Important Information

Lazy

Lazy (????, Reiji, stylized as LAZY) is a Japanese rock band originally founded in 1977 by young classmates Hironobu Kageyama, Hiroyuki Tanaka and Akira Takasaki. The three founders soon recruited, from their own school, drummer Munetaka Higuchi and keyboard player Shunji Inoue to complete the line-up. The name Lazy was taken from Deep Purple's song of the same name and the music the new band wanted to play was orientated towards hard rock. Managers and producers instead envisioned the young musicians as ideal prototypes for pop icons and created, through the use of monikers, costumes and well-balanced singles, a successful "boy band" for the Japanese teenage market. In contrast with these decisions, the band members started writing and recording their own music, slowly changing the sound of the band from easy-listening pop rock to hard rock. A growing dissatisfaction for the direction the band had taken, and the need to express their musical ability, caused Lazy to split-up in 1981.Each member became known on their own, mainly in the soundtrack recording business, or formed other bands like Loudness. Lazy reformed in 1997 for a new album and a tour, and intermittently in the following years to do several projects together. In September 2006, bassist Tanaka died of heart failure. On November 30, 2008, drummer Higuchi died at the age of 49. In 2009 they recorded a new single version of "Kanjite Knight" (???Knight), together with Kageyama's JAM Project, for the 2009 anime Shin Mazinger Shogeki! Z Hen, performed under the name "Ultimate Lazy for Mazinger". Their most recent project was the 2011 single "Reckless" for the second animated film in the Towa no Quon series.