Yoshiki, the drummer and leader of one of Japan’s biggest rock bands X Japan, has has shown his incredible generosity by pledging to donate $100,000 dollars to victims of the recent spate of hurricanes in the Caribbean. This donation will be to MusicCares, which is a charity associated with the Recording Academy. He appeared with Jennifer Leff (LCSW Senior Director, Health & Human Services), Nick Cucci (Executive Director, New York Chapter of The Recording Academy) and Adam Block (President of Sony Legacy Recordings).

The donation is intended to aid victims in the United States and its territories like Puerto Rico. Even better, 100% of the donation goes directly to the victims. States like Texas, Louisiana and Florida are among the hardest hit, after a series of unprecedented storms rocked the Gulf Coast and Caribbean Islands.

Yosiki, a native of Japan, explained the donation to victims in the United States – “I’m from Japan but I live in America,” he said. “When Japan got hit by the Tsunami Earthquake in 2011, the people of America supported Japan.”

He describes being moved by the outpouring of support from the United States during that devastating time. He also added that he’d like to keep supporting America as much as possible and his heart goes out to those affected by the disasters. In addition to the donation ceremony, the event included a question and answer period with Yoshiki and a screening of the award-winning documentary We Are X.

mxdwn recently sat down with Yoshiki for an in-depth interview during SXSW 2016. More recently, the excellent official soundtrack for We Are X was released, a great companion to the captivating rock-doc. The OST also features a newly released reworking of the sopn “La Venus.”

The musicians is an unstoppable force, even trying to record a song while he was hospitalized for an artificial disc replacement surgery.

Yoshiki is currently working on the first new X Japan album in 21 years. Along with the band, they are putting “the finishing touches” on the record, which should be see worldwide release in 2018.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat