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The Watanabes
The Watanabes are a 1960s-influenced British indie pop rock band based in Tokyo whose lyrics are often inspired by life in Japan.
The band's jangly alt pop sound has drawn comparisons to melody driven indie acts such as Belle and Sebastian, Teenage Fan Club, Crowded House, and 1980s Liverpool band The Pale Fountains, while their lyrics often touch upon their experiences in Japan. Time Out have portrayed them as "Tokyo's answer to The Smiths" although their soft acoustic melodies and retro sound make an easier comparison to musical acts from the 1960s such as Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, or The Kooks.
The band are fronted by British brothers Duncan and Selwyn Walsh on vocals and guitar. The Walsh brothers come from the small village of Swanton Novers in Norfolk. New Zealander Ashley Davies and Belgian Flavio Jerome were also founding members and co-songwriters but have since left the group. Since their formation in 2005, a number of other musicians have made contributions to the band including Ayumi Sato on bass, Tomoyuki Yamada on drums, and Lensei Nishizawa on piano.
The Watanabes formed during the summer of 2005 in the rural prefecture of Ehime in Japan, where Duncan Walsh and Ashley Davies were working as ALTs on the JET Programme. Watanabe is a common surname in this region of Japan, and the group partly used the name in order to ingratiate themselves with the locals, whilst also alluding to British band The Smiths. The initial inspiration for the name, however, came from fictional character, Toru Watanabe, the slightly troubled and over nostalgic protagonist in Haruki Murakami's novel, Norwegian Wood.
In April 2007 they sent off their first demo to the Fuji Rock Festival, and were selected alongside bands such as The Bawdies and Avengers in Sci-Fi in the top 50 nominees for the Rookie a go stage. In August of the same year they moved to Tokyo where they began work on their debut album, Independent Social Power. Recorded at KRH Studios in Harajuku, the album was independently released in association with Manchester based record label BabyBoom Records.
After releasing their debut album, the band hijacked their way on to Japanese national TV channel Nihon TV before featuring in several of Japan's English speaking publications including The Japan Times, Metropolis, Japanzine, Tokyo Weekender, and Time Out. This publicity brought them to the attention of Glaswegian music producer Dave Naughton, who had just moved to Japan to become a producer in his own right after working alongside Steve Power in London and Tony Doogan in Glasgow with bands such as Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fan Club. They began work together on The Watanabes' second album, You're Dancing I'm Absorbed, which was released in February 2011. It included guest appearances from American singer songwriter Kate Sikora and British multi-instrumentalist Nick Duffy of The Lilac Time. In December 2011 two tracks from the album, "True Romantics" and "Concerned With You", were used in a TV advertising campaign for Triumph Motorcycles. An instrumental version of "True Romantics" was also adopted by Western Union as a theme tune to advertise their services.
Another track from the album, acoustic green lullaby "Whales Can Sing" was championed by Ric O'Barry, star of the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove, as well as race car driver and environmental activist Leilani Munter. On August 29, 2013, The Watanabes performed live in Tokyo with former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum at an event organized by Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project. Other foreign artists to have shared the stage with The Watanabes while touring Japan include Stu Larsen, Die! Die! Die!, Lisa Crawley and former Voxtrot frontman Ramesh Srivastava.
The band have received praise for their fundraising efforts, particularly in aid of Tohoku following the Tohoku earthquake. In 2014 they released a collaborative music video with NPO Playground of Hope.
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The Watanabes
The Watanabes are a 1960s-influenced British indie pop rock band based in Tokyo whose lyrics are often inspired by life in Japan.
The band's jangly alt pop sound has drawn comparisons to melody driven indie acts such as Belle and Sebastian, Teenage Fan Club, Crowded House, and 1980s Liverpool band The Pale Fountains, while their lyrics often touch upon their experiences in Japan. Time Out have portrayed them as "Tokyo's answer to The Smiths" although their soft acoustic melodies and retro sound make an easier comparison to musical acts from the 1960s such as Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, or The Kooks.
The band are fronted by British brothers Duncan and Selwyn Walsh on vocals and guitar. The Walsh brothers come from the small village of Swanton Novers in Norfolk. New Zealander Ashley Davies and Belgian Flavio Jerome were also founding members and co-songwriters but have since left the group. Since their formation in 2005, a number of other musicians have made contributions to the band including Ayumi Sato on bass, Tomoyuki Yamada on drums, and Lensei Nishizawa on piano.
The Watanabes formed during the summer of 2005 in the rural prefecture of Ehime in Japan, where Duncan Walsh and Ashley Davies were working as ALTs on the JET Programme. Watanabe is a common surname in this region of Japan, and the group partly used the name in order to ingratiate themselves with the locals, whilst also alluding to British band The Smiths. The initial inspiration for the name, however, came from fictional character, Toru Watanabe, the slightly troubled and over nostalgic protagonist in Haruki Murakami's novel, Norwegian Wood.
In April 2007 they sent off their first demo to the Fuji Rock Festival, and were selected alongside bands such as The Bawdies and Avengers in Sci-Fi in the top 50 nominees for the Rookie a go stage. In August of the same year they moved to Tokyo where they began work on their debut album, Independent Social Power. Recorded at KRH Studios in Harajuku, the album was independently released in association with Manchester based record label BabyBoom Records.
After releasing their debut album, the band hijacked their way on to Japanese national TV channel Nihon TV before featuring in several of Japan's English speaking publications including The Japan Times, Metropolis, Japanzine, Tokyo Weekender, and Time Out. This publicity brought them to the attention of Glaswegian music producer Dave Naughton, who had just moved to Japan to become a producer in his own right after working alongside Steve Power in London and Tony Doogan in Glasgow with bands such as Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fan Club. They began work together on The Watanabes' second album, You're Dancing I'm Absorbed, which was released in February 2011. It included guest appearances from American singer songwriter Kate Sikora and British multi-instrumentalist Nick Duffy of The Lilac Time. In December 2011 two tracks from the album, "True Romantics" and "Concerned With You", were used in a TV advertising campaign for Triumph Motorcycles. An instrumental version of "True Romantics" was also adopted by Western Union as a theme tune to advertise their services.
Another track from the album, acoustic green lullaby "Whales Can Sing" was championed by Ric O'Barry, star of the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove, as well as race car driver and environmental activist Leilani Munter. On August 29, 2013, The Watanabes performed live in Tokyo with former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum at an event organized by Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project. Other foreign artists to have shared the stage with The Watanabes while touring Japan include Stu Larsen, Die! Die! Die!, Lisa Crawley and former Voxtrot frontman Ramesh Srivastava.
The band have received praise for their fundraising efforts, particularly in aid of Tohoku following the Tohoku earthquake. In 2014 they released a collaborative music video with NPO Playground of Hope.
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