Chapter II: The Tetsu Era: 1992-1994

It all happened somewhere in August of 1992… Guitarists “Mana” and “Közi”, two members of the then-recently-disbanded “摩天楼”, or “Matenrou”, decided to keep making music together, as they shared close musical vesions, and created a new musical project. They decided to name this new band “MALICE MIZER”, which is (poor) French for “Malice and Misery”. These two words are their answer to the philosophical question “What is a human being?”.

Very soon after, maybe in late-August or September, bassist “Yu～ki”, former member of “ZE:RO”, drummer “GAZ”, former member of “DATURA”, and vocalist “Tetsu”, former member of “Ner-vous” joined them, turning MALICE MIZER into a full, five-member band.

Before even performing any lives, they decided to record a first demo tape. Unlike 摩天楼/Matenrou’s two demo tapes, they probably didn’t go to a studio to record the tape, instead recording it at home, since the quality is extremely low, and there’s no vocals on it. Maybe they recorded it before Tetsu joined?

This first demo tape contains so many elements that define MALICE MIZER’s sound throughout their entire career, like a dark ambient atmosphere, polyphonic twin guitars, baroque-classical influences, church bells, elements of horror soundtracks, and a lot of synthesizer. This proves that the foundation created in 1992 was rock-solid.

They decided to name the demo tape “SANS LOGIQUE“, a reference to a song by French singer “Mylène Farmer”, who had a tremendous influence on the band, especially on Mana. Only 100 copies were ever made of SANS LOGIQUE, making it near-impossible to find. Sadly, it has been bootlegged and faked by several people over the decades, and more fakes than real copies exist.

With the foundation of the band laid, a demo tape recorded, and many more songs written, they were ready for lives and band advertising. They did a photo shoot, and started designing, printing and distributing flyers, to show the outside world who they were.

The first live was held on 31 October, 1992, which was also where “SANS LOGIQUE” was distributed to all attendees. 1992 saw four more lives, each time combined with other bands from the time such as “SILVER ROSE” and “RED TAIL CAT”.

MALICE MIZER continued performing small concerts, and were slowly growing a fanbase/following. In 1993, they were noticed by the label Ariola who was looking for small indies bands to each record a song for the Various Artists (Omnibus) CD “BRAINTRASH”, which came out on the 24th of February 1993, featuring the song “SPEED OF DESPERATE” by MALICE MIZER.

Around this time, MALICE MIZER went into the studio to give a proper recording to one of their first songs, “SADNESS”.

But before that they could release the song in any form, drummer GAZ decided that he wanted to leave the band, and after a final live with GAZ on the 15th of March 1993, he went on to join Kneuklid Romance, while at the same time Kneuklid Romance’s drummer KAMI left that band to join MALICE MIZER as a support drummer. So both bands basically exchanged drummers.

MALICE MIZER continued to do small concerts in march and april of 1993, and on a concert on the 5th of April 1993, they released the song “SADNESS” as a one-track demo tape that was distributed to everyone present. Because GAZ recorded the drums, but wasn’t present anymore, he got credited in the lyrics insert as “THANKS FOR GAZ”.

The “SADNESS” demo tape is another unfindable MALICE MIZER item: Just a few real copies exist, probably also around 100 or even less, and many more bootlegs/fakes exist, who have lower printing and audio quality.

Shortly after, still in April, drummer KAMI officially joined MALICE MIZER, as a real member instead of a support drummer. He changed his name from KAMI (in Kneuklid Romance) to UKYO (in MALICE MIZER), but would soon change it back to Kami again.

MALICE MIZER had now built up enough of a following that they could hold their first tour, called the “Se・duc・tive Tour 93′”, which had 7 dates, all in august of 1993.

On the 12th of October of that year, MALICE MIZER held their 1st anniversary concert at 目黑鹿鳴館 (Meguro Rockmaykan), and distributed a demo tape, “THE 1TH ANNIVERSARY“, to everyone who came. It contains the same recording of the song SADNESS as the previous demo tape, but also a live recording of Lafflesia, recorded a month earlier, on the 13th of September.

MALICE MIZER continued to play many gigs the rest of 1993 and in 1994, and became more and more recognised in the indies visual-kei scene, which gave them enough budget to go to the studio to record their first mini-album, “memoire“, which released on the 24th of July, 1994, containing six tracks. 3000 copies were pressed, each with a unique serial number, and it all sold out during pre-orders!

The release of their debut mini-album got coupled with a tour, Cher de memoire Tour 1994, which contained 15 dates. The final concert of this tour was sold out. During this time, “memoire” got a second press, this time without serial numbers, which also sold out.

After the tour, they returned to the studio to expand memoire… Sadly, only one more song was recorded, but it is one of their best songs, バロック (Baroque). “memoire” was now repressed for the third and last time, with that extra song, but also bonusses such as a slipcase and extra photo book, and was named “memoire DX“.

Around this time, MALICE MIZER’s popularity was rising so dramatically that they held yet another tour, the Cher de memoire II ONEMAN Tour 1994, whose last date was on the 27th of Deember, 1994…

…And Tetsu decided to quit the band after that concert. This would mark the end of MALICE MIZER’s Tetsu era, and the band went on a break for a while, searching for a new vocalist.