recording the studio album Loudness and went on a series of tours into 1993, one of which later produced the live album Once and for All. However, the band's contract with their agency expired in May 1993, making their future uncertain as it was difficult to conduct activities. As such, Taiji began forming his own band, and when he was contacted in November about continuing Loudness, he had to decline because he had already signed a contract for the new band. Speaking of his time in Loudness, Taiji said it brought both joy and pressure, explaining that getting to be in his favorite band was a dream come true, but that constantly being compared to Yamashita was "hell".