4th post by Daiki (English ver.)

Hello, everyone.
It’s finally my turn to write a column on note.
I think there will be a chance in the near future to really talk to everyone about more personal and deep stories, so this time I’ll write about things such as “Exactly what type of band is DEVILOOF?” and “How was DEVILOOF formed?”. This might become kind of a serious topic.
People who have been fans of DEVILOOF since a long time ago might already know all this but please understand.

To begin with, the band started out as the deathcore band “All Must Die” that was formed by its first drummer, Hiroto, with his classmates when he was in his second year of high school.
They apparently mainly covered songs by other bands while playing original music from time to time.
By the way, here’s rare footage from a live performance.

(At this time, none of the current band members had joined the band yet.)
Soon after, Hiroto started looking for new members outside of his school with the aim of taking the band to a new level.
At the time, I had gotten used to university life and was wondering if there was a band looking for a new bassist when I chanced upon a post which read “High School Students Death Metal Band Bassist Recruitment” on a band member recruitment notice board online. Personally, I thought “High school students and death metal? It’s probably some insolent kids who had misunderstood and called themselves death metal just because the music they played was a little intense. I’ll teach them what real death metal is. (sinister laughter)” and tried playing music with them partly for the fun of it.
In the end, even though they were definitely high school students, their performance abilities were solid, their way of thinking about the band firm, and the music they played was really death metal and deathcore. Thinking I wanted to make music with them, I joined the band. It was me who was just an insolent metal-lover.

After that, auditions were held to find members for the rest of the parts but Hiroto displayed his terrifying dictatorial abilities and people were being told to go home after making one tiny mistake while temporary members were being fired every week. I myself spent every day on edge wondering when it would be my turn to be fired.

However, such days of searching for new members were brief and there was one vocalist who entered the studio after receiving an offer from us.

That’s right, it was Keisuke.
I had already heard how amazing his death voice was, but when he actually entered the studio and sang live for us, for the first time in my life, I felt like “my heart was being gouged out”. The first song we played together was SUICIDE SILENCE’s “Unanswered”. How nostalgic.
After that, with the addition of a supporting guitarist, we were active as All Must Die for about half a year.
However, with the addition of Keisuke, we felt that it would have been a waste to hold him back to within the local music scene in Osaka. Hence, as all the band members at the time had gotten into music because of visual kei and there wasn’t a band that played deathcore in the visual kei music scene, we started to make preparations to form a visual kei band while continuing to perform as All Must Die.
This was the only music we released at that time.

In the meantime, we met guitarists who were looking for a band to join. All Must Die was dissolved in Spring of 2015 and at the end of the year, DEVILOOF was formed.

By the way, I think many of you already know this but DEVILOOF is a coined term created from the words “Devil’s Proof” which appears in the New Testament.
Its meaning has been explained at the start of the music video for “Ruin”.

DEVILOOF official YouTube channel

I actually wanted to write about the band’s story till this day but it’ll probably be too long so I think I’ll stop here for now
I was also able to reply questions I’ve gotten the most often such as how the band was formed and the origin of the band’s name.
In addition, I think it’s too early to be looking back on our history like as if it’s a story and feel that we have to keep looking and moving forward.
Finally, I hope that there will be a future in which this coronavirus pandemic will be a thing of the past and will continue to work hard in my activities with the band.

Did you think that was the end?
This note shall consist of 2 parts.

DEVILOOF Member’s Playlist03 Daiki

From here on, I want to introduce the songs in my playlist. (Please understand that I can’t introduce them all.) In general, I made a list, in no particular order, of songs that I exceptionally liked in my life so far.
The following is pretty much only about my own preferences.

Tornado Of Souls/MEGADETH
・・・Out of the BIG4, I like MEGADETH the most and this song’s riff, vocal melody, and guitar solo section are really amazing. All tracks on “Rust In Peace”, including this one, are masterpieces.

Land Of The Free/GAMMA RAY
・・・My favorite metal band. Its melodies are just awesome. Alright God (Alright God (アーライ神) is the Japanese metal-lovers’ nickname for Kai Hansen).

Veil Of Elysium/KAMELOT
・・・It’s interesting that this band is from America. Something like gothic + melodic speed metal. I personally think vocalists who can charm their audience with mid-range vocal tones are really talented and Tommy Karevik is a prime example of that.

Silent Jealousy/X
・・・I think it will be too impertinent of me to be explaining this song so I’ll refrain from going into details. However, I will say one thing. I think this song is one that reigns at the top of Japan’s metal and visual kei music scene.

Dokudanjou Beauty/BUCK-TICK
・・・You might find it rather surprising but this is one of my favorite bands. I think Hisashi Imai is the godlike maker of melodies and I feel like visual kei became part of my foundation in music because of BUCK-TICK.

Blackened/METALLICA
・・・I don’t think METALLICA is a band that needs much explanation but even 40 years into its career, when most metal bands are no longer able to release new music with much momentum, METALLICA still continues to release captivating new music even now.

March Of Time/HELLOWEEN
・・・The originator of melodic speed metal and the reason why I got into metal music. I think Michael Kiske was the reason why it came to be that melodic speed metal = high-pitched vocals. He is a vocalist I like so much that anything he sings sounds like a masterpiece to me.

A Little Piece Of Heaven/AVENGED SEVENFOLD
・・・This band is so popular overseas now that they won’t come to Japan… It was a miracle I was able to see them at Namba Hatch. I hope they will come to Japan. In recent years, the band has released mainly mid-tempo songs and while it is difficult to convince metal-lovers with mid-tempo songs, this band has amazingly been able to do so. Not to mention, M. Shadows’s vocals are seriously amazing.

Into The Pit/TESTAMENT
・・・Thrash metal you can sing is really great. I’m a fan of the band but I’m also a fan of the strongest rhythm section consisting of Steve Di Giorgio and Gene Hoglan.

Carry On/ANGRA
・・・A masterpiece of masterpieces in metal music. I selected a Live ver. because I like Edu Falaschi’s vocals. His high-pitched vocals at the final chorus in the second half of the song is amazing. I can’t be put it into words.

Heroes/Masterplan
・・・A mature melodic speed metal band. How deep. Jørn Lande’s vocals are godlike. Michael Kiske also participated in this song and you can enjoy the teasing from two godlike vocalists.

ENDLESS STORY/Galneryus
・・・When you listen to this band, you’ll be left in awe, realizing that humans can actually create such amazing melodies. Out of all of its music, I was the most mesmerized by the melody in this song.

Ascending To Infinity/Luca Turilli's Rhapsody
・・・If music by the original Rhapsody was a vector from metal music to orchestral music, then music by this Rhapsody is probably a vector from orchestral music to metal music. It’s like a movie soundtrack.

SHIROYAMA/SABATON
・・・Power metal by the men among men. They brought a tank to the concert venue and held concerts. If you are interested, check them out on YouTube. The theme of this song is the Boshin War during the Bakumatsu, I think.

Interdimensional Summit/DIMMU BORGIR
・・・Black metal but their fusion of light and darkness is amazing. Furthermore, it’s mind-blowing that the band was able to create a song of this genre and keep it to the 4-minute range.

Thank you for reading this long essay.
Please do try listening to my playlist when you feel like listening to something.
Till next time.