TOKYO - POLICE say Japanese musician Kazuhiko Kato, founder of the Sadistic Mika Band, has been found dead in a hotel room in an apparent suicide. He was 62.

A police official in Nagano, northwest of Tokyo, said on Sunday that hotel employees and police officers found Kato on Saturday.

They found two suicide notes in his room, said the police official, who declined to be named, citing department policy.

Media reports said Kato hanged himself with a rope, and had been suffering from depression.

The official declined to confirm the reports.

In the early 1970s, Kato formed the Sadistic Mika Band, which became the first Japanese rock band to tour in Britain.