November 20

The rock continues with today's featured artist, Yoshiki Hayashi, drummer and co-founder of 90's "visual kei" metal band X Japan. "Visual Kei" seems to be another phrase for "Cosplay", while their flavor of metal is the power variety (like Dragonforce.) So basically, Japan X (as opposed to the seminal punk band X) is Japan's answer to Kiss.

Yoshiki's the one in the middle.
As you can see, the Japanese take their hair metal seriously. Mind you, this is 1993, two years after Nirvana came along, when they were at the 'height' of their popularity. (Man, do I crack me up...)
Here's the band's video for "Rusty Nail", which is not a clip job of some other anime. The band just looks like an real life anime superteam...

The band went their separate ways in '97, recording solo albums and forming supergroups. In 2009, the reunited but less hairy Japan X went on their world tour, further complementing their Kiss doppleganger status. Still, I'll take them over the Psycho Circus any day of the week.
Here's a song they recorded for the Japanese release of Saw IV: