Heath

Heath, born Hiroshi Morie in Amagasaki, Hyogo in 1968, joined X Japan on bass in 1992 and stayed until the band's first ending in 1997, then returned in 2007 and remained with them until his death in October 2023. X Japan is a band that generates mythology faster than music, and almost all of that mythology attaches to the people standing at the front. Heath was not one of them. He was the man holding the floor steady underneath music that was constantly threatening to fly apart, and I think that job is badly underrated by listeners who only hear the top of the mix. He was a composer and singer-songwriter in his own right, which makes the choice to occupy the band's center of gravity rather than its spotlight more deliberate than it might appear. He spent three decades in a role that only becomes audible when it is missing. That is a career worth naming properly, and he is missed.

Name (English)

Heath

Name (Japanese)

HEATH

Born

January 22, 1968 – October 29, 2023

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Monkey

Origin

Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

bassist / composer / singer / songwriter

• Official sitehttp://www.heath.co.jp/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath%20(musician)
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEATH
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1602025

Tags

• Hyōgo Prefecture
• bassist
• composer
• singer

Last updated

2026-08-07

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.