Tak Matsumoto

Tak Matsumoto
B'z lead guitarist and composer
Background information
Origin	Japan
Genres	Rock, Hard Rock, Pop Rock, Blues, Jazz, Dance, Adult Rock, Metal
Years	1988–Present
Labels	BMG Japan (1988-1995) Vermillion Records (1995-Present) House of Strings (2004-Present)

Tak Matsumoto (松本孝弘) is a Japanese guitarist, composer, producer, and songwriter best known as one of the two members of B'z. He was born March 27, 1961 in Toyonaka, Osaka. With over two decades spent at the top of the Japanese music scene as its foremost guitarist, he is widely recognized and associated with guitar music in his home country and regularly tops polls in the Japanese music community as the country's greatest guitar ambassador. In addition to his many releases as B'z, he has also had a successful solo career in addition to working with musicians from all over the world.

General

Taks style is influenced by many famous artist from all around the world. His jazz education and devotion for blues helped him create his very own brand of music, now known as "Kansai Blues".  During 1980 he was working for the TM-Network as a session musician and his musical career began to grow. The starting solo careers in Japan enables Tak to make his move and release his first solo hit "Thousand Wave". After this episode he started his own band "B'z". In 2004 he formed the Tak Matsumoto Groud (TMG).

In November 2004 Tak Matsumoto established his own Label "House of Strings", a label for guitarist and all kind of string-artists. Earlier that year he founded the Tak Matsumoto Group.

Career

Tak's career started at the moment he entered High School and buying his first Gibson guitar. At that moment he went from listening to playing by practising for ten hours a day. For a while he kept impressing his teachers before becoming a session musician. After some session- and solo-work Takahiro decided to found a band. This project of him was come to flower as B'z. One as the most well-known Japanese Rock-Bands.

Solo Carrer

His time as a session musician was during the 1980s in collaboration with the TM-Network and Mari Hamada. This effort was to bloom into his outstanding solo-career that started with the emerging of many solo-artist all through japan in the mid and late 80's. During his session-musician time he was quite unhappy because all projects he worked on didn't have enough guitars in them. "Thousand Wave" and one of his finest work "99" with Tetsuya Komuro was his step-stone into a bright solo-career, but this also showed him that it still wasn't what he was looking for.

Even while performing with B'z Tak was never tired of trying out new solo projects. In 2002 he wrote and contributed two songs for Misa's album "Kiss the Sky". Misa had discovered his solo work and asked Tak to work with her. Busy as he is he had a concert with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra at Suntory Hall and later on recorded those songs under his own label to release them as the first House of Strings CD.

In 2010 after the B'z "Ain't no Magic" Tour he had some sessions with famous guitar-artist Larry Carlton. This collaboration work started in 2007, when Rick Gembar suggested to Larry Carlton to join Matsumoto. Both guitarists got together and it nearly took a year to get started. In 2008 Takahiro has already written some songs which he showed to Larry.

B'z

In the late 1980s Matsumoto decided to start his own band and started looking out for a vocalist. After receiving a demo-tape from a session musician named Koshi Inaba he set up a meeting recorded rendition of "Let it be" by the Beatles. During this session the amp blew. This doomed meeting was to bloom into B'z because even of that small incident Tak knew that he found his vocalist. The musical style of B'z is a various combination of many styled, mostly influenced by Taks love for Blues, Jazz and Classic while Koshi brings in the Rock'n'Roll.

Tak Matsumoto Group

All during 2004 Tak was working on his TMG project. Together with Eric Martin on Vocal, Jack Blades on Bass and Brian Tichy on drums, Tak Matsumoto kept on following his very on brilliant brand of music. Tak produced the album and wrote the songs while Eric Martin and Jack Blade wrote the lyrics. It lead up to "Oh Japan ~ Our Time Is Now ~". The recording was held in Taks studio in LA and therefore he went back and forth to record this album. After a couple of months, on June 23th the album was released, it mixed rock and oriental sounds and topped the chart on the first week.

Discography

Albums

1. Thousand Wave (May 21, 1988)
2. Wanna Go Home (April 22, 1992)
3. Knockin' "T" Around (April 14, 1999)
4. Dragon From The West (February 27, 2002)
5. 華 (Hana) (February 27, 2002)
6. Thousand Wave Plus (October 7, 1996)
7. Ultraman Original Soundtrack (July 20, 2005)
8. Strings of My Soul (June 20, 2012)

Singles

1. '88 ~ Love Story/Love Ya (September 25, 1991) (8th in Oricon)
2. #1090 Thousand Dreams (March 18, 1992) (3rd in Oricon) - Music Station opening theme
3. The Changing (March 25, 1999) (3rd in Oricon)
4. 異邦人 (Ihoujin) (August 27, 2003); features Zard (2nd in Oricon)
5. イミテイション・ゴールド [Imitation Gold] (October 8, 2003); features Mai Kuraki and Nakamura Yuri of GARNET CROW (1st in Oricon)

Collaboration Work

1. Rock'n Roll Standard Club (May 15, 1996)
2. The Hit Parade (November 26, 2003)
3. House Of Strings (with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra - November 24, 2004)
4. Theatre Of Strings (October 19, 2005)
5. Take Your Pick (with Larry Carlton - June 2, 2010)

Guitars

Not just that his first guitar ever was a Gibson, he also had the privilege of becoming the first japanese signature artist for Gibson. After being introduced by Steve Vai, a long term and good friend of Matsumoto, he got his first Signature Model in 1999. He sure made up for that Honor by snatching the most signature models made by Gibson. Until now he has a total of seven. While most of the Gibson Signature models are only available in Japan, Epiphone took up the effort to produce the models for the US market.
TODO: List of other guitars Tak owns/plays.

Hardware

Over the years Tak Matsumoto has collected and received many different Hardware-Setups for his Live-Concerts and recordings. Commonly known are his Signature Guitars which he plays during Live-Gyms since 1999. In 2013 Dunlop has awarded him his own Dunlop-Cry-Baby as a Signature Model named Tak Cry Baby.