Yoshiki Hayashi, better known as Yoshiki, is a Japanese man of all trades. He is a musician, songwriter, composer, producer, and co-founder of X Japan and the Last Rockstars, where he plays the drums, piano, and is the band’s main songwriter.
Alongside this, he has worked in the fashion industry and with many other musical projects. Now, he’s added another string to his bow in the form of Yoshiki: Under The Sky, which represents his directorial debut. Under The Sky is a feature-length documentary film which sees Yoshiki getting personal about his struggles with Covid-19, his health, and his relationships.
Collaborating with the likes of Sarah Brightman, Nicole Scherzinger, Lindsey Stirling, The Chainsmokers and many more, Under The Sky is by no means a small affair. In fact, Yoshiki describes it as being the most defining moment of his career so far. “I was thinking about doing a collaboration with artists around the world,” he explains, “Then Covid happened and we said, maybe this might be the perfect timing.” Talking more about how Under The Sky came to exist
he explains, “People are scared of what’s going to be happening, you know, of this world. I didn’t cross the line in terms of safety, I was very careful about it.”
He explains that it’s important, as an artist, to “spread love and support each other”. Yoshiki continues on to state that pre-pandemic, we as a society took the freedom and the life we had for granted, but that his positivity and hope got him through Covid-19. “I’m a positive thinking person, so whatever happens we have a reason,” he says, “Every single moment that we went through, that we are going through, we are going through a kind of miracle,” he smiles. “That was making me realise how valuable every single moment was. It was a wake up call, in terms of our life.”
Under The Sky delves into Yoshiki’s personal experiences with asthma as a child, and pain through death and loss, and his fans connect to him on this basis. “My life has been very uneasy,” he tells us, “It’s not smooth. I just went through a lot of pain and struggle, but at the same time I decided to talk about it. It’s just me talking about the hardship I went through, supporting people.” As an organic result of this, Under The Sky feels full of hope through music, and the joy that music can bring. The artists Yoshiki collaborated with on Under The Sky also bring him hope, too. “I’m very grateful to be working with those [artists],” he says. “I wanted to have this film, in terms of music, to be eclectic and diversified in terms of genre”, he elaborates, “So somebody like The Chainsmokers, they are beyond EDM, so then somebody like St. Vincent – rock, Sarah Brightman, I’m working towards classical music”. This mix of genres also means that fans around the world can relate to the material, the music, and the locations displayed throughout the film. That global connection also helped to give Yoshiki more direction through the work. “The pandemic hit in not only one location, so connecting people through music, in pretty much the entire world, is a very big concept,” he explains. “That also gave me strength, so gave my fans strength as well.” It seems like Yoshiki’s directorial debut has been a resounding success, as sold-out premieres across the UK, the USA, Japan, and Europe have all been underway. “I was not expecting this,” he humbly tells us, “The reaction I’m getting from not only my fans, but amazing directors around the world is very overwhelming.” Hopefully this is only the start of yet another new creative outlet for Yoshiki, as he says, “It’s opening up a lot of doors for me, so I’m getting out to direct some films already. I wasn’t expecting that. That’s amazing.”
If there’s one thing Yoshiki wants us to take from Under The Sky it’s that message of human unity. “Can we support each other? Help each other?” he ponders, before concluding “The message of this film is like, we can spread love, we can support each other, especially being a musician, we did it through music, and conveyed the message through music to do this kind of thing.” Yoshiki’s positivity radiates through him as he concludes, “Anything is possible. Even though you’re going through a lot of difficulty, we can still accomplish it.”
Listen to the full interview below:
