TETSU (MUSICIAN)

'Tetsuya Ogawa' (born October 3, 1969, in Osaka, Japan), known professionally as 'tetsu', is the frontman and bassist of the Japanese rock band L'Arc~en~Ciel. He also does backup vocals and has written some of the band's songs, including 'Link', 'READY STEADY GO', 'finale', 'Driver's High' and 'Pieces'. In the band, his name is 'tetsu' (All in lower case).
Since 2001, he had solo work under the name 'TETSU69' (Number 69 is his birth year). As of 26th November 2006 he changed his solo name to 'tetsu'.

Contents

Playing Style

Solo Work

Singles

Albums

Others

Other Side Projects

External links

Playing Style

Tetsu is renowned for his melodic style of bass playing. Many of L'Arc~en~Ciel's songs involve Tetsu playing counter melodies with ken (guitarist of L'Arc~en~Ciel) while still holding a groove with the drums. Tetsu's songwriting can be seen as more 'poppish' as compared to ken's who has a heavier and sometimes bluesy approach. Slides and hammer-ons/pull offs are frequently used in his playing.
Tetsu plays with a pick most of the time, but uses fingerstyle occasionally when the song calls for it, like in 'winter fall' and 'jojoushi'. In a few songs Tetsu can be heard using the slap style of playing such as in the Laruku song 'THE NEPENTHES'. Tetsu has also used distortion such as in the song 'STAY AWAY.' Tetsu has also been known to play briefly with a banana (which he whips to the audience afterwards) prior to the beginning of a song in some concerts.
Tetsu primarily plays 4 string bass, but is known to occasionally use 6 strings in L'Arc~en~Ciel songs such as Neo Universe, Time Goes on, Perfect Blue, etc. Recently, he has switched to 5 strings for his side project Creature Creature.
Even though Tetsu is endorsed by ESP Guitars and has several models, he used his Zon bass for most of his recording works. Tetsu is an avid collector of basses and guitars. He owns over 120 basses and more than 20 guitars.

Solo Work

Singles

★ Under TETSU69

#	Information
1st	'''wonderful world ／ TIGHTROPE''' ★ Released: July 18, 2001
2nd	'''蜃気楼 (Shinkirou)''' ★ Released: August 28, 2002
3rd	'''15 1/2 (Fifteen half)''' ★ Released: October 23, 2002
4th	'''WHITE OUT ～memory of a color～''' ★ Released: February 13, 2003

★ Under tetsu

#	Information
5th	'''Can't stop believing''' ★ Released: March 14, 2007 ★ Oricon Top 200 Weekly Peak: #9 ★ Weeks on Chart: N/A

Albums

#	Information
1st	'''Suite November''' ★ Released: November 20, 2002

Others

#	Information
1st	'''[LOVE for NANA～Only 1 Tribute～(REVERSE)]''' ★ Released: November 20, 2002

Other Side Projects

'Creature Creature' [formed in 2005]



Vocal. MORRIE [ex Dead-End]

Bass. tetsu

Guitar. MINORU [(Murohime Shin) ex THE MAD CAPSULE MARKETS, DIE IN CRIES, BLOODY IMITATION SOCIETY]

Released three singles on June 19th, 2006:

『Red』

『風の塔』 (Kaze no tou) music by tetsu

『パラダイス』 (PARADISE) music by MORRIE and tetsu

Creature Creature released their first album on August 30th, 2006, called 'Light & Lust'.

External links

★ Official site of tetsu (2006.11~)

★ Official site of L'Arc~en~Ciel

★ Ki/oon Sony Music Japan of L'Arc~en~Ciel

★ DANGER CRUE INC. - Originated company of L'Arc~en~Ciel

★ Official site of Creature Creature

★ WARNER MUSIC JAPAN of TETSU69 (2002-2003)