Although they got their start as a visual kei band, the members of Dir en Grey seem to be irked being associated with the term in some later interviews. Speaking of the change in their appearance, Kaoru said "Eventually, we felt that dressing like we used to onstage put up a wall between us and the audience, so we stopped wearing the kind of makeup we did before." However, he said they still occasionally wear makeup, just not as much. Toshiya explained "To be honest, when we first started and we were wearing a lot of makeup on stage and stuff, there were a lot of bands doing that at the time in Japan, and people thought it was cool. But not anymore, ha ha." Die said "They saw us as idols but we aren't idols. We are a band, we play music and want to be known for it. So we decided to change our style slowly." Kyo stated that for Dir en Grey it was always about the music and when wearing lots of makeup became popular, "we didn't want to be associated with a lot of the poor quality bands in that scene."