Tetsu was born in Osaka in 1969 as Ogawa Tetsuya, but it wasn’t until his fifth or sixth year in school that he developed a love for music. In middle school, Tetsu first met Ken Kitamura, who encouraged him to learn to play bass so they could one day form a band together.
DEAD END, a popular rock band, rapidly became one of Tetsu’s main influences and inspired him to create his own band by the time he started high school. After joining a band — whose name he later changed to Byston Well — Tetsu and his fellow group members mainly performed DEAD END covers.
After some time, however, both the drummer and guitarist of Byston Well quit, leading Tetsu to invite Ken to join, despite the fact that they were attending different schools. Ken agreed, although it was only a matter of time until he also quit the band in order to attend college. After Ken’s departure, Byston Well disbanded.
The dissolution of this band only created a deeper desire in Tetsu to have his own group that could create original music instead of just playing covers. It wasn’t until 1992, however, that Tetsu and Hyde would form L’Arc~en~Ciel.
When L’Arc~en~Ciel went on an indefinite hiatus in 2001, Tetsu kept himself busy by creating a solo project called TETSU69, with which he released several singles and one album.
After L’Arc~en~Ciel reformed in 2003, the band decided to take a second, shorter break from 2005 to 2006. It was during this period that Tetsu contributed to a project started by one of his heroes: MORRIE, the vocalist of DEAD END. The band, called Creature Creature, released three singles and an album with Tetsu on bass, although as of 2009 Hitoki of KUROYUME has taken over the position.
In 2007, Tetsu changed the name of his solo project, dropping the “69” to become just “Tetsu," and released a single called Can't stop believing. He went on to change his stage name again in 2009, re-branding himself as TETSUYA, his given name.
The year 2010 was a busy one for TETSUYA as he performed at the JACK IN THE BOX 2010 event in August and released the maxi-single Roulette as well as two singles: Looking for Light and Lonely Girl. His second solo album, COME ON!, was released on January 5, 2011.
While TETSUYA has been busy with L'Arc~en~Ciel for the past few years, he still occasionally finds time for solo work. In 2012, he released a live DVD compiling three shows from the years 2010 to 2012 and performed two one-man lives called TETSUYA LIVE 2012 "THANK YOU".
