Saki (musician)

Saki (さき) is a Japanese Heavy Metal musician and songwriter.

Saki's father listened to Western music of the 1970s and 1980s, but she did not fall in love with it until junior high.

She started playing classical and electric guitar in junior high school.

Although a member of the brass band since elementary school, a friend asked her to join the classical guitar club in junior high.

There she played music by Southern All Stars, Spitz and the Beatles and developed her love of Western rock and pop music.

She received her first electric guitar from the father of one of her younger brother's classmates.

Brian May was the first guitarist she became a fan of and Queen + Paul Rodgers were the first musicians she ever saw live.

Saki was inspired to become a musician after seeing footage of Seikima-II's reunion on NHK and wanting to be their guitarist Jail O'Hashi.

In high school she was in a cover band named Kathy & Carol (キャシー＆キャロル), with whom she had her first live performance competing in a contest judged by Seikima-II guitarist Ace Shimizu.

Also in high school, Saki performed with Rolly at an acoustic guitar seminar he held.

From 2009 to 2010, she was a member of the pioneering all-female Heavy Metal band Destrose.

While majoring in Chinese at university, Saki made her professional debut in July 2010 as a member of the all-female rock trio Mixx alongside vocalist Asuka and drummer Jackson.

Record label Exellex released their first two singles, "Agepoyo Let's Go!"

and "Bye 3", on October 13 and the band played their first concert on October 29.

A third single, "Heavy Metal Sweets", was released on January 12, 2011.

All three were composed by Kiyoshi (hide with Spread Beaver).

Saki participated in the Muon no Yaon charity event hosted by Show-Ya on May 7, 2011.

Admission was free but donations were encouraged to aid recovery from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which is the reason the concert used as little electricity as possible.

Mixx ended in May 2011, before the June 8 release of their fourth single "Lil' Devil's Lullaby" and August 10 release of their self-titled album; both of which Saki appears on.

In August 2011, Saki started the Vocaloid trio Re:Maker with bassist Fin and drummer Anri.

She is best known as guitarist of the all-female band Mary's Blood from 2012 until they began an indefinite hiatus in 2022.

She is currently a member of the all-female band Nemophila and one-half of the duo Amahiru with Frédéric Leclercq.

Saki has been sponsored by Killer Guitars for over ten years, and often uses custom-made Fascist models.

In 2021, they released her signature model, the seven-string KG-Fascinator Seven the Empress.

They released the mini-album Neo-Invasion on August 25, 2012, but have not been active since 2013.

In 2012, Saki joined the all-female Heavy Metal band Mary's Blood.

She already knew the members, who were also previously in Destrose, before they asked her to audition when their guitarists were leaving.

She has since become the main composer of songs in the band.

Mary's Blood performed their first international show in Houston, Texas at Anime Matsuri 2013, and then signed to major record label Nippon Columbia for the release of their first album Countdown to Evolution on August 20, 2014.

Readers of Heavy Metal magazine Burrn! voted Mary's Blood second place in its best new artist category.

The band switched to Victor Entertainment for their second album, Bloody Palace on October 7, 2015.

Saki played guitar on two songs from Zwei's 2015 album Neo Masque and two songs from Animetal the Second's 2016 album Blizzard of Animetal the Second.

She also contributed guitar to the song "Frozen Rose" from the 2017 album Astraia by Yashiro, Mary's Blood's live support guitarist.

After taking part in a similar performance at Naon no Yaon 2017, Saki organized the World Guitar Girls Collection project which features several female rock guitarists playing famous songs in instrumental medley format.

World Guitar Girls Collection Vol. 0 took place on July 17, 2017 and featured a performance by five guitarists, but was mainly a Mary's Blood and Cyntia concert.

Mary's Blood switched labels again for their fourth album Revenant, released on April 18, 2018 by Tokuma Japan Communications.

After two studio more albums, Mary's Blood began an indefinite hiatus on April 9, 2022.

Another performance took place at that year's Classic Rock Jam on November 25, but the first standalone World Guitar Girls Collection concert was held on August 19, 2018.

Saki also played on three singles by the horror punk idol group XTeen; 2018's "Eclipse" and "Romanticist", and 2019's "The New Black".

Saki met vocalist Mayu through a mutual friend and was part of a backing band that supported her at an August 2019 live session.