JAPANESE MUSICAL GUESTS OF HONOR
  Avex Group
In cooperation with and support of

Artists: ZZ [zi:,zi(:)]

ZZ

Members
(from left to right)

KOHSUKE (guitarist)
MATSUURA (drums)
SOTARO (vocals)
KYAMA (bassist)
ERICHI (piano)

Genre: Rock
Styles: Pop-rock, Rap-metal, Rock-rap, Alternative rock

Rock-rap group ZZ formed in the industrial city of Fuji, about 100-km west of Tokyo, in 1998, soon relocating to the much larger Shizuoka where they built up a local following playing the city’s clubs. Within two years the band were playing at venues in Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa district, an area that is a mecca for underground bands, sharing the bill with the likes of popular rap-metal act RIZE. Even so, ZZ’s pop sensibility means they have more in common musically with the sound of the mega-selling, self-styled “mixture hip-hop” group ORANGE RANGE than the harder, alternative metal of RIZE.

After independently releasing a mini-album and single in 2000, the career of ZZ (comprised of vocalist SOTARO, guitarist KOHSUKE, pianist ERICHI, bassist KYAMA and drummer MATSUURA) gained momentum when Japan’s biggest monthly rock magazine, Rockin’ On, glowingly reviewed their second single, “Brightest” in early 2001. It’s follow-up “Himawari (Sunflower)” went top 75 in the USEN charts (a request chart) and was picked up by one of Tokyo’s major commercial radio stations, BayFM. The station would go on to grant the group their own regular program, titled “Na Na Na Now Young” in October of that year, but not before they had dropped their debut album, “Absolute Beat Complex.”

ZZ made the step up to large independent label Avex in 2003 for the release of the single “Rhythmist,” which was the band’s biggest hit to date, going top 10 in the USEN charts. The single was a taster for the album “Definitive Energy Flow,” which the group supported by going on their first nationwide tour. Having had a couple of songs featured as opening/ending songs on Japanese television programs, the group scored a minor coup when their tune “A to Z” was chosen as the ending song to the animated adventure television series “ONE PIECE,” which, like many popular anime, has been adapted into English, Chinese and Korean. Appropriately, ZZ played their first live shows in South Korea in 2004. (Two years earlier they had played to 8,000 people at a music festival in Dalian, China.)

For the 2004 single, “Just Only One,” ZZ collaborated with Kaori Ueda, aka DJ KAORI, a hip-hop DJ who has played at parties for the likes of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. The track was featured on their second album for Avex, 2005’s “Generation Hip Innocence.” Following its release, the band performed their first shows in the United States, capitalizing on their anime associations by playing at the anime conventions FanimeCon in San Jose and Dallas’ A-Kon, one of the three biggest such conventions in the U.S.

Not even an association with the Japan national team’s ill-fated 2006 World Cup campaign – having recorded the supporters’ song “SAMURAI BLUE” (replete with terrace-friendly “oh oh” chants and cries of “Nippon! Nippon!”) – dimmed the group’s prospects, the band continuing to play regular live shows through the year. In addition, online ZZ are joining an increasing number of Japanese bands by uploading their songs – in the case of ZZ the majority of their back catalog - to the U.S. iTunes Music Store.

By David Hickey 3/27/2007

ZZ Slide Show (in new window)

ZZ
Avex
ZZ will be performing at J-Rock North Concert Project courtesy of AVEX Trax.
 JN

You can also visit their MySpace and sample their music as well!

More Links

 

 

Back to Guests Main...