Pride of mind




Data: (from "hyp No. 5") (original)
Name:福山敦司 (FUKUYAMA Atsushi)
Birth date:5/16/19XX
Birthplace:Mie
Blood type:AB
Hobbies, skills:Getting in touch with nature
Favorite artists:Depeche Mode, Steven Arnold, Marc Almond, Honami Suzuki
Favorite tobacco and drinks:Castor Mild
brandy, wine
Main type of instrument used:My own Atsushi Fukuyama model
Goal:To be happy
Previous bands:I forget

Known affiliations:
MORGUE (c. 1990-1991)
Atsushi Fukuyama's previous band (name unknown)
Pride of mind (1992-1996)
Atsushi Fukuyama's solo unit (name unknown, released one demo tape "ランドスケイプ" ("LANDSCAPE"))
BRAND NEW LOVER (session band w/ Malice Mizer's Közi on 11/8/1996)
Recall (c. 1999-2001)
Affiliated with INSECT ART RAYS, credited on Közi's solo single "Memento", 12/1/2004
Performed in session band "NUMOR:GUE", 10/21/2023

Atsushi Fukuyama was the leader of Pride of mind; while Masaki Haruna was in charge of lyrics and vocals, he wrote the music and arranged it.
His first known band, sometime in his teenage years, was MORGUE - around 1990 or perhaps slightly earlier. Little is known about them other than a member lineup and one photo featuring some rather astonishing hairdos (Fukuyama himself being the one in the back left, wearing the fishnet gloves). A selection of their music has been uploaded to Youtube; it appears that "ATSUSHI", as he was then known, was purely a second guitarist at the time, all music and lyrics having been written by bandleader Taki.
According to reminiscences by drummer Vaba (archive), guitarists Fukuyama and Taki left MORGUE to start a new band that would be more like Soft Ballet; however this band appears to have done little or no live activity before breaking up. The remaining MORGUE members briefly continued in a successor band called EIN DOMMCOPF.
It is further known that Atsushi Fukuyama and Masaki Haruna played together in a previous band - perhaps the abovementioned Soft Ballet-inspired band - before forming Pride of mind together. However, no recordings of any of these early bands are known to exist.
Fukuyama-san was apparently the originator of Pride of mind's musical style, being the only one of the trio originally acquainted with the music of the 1980s. Atsushi is officially listed on the "Systems of Romance" album as playing guitar and keyboard. Little more is known about him. He is known to have been friends with Közi of Malice Mizer, and played in a session band called "BRAND NEW LOVER" with him at the "Higeki no bansan" event on 11/8/1996.
After Pride of mind's disbandment in early 1996, Fukuyama made an attempt at continuing the band with a new vocalist, Yusuke "Dada" Gotoh (with whom he apparently shared a mutual acquaintance); however their collaboration proved short-lived. Following Pride of mind's second and final disbandment, Fukuyama next appeared in public some three years later, as the leader of a new electronic duo, Recall. However, this project seems to have made a negligible impact on the musical world; nearly nothing has been preserved in terms of photos, music, or reportage.
Several years later, Fukuyama-san reappeared again in the credits of Közi's solo single "Memento", released on 12/1/2004. In October 2012, Dada announced that he and Atsushi Fukuyama would be revisiting Pride of mind's unreleased song "ALONE" (their masterpiece, supposedly); however as is quite often the case with Dada's projects, nothing ever came of it. It is unclear whether Fukuyama even knew about this in the first place.

As a postscript, the one-time bandleader of Pride of mind made a brief return to the stage in October 2023, in a sort of MORGUE reunion session band called "NUMOR:GUE", performing 3 songs alongside drummer Vaba and various other obscure personages. There are indications that he was involved in the songwriting process, however it is unlikely that any audio will ever surface from this small event.


A rare sample of Atsushi Fukuyama's handwriting, scanned from
Imperfection vol. 10. Addressed to the publisher, in translation it reads:

I am in your debt.
A. Fukuyama
Pride of mind
    GUTS!!!