Midori Tatematsu

Midori Tatematsu (立松 緑) is a Japanese Heavy Metal musician and fitness competitor.

She was previously in the all-female band Gekijo Metalicche from 2013 to 2016.

Midori began weight training in November 2021 during a hiatus in Lovebites' activities, and has since earned two silver medals in fitness competitions.

Midori started to learn piano at around two or three years of age and electric organ at eight.

She moved to Kyoto when she entered university and gave up both instruments but started to learn guitar at 20.

Midori is a graduate of Musicians Institute Japan in Osaka.

It was there that she began to think about becoming a professional musician.

She liked and played a variety of genres at the music school, mainly metal and technical music.

Her first time playing electric guitar on a stage was with a brass band.

Eventually, after trying various things, she decided she wanted to be in a metal band.

Midori made her professional debut as a member of the all-female metal band Gekijo Metalicche (激情★めたりっちぇ).

The Osaka-based trio was formed in June 2013 at the suggestion of composer Yoshingwie Masamsteen, who was a classmate of Midori's at MI Japan.

He was a fan of all-girl bands, but, as he is a man, told Midori to form one and he would provide the music.

She agreed and recruited vocalist Migaki Nishino and drummer Tsubasa "Zen" Zenta through contacts at MI Japan.

After meeting Migaki, whom Midori said looked like a member of AKB48 and sang in a moe voice, they decided to combine that vocal and visual style with metal.

Takayuki Murakami of Barks described Gekijo Metalicche's music as an aggressive sound based on Heavy Metal and featuring death voices and shouts, but in an original concept that combines it with loli voices, technical playing, and cute visuals like idols.

As such, they were labeled gap moe, referring to the "gap" or difference between their idol-like appearance and intense musicality.

Because they are Japanese Zen did not want to use English in their band's name, therefore it is a mix of kanji and hiragana.

She coined "metalicche" as a cute version of "metal", Midori added "gekijo" which means "passion", and Migaki wanted to add a "★".

Gekijo Metalicche had their first concert on August 1, 2013, which was also the release date of their first single, "Imi no Hate/Sekai 'kan'".

The band's second single, "Hissatsu! Reversible", was released on February 2, 2014, and followed by the mini-album I Yassaaa on September 6, 2014.

"Mirai Antai", their third single and last release on an indie label, was released on February 11, 2015.

The band then signed with major record label King Records and released Upgrade (Kari), their first and only studio album, on May 13, 2015.

She is best known as a guitarist of the all-female band Lovebites since their founding in 2016.

Gekijo Metalicche disbanded on February 12, 2016, after Midori and Tsubasa decided to leave the band.

Later that year, Midori was announced as a member of the newly formed all-female Heavy Metal band Lovebites.

She already knew bassist Miho, drummer Haruna, and guitarist Miyako, but the four chose vocalist Asami based on a demo she made.

They had their first concert on November 18, 2016, at Tsutaya O-West as part of the Girls Band Next Generation event.

Their debut EP, The Lovebites EP, was released in May 2017 via Victor Entertainment.

Miho explained that it was more of a demo to get the band signed, but the label liked it so much they had it properly mastered and released.

It was released in the United Kingdom and in North America later that year.

At the time, Midori was the only official guitarist in the band.

Support musician Miyako officially became their second guitarist in August 2017, and they released their first full-length album Awakening from Abyss that October.

Lovebites played their first gigs outside Japan in London, England at the end of November 2017, and won the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award for Best New Band in 2018.

Over the next two years, the group released an EP and two studio albums while continuing to perform overseas, including major festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Download Festival, and Graspop Metal Meeting.

After releasing their third EP Glory, Glory, to the World, Lovebites had a year-long hiatus between the departure of Miho in August 2021 and the joining of Fami in October 2022.

Their comeback album, February 2023's Judgement Day, became their highest-charting record to date when it reached number 5 on both the Oricon and Billboard Japan charts.

Midori provided music to the 2020 video game No Straight Roads.

Midori is known for her technical proficiency and the use of various techniques in her guitar playing, such as legato, string skipping, sweep picking, tapping, eight-finger tapping and use of vibrato arms.

Andrew Daly of Guitar World wrote that, "Guitar hero status seems to have come naturally to Tatematsu, whose feats of death-defying alternate picking and neoclassical arpeggios are routinely astonishing."