Death is nobody’s friend. It hurts when someone close passes away, even if that someone isn’t someone you know personally. When a celebrity or musician dies, it can cut just the same because it feels like a close friend was taken away.
For fans of the Japanese metal-pop band Babymetal, they know that all too well. Today, January 5th, the group announced through variety of social media pages that Mikio “Ko-Gami” Fujioka, the guitarist of Babymetal, passed away. According to numerous reports, Fujioka died from injuries suffered from what appears to have been an accidental fall off a high observation deck on December 30. Fujioka was 36 years old at the time of his passing.
According to his wife who took to Twitter to break the news, Fujioka’s condition allegedly deteriorated in the week following the fall, before he died while surrounded by his family, including his two daughters.
Known to Babymetal fans as Ko-Gami, The Little God, Fujioka began touring with the girl’s backing band Kami Band in 2013 as one of four guitarists in the live band. Before the guitarist joined Babymetal on the road, he had attended the Musicians Institute of Osaka and performed with both Trick Box and MMM.
The band posted the tragic news on all their social media pages.
In their social media posts, the group concluded with a salute to Allan Holdsworth, a guitar virtuoso who died last year. They ended it with a quote from their song, “The One:” “We are the one. Together. We’re the only one. You are the one. Forever.”
Babymetal is a Japanese heavy metal band formed back in 2010 and are fronted by singers Suzuka Nakamoto as “Su-metal,” Yui Mizuno as “Yuimetal,” and Moa Kikuchi as “Moametal.” The band had been touring with their latest album, Metal Resistance as well as opening for significant portion of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tour this year. They will return to the UK for Download Festival 2018.
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