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“Wherever I go, I can't shake the feeling that I'm half different” (translated from the Japanese). That's how coldrain's Masato described himself in an October 2026 interview.
coldrain is a five-piece band formed in Nagoya in 2007. Masato, who has roots in both the United States and Japan, has sung mainly in English.
Masato once said, in an interview with a record store's blog, “I can only write in English.” And yet he put Japanese into a new song in 2025.
“Who's in the band?” “Is Masato half-American?” “What about the new album and tour?” Chances are you're wondering about some of these yourself.
So we went through the band's official site, interviews with the members themselves, articles from music outlets outside Japan, and the information on their YouTube videos.
Subscriber and view counts are figures we measured with the YouTube API on November 1, 2026. We did not watch the videos themselves, so what we say about them stays within their titles and descriptions.
coldrain Profile: Who Are the Members, and How Did the Band Form?
Band name: coldrain
Formed: 2007, Nagoya
Vocals: Masato
Guitar: Y.K.C, Sugi
Bass: RxYxO
Drums: Katsuma
According to the biography on the official site (in Japanese), these five formed the band in Nagoya in 2007 and debuted in 2008 with the single “Fiction.” On February 6, 2018, they played their first-ever headline show at the Nippon Budokan.
An official news post from September 25, 2026, describes the band as “reaching the 20th anniversary next year with the same members since formation” (translated from the Japanese). In other words, the lineup has not changed once since they started.
coldrain apparently began as two bands that became one. In a 2011 online interview with Tower Records, Y.K.C said that “Masato and Katsuma were playing together” (translated from the Japanese), while the three on guitar and bass were in another band.
In the same piece, Masato said that listening to Limp Bizkit made him want to start a band. He also liked the Japanese music scene and listened to Tetsuya Komuro's music.
The official YouTube channel, “coldrain,” was created on August 24, 2017. Its first video was the music video for “ENVY,” released on the 28th of the same month.
As of November 1, 2026, the channel had 251,000 subscribers, 178 videos, and about 141.94 million total views. So the channel is about 10 years younger than the band itself.
Is Vocalist Masato Half-American? His Real Name and Marriage
The official bio introduces Masato as “holding both Japanese and U.S. citizenship” (translated from the Japanese).
He said as much himself in an October 2026 Rolling Stone Japan interview (reprinted on Mynavi News): “I was born and raised half American, half Japanese.”
As for his real name, the British music site Louder gave it as “Masato David Hayakawa” in a 2015 article. His own Instagram display name was written the same way.
However, we could not confirm the kanji spelling of his name from official materials or his own posts.
As for marriage, he reported it himself on Instagram in October 2019: “It's a little late, but I got married!” (translated from the Japanese).
As for his age, we could not confirm his birth date from the official site or his own posts. This may be a bit of a letdown. We did not find the other four members' real names or ages in official materials either.
Why He Said “I can only write in English”
Louder's 2015 article says that Masato, being half-American, “made the decision to sing in English, something quite unique in Japan.”
He described the difficulties that came with that choice in an interview on the blog of the record store Black Screen Records. The piece was published in April 2025, but the conversation dates from around the release of “VENGEANCE.” He says, “Right now, Ninja Kamui hasn't aired in Japan yet,” so it seems this conversation took place before the piece was published.
There, Masato says: “For anime songs especially, people would say, ‘We'd love to use your song, but it has to be in Japanese.’ There were cases where we missed out on tie-in deals because our lyrics weren't in Japanese.”
He goes on: “I used to think, ‘If writing in Japanese came naturally to me, maybe I'd want to do it.’ But in the end, I can only write in English.”
That, he says, “became part of what coldrain is: a Japanese band that sings entirely in English.”
Even so, songs that stayed in English have become anime themes. The music video for “MAYDAY feat. Ryo from Crystal Lake” was released on November 2, 2019, and the description names it the opening theme of the TV anime Fire Force.
As of November 1, 2026, it had 12.44 million views, making it the most-watched video on the channel.
As of November 1, 2026, the second most-watched was the music video for “VENGEANCE,” released on February 11, 2024 (JST), with 6.29 million views. Its description calls it the “Opening theme of ‘Ninja Kamui.’”
According to the Black Screen Records interview, it started with Jujutsu Kaisen. After a coldrain track was used during one of the gunfight scenes in episode 23, director Sunghoo Park told them, “When I do a different anime next, I want coldrain to do the opening.”
“That's when we made a promise,” Masato says. “A year or so later, we got the offer for Vengeance—or rather, for Ninja Kamui.” Anime songs were exactly where they'd been told Japanese was a must, so it's fun to see that, as of November 1, 2026, the channel's No. 1 and No. 2 videos are both English-language songs.
In the same interview, Masato also says, “In the past, as a band, we mostly focused on going overseas and getting people abroad to discover us. But now, we want people to get to know us as part of Japanese culture.”
The Japanese He'd “Always Wanted to Try”: What Happened on CHASING SHADOWS?
On August 6, 2025 (JST), coldrain released the music video for “CHASING SHADOWS.”
In an October 2025 Rolling Stone Japan interview, Masato said this about the song (translated from the Japanese):
“Putting Japanese into ‘CHASING SHADOWS’ is part of it too. I have a form of my own now, to the point where I can say, ‘There is no form.’”
“I felt that the Japanese I'd always wanted to try clicked into place naturally, with nothing feeling off.”
“I can only write in English” and “always wanted to try.” Set side by side, they seem to clash, but he said them at different times. The earlier remark also came with a condition, as something he “used to think”: “If writing in Japanese came naturally to me.”
We have nothing that settles which one reflects how he really feels. Maybe something shifted inside him between the two remarks.
The music site The Concert Chronicles wrote in an August 14, 2025, article: “In a surprise move outside of his usual comfort zone, Masato has written and sung Japanese lyrics for the first time in coldrain's discography.”
But in the three interviews with Masato published in 2025 or later that we read, we found no passage where he calls the Japanese lyrics a “first.” Whether it really is a first for the band is something we have not been able to confirm.
We also can't say which part of the song is in Japanese, since we haven't watched the video.
In the October 2025 Rolling Stone Japan interview, Masato also said that short videos on YouTube sum up coldrain as “the gold standard of loud rock.” Yet ask 10 people, “What band does coldrain sound like?” and, he says, “every one of them picks something a hair different.”
The channel also has content that isn't performance: the eight-part “coldrainTV -ボウリング大会-” (coldrainTV “Bowling Tournament,” our translation), released from February to April 2022.
The title of a short promo video also shows 【英語禁止編】 (“No English Edition,” our translation). We haven't seen the main videos, so we couldn't tell how far the ban on English actually went.
What Is the September 2026 Album OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE?
On September 25, 2026, coldrain released their eighth full-length album, OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE. The official site calls it their first in “about four years.”
The album has 12 songs in two parts: the first half is the five tracks from the EP OPTIMIZE, released in October 2025, and the second half is seven new songs beginning with “EX-HUMANITY.”
Bert McCracken of The Used appears on “POISON,” and Kenta Koie of Crossfaith and AFTERVOID appears on “SAVIOR.”
This video, titled “coldrain - OPTDEMISE,” was released on September 27, 2026.
They apparently changed how they make music, too. Y.K.C says that “in the past, I'd make a demo and send it to everyone,” but that this time they “started by taking in zero-to-one ideas from the members.”
Masato looks back on it: “The five of us would get in one room and build songs from a conversation that started with, ‘What do you want to do?’”
“I don't think there's any other band working that way on the verge of their 20th anniversary (laughs),” he adds.
Masato compares the difference from the EP to armor. OPTIMIZE was “wearing armor, using the skills we've built up over 19 years,” and the new songs are a mode of “taking that armor off and fighting in a T-shirt and jeans.”
The label changed, too. According to the official bio, the band announced a deal with Germany-based Century Media Records in March 2025.
In a 2025 interview, Y.K.C said that “we went independent on management too and set up our own company,” and that they moved on from Warner Music.
“If there's no home”: What Masato Said in an Interview for the New Album
In the October 2026 interview, Masato talks at length about where he belongs.
“I was born and raised half American, half Japanese, so I'm someone who doesn't know where my true home is.”
About the words he sings, too, he says, “I often thought that because I'm half, it wouldn't land with people.”
Even so, he continues, “It's also been years of realizing that it's precisely because we've kept singing in English that we can connect through emotion.”
Elsewhere he says, “Rather than complain that I have nowhere to belong, if there's no home, I'll just keep fighting away games.”
On Japanese music, he says, “Japanese music has been poured into our foundation,” and offers a comparison: “Japanese music becomes the glue that holds it together.”
The idea that a band singing in English rests on a foundation of Japanese music may come as a bit of a surprise. Masato calls this album “the start of a second chapter, both for me and for coldrain.”
What Are the Tour Dates? Plus BLARE FEST. in Hometown Nagoya
The OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE JAPAN TOUR 2026 is 12 shows in 10 locations across Japan. Hokkaido and Tokyo get two shows each, which is why the official “10 locations across Japan” and the show count don't line up.
AFTERVOID has been announced as the opening guest for every show. The first night was scheduled for October 6, 2026, at CLUB CITTA' in Kanagawa.
As of November 1, 2026, the official live page listed these seven shows:
November 1: Kanazawa EIGHT HALL, Ishikawa
November 3: NIIGATA LOTS, Niigata
November 29: SENDAI GIGS, Miyagi
December 1: Namba Hatch, Osaka
December 2: COMTEC PORTBASE, Aichi
December 8 and 9: Toyosu PIT, Tokyo (December 8 is the added show)
On September 25, 2026, the official site said that “tickets sold out in various cities” on the tour and that an added show at Toyosu PIT had also been set.
Kanazawa EIGHT HALL has a bit of recent history. After the Zepp Fukuoka show on September 30, 2025, Masato was diagnosed with acute vocal cord inflammation.
On the official site, the band announced that they were canceling their October 3 appearance at Kanazawa EIGHT HALL (on Crystal Lake's tour) and said they would resume live shows with the Nagoya date on October 8.
A little over a year later, the same venue is on this tour's schedule.
One more thing you can't leave out when talking about coldrain is BLARE FEST., the festival they host in their hometown of Nagoya.
According to the official bio, the first edition took place in February 2020 at Port Messe Nagoya and “drew 40,000 over two days.”
Real Sound puts the second edition in 2023. The third was held on February 7 and 8, 2026, and the band reports that “both days sold out.”
According to Real Sound, Masato said this from the stage on the second day in 2026: “This festival is a gift to the people we were when we first started the band, who thought something like this was impossible” (translated from the Japanese).
The performance of “OPTIMIZE” at BLARE FEST. 2026 was released on the official channel on September 1, 2026.
The man who said “I can only write in English” has delivered anime themes in English and, in a 2025 song, added Japanese.
“If there's no home, I'll just keep fighting away games.” What kind of “second chapter” will Masato and the rest of the original five show us ahead of the 20th anniversary in 2027? We can't wait to find out.
