Tak Matsumoto
In the late 1980s, Tak Matsumoto had been extremely busy as a guitarist with various recording sessions and live performances, including for Tetsuya Komuro's TM Network and Mari Hamada. On 21 May 1988, Matsumoto released his first solo album, "Thousand Wave", with positive critical reception. However, wanting to start a band he searched for band members, particularly a singer. Eventually, through his management he listened to the demo tape of vocalist Koshi Inaba in 1988, who would later found B'z with him. At the first session they played The Beatles "Let It Be" and "Oh! Darling". At the time, Japan's music scene was experiencing a band boom. With all the digital sounds in mainstream music, the only sounds that Inaba and Matsumoto felt could not be expressed and replicated were the guitar and the human voice. As a result, they decided to keep it a two-man unit. On 21 September 1988, B'z made their debut with their first album, "B'z", and single, "Dakara Sono Te o Hanashite ()". Their music was very much a product of its times, with synthesizers and samplers sharing equal time with Matsumoto's guitar, producing an experimental sound, very different from their later well-known hard rock sound.