Ruki, Uruha, and Reita (all former members of both Ma'die Kussë and Kar+te=zyAnose), and Aoi and Yune (former members of Mervilles and Artia) formed the band named Gazette (ガゼット, in Japanese) in March 2002.[2]
Signed to Matina, they released their first single—"Wakaremichi"—and a VHS video in April. By September they had released two more singles and another video, headlining a show for the first time in October.
In early 2003, Yune decided to leave the band, and he was replaced by Kai, formerly of Mareydi†Creia.[2] Shortly after, they signed with the PS Company label, and in May released their first mini-album, Cockayne Soup. They started their first tour, with the band Hanamuke, and along with the tour, the bands collaborated on two songs. A second tour followed, with the band Vidoll, and the Nov 2003 issue of Cure featured both bands on the cover.[3]
In early December they played a co-headlining show with Deadman. On December 28 they performed at Fool's Mate magazine's Beauti-fool's Fest which was later released on DVD.
On January 16, 2004 they recorded a solo performance at the Shibuya-AX, which was released on DVD as Tokyo saihan ~Judgement Day~.[2] On March 30, 2004 they released their Madara mini-album, which reached #2 on the Oricon Indie Charts. Madara was followed in May by a companion DVD, which included six music videos and an in-the-studio documentary. The same month, Gazette was featured in Shoxx magazine's Expect Rush III, a catalogue of independent Visual Kei artists.[4] A second live DVD, Heisei Banka, was released in August.[2] During September and October they toured with fellow PS Company bands Kra and BIS. Their debut album, Disorder, was released in October, and made it to the top 5 of the indies Oricon Daily Charts.
The band spent the remainder of 2004 and 2005 touring extensively, releasing Gama (another mini album) in August.
In 2005 the band released their first Major single, Cassis, in December.[5]
Starting 2006 with a name change—from Gazette (written in Japanese characters) to The Gazette (written in English)—they released Nil, their second full-length album, on February 8, 2006,[2] and embarked on another Japanese tour, ending at the venue Nippon Budokan.[6] That July, The Gazette performed at the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Germany, their first show outside of Asia. The concerts were arranged in conjunction with the AnimagiC anime and manga convention.[7]
Two more singles, "Regret" and "Filth in the Beauty", were released in October and November, with "Filth in the Beauty" peaking at #5 in the Oricon charts.[8] They finished out the year with another Japanese tour, dubbed the Decomposition Beauty Tour.
The "Hyena" single was released on February 7, 2007 and peaked at #3 on the Oricon charts.[8]
"Stacked Rubbish" was released at 2PM Japanese time on July 4th, 2007. The day after the release, on July 5th, the limited edition of the album reached the #2 spot on the Oricon charts. The release of this album is to be followed by a promotional tour from July 15th to September 9th. In October, The Gazette will start their first European tour that will lead them for example to France and Finland. A song from Stacked Rubbish, "Chizuru", is to be included on the soundtrack for the film Apartment. Most of the other songs featured on the Stacked Rubbish album were previously released as singles; songs such as, "Filth In The Beauty", "Hyena" and "Regret".
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