Ukyou Kamimura
(1973 - 1999)

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General Details

Name:	Ukyou Kamimura
Nick Name:	Kami
Gender:	Male
Age:	26 years old
Lived:	Thursday, 1 February 1973 - Monday, 21 June 1999

My Story

Kami was the drummer for the Japanese band Malice Mizer.

He was born in the city of Ibaraki, Japan on February 1. Little is known about his personal life, but his fans often described him as very kind-hearted and gentle. He died at the age of 26 of a subarachnoid hemorrhage.

As a child in elementary school, Kami was very much interested in traditional Japanese brush writing and using an abacus (Soroban), therefore studying these fondly. However his affection for tennis was also present and a love for music began to develop within him, often sitting alone in the music room after school and listening to records for hours on end. His first interest in playing his own tunes was in his fifth year at school when he began to practice on a drum kit. Although he was unusually talented at this, Kami left and didn't return to drumming until early high school. Early influences of Kami included many of the British New Wave bands, including Culture Club and Duran Duran. Between this time, Kami devoted his after-school hours to practicing his favourite hobby, tennis, as he was fond of exercise

At the beginning of his high school years, Kami was invited into a friend's band. Initially, his interest was in being a guitarist. After practicing for a short time, he decided that his talent for this was surpassed greatly by his drumming skills, returning to this shortly thereafter.

Kami's fondness for drumming began to evolve, and a personal drum kit became a necessity. Thus, he took up a part time job and subsequently saved up the necessary money. Due to his newly found adoration for his destined instrument, Kami practiced approximately 5 hours a day on weekdays and all day on Sundays, hastily developing his technique. As a result of this practice, he made a decision to go professional. Realizing that he could not achieve a large amount of success in his current high school band after graduation, Kami came to the conclusion that this success he sought could only come in the national capital, Tokyo. Upon leaving his previous group and moving, Kami spent a brief time in a punk band before taking a liking to the visual kei style. As a result, he joined an up and coming musical group called Kneuklid Romance. Performing mainly live shows, Kami soon attracted the attention of Yu~ki, a bassist from a fellow visual kei band, Malice Mizer. Due to Malice Mizer's previous drummer, Gaz, leaving (who would ironically shortly thereafter join Kneuklid Romance), the band was very keen on introducing Kami to their style of music. He was reluctant at first, although a phone call from one of their guitarists, Mana, persuaded him. Therefore, Kami began to play unofficially for the band over six months as a support player. However, soon after, the other members of Malice Mizer agreed upon recruiting him as an entirely new member of the group. Upon Kami's recruitment into the group, Malice Mizer released their debut album, Memoire, his first inclusion in a publicly released album. This album proved to be a mild success and shortly thereafter, their lead singer, Tetsu, parted ways with the group.

Kami was often regarded as the silly and over the top person of the group, nicknamed 'Monkey Man' by Közi due to his constant jumping around and childish nature. Despite this, in interviews he was often very timid and hardly talked much. He once stated that he was very quiet and trusting, joking that it was easy to cheat him.

Kami was a person of many hobbies and interests, his main being tennis, which he had played since his early childhood, as well as buying lottery tickets when bored, he also enjoyed cleaning. He also was fond of collecting perfumes and shampoos, a hobby that was shared by fellow group member Yu~ki, which often led to them trading and recommending various products to each other. Kami has said that he could not sleep without pitch darkness, and that he slept with a pillowcase made of old Malice Mizer costumes.

Kami held a fascination for the imagery and symbolism of the butterfly. He had at least three tattoos on his arm, all of which were butterflies. He was also known to have bought anything he saw that had to do with butterflies.

On June 21, 1999, a subarachnoid hemorrhage killed Kami at the age of just 26 years old. In the months before his death, Kami had taken to composing music, writing two complete songs, 'Unmei no Deai' and 'Mori no naka no tenshi'. These would later be released on the memorial album 'Shinwa'.He also left one incomplete song Bara no Souretsu, released on the Beast of Blood single.

As for the members of Malice Mizer, Gackt wrote two songs in memory of Kami that were both released on his Mars album: "Emu~for my dear~" and "U+K". Közi and Yu~ki dedicated their co-written song "Memento" (2004) to Kami.

Even though Kami is gone lets not mourn his passing. Instead lets celebrate the life he lived and remember the good times he had. He will forever be in our hearts and thoughts so therefore he will never die. Feel free to upload pictures, share memories in the tribute section, leave a tribute, share what made you care about him, etc. Lets celebrate the life he had and the great person he was.

If you have any comments, questions, anything please send them to gonetoosoonkami@gmail.com and one of us will respond as soon as we can. Thank you and I hope you all enjoy this page and we are always open to suggestions on making it better.