Biography

The 5.6.7.8's

02/11/2008 2008-11-02 12:00:00 KoME Author: YURA-sama

The 5.6.7.8's

The 5.6.7.8's

The band was formed in 1986 in a time when a lot of garage bands like Guitar Wolf came up in Tokyo. The four members then were two sisters Ronnie 'Yoshiko' Fujiyama (vo.) and Fujii Sachiko (dr.) along with Rico (gu.) and Yoshie (ba.). One year after the release of their first omnibus participation in 1987, Yoshie left the band and was replaced by Mikako, who also played on their first and only demotape that was published by the independent label Tokyo Stiff. One year later their first mini-album was released, which made a lot of fans outside of Japan aware of their existence. This led to a few first offers from foreign labels.

In 1990, Mikako and Rico leaft the band to start their own project called Sleeze Sisters. Their replacements were Omo (ba.) and Eddie (gu.), who was the only man in the whole history of the band. To integrate better, he sometimes wore a wig, which can be seen on a photo on their official site. But he also didn't stay a very long time and returned in 1991 to his band called MAD3. After the band became a trio, Ronnie had to take become the guitarist. They invited Gaku as support saxophone on their tour. Also, they went to Australia for the first time because they were invited by Au-Go-Go, an Australian indie-label, to record their first album. One year later, this album was published by the American label Rockville in the USA.

Between 1992 and 1995, many singles were produced by different Japanese and non-Japanese labels. The Spell Stroll was the first record released by a European label. Also, they went on different tours in Australia and America. In 1995, their second guitarist, Aya, joined the band, but left soon after. Before their tenth anniversary, Omo left and was replaced by Yama. Also, they asked another saxophonist to join them as support on their tour in Japan. In 1997, Ronnie released a solo single, which was named Coney Island.

The following years brought new innovations to the band. They went on their first big tour through Japan with many one-mans, visited America and Australia, and New Zealand and Europe for the first time. They returned several times because of their great success. In 2002, they played their first live in China while they were acting as themselves in Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill: Volume 1. The scene in the restaurant brought a lot of attention to the band in Western countries. Their song Woo Hoo, which was featured on the original soundtrack of the movie, made the band even more famous. Their bassist in the movie was Yamaguchi Yoshiko, who later became an official member in 2004. The fact that Omo returned for several lives and Saki was named as bass support for the Japan tour indicates that Yama wasn't in the band anymore.

In 2004 the British label Sweet Nothing released several albums and two singles. Woo Hoo and I'm blue entered the UK Singles Chart at Number 28 and 71, respectively. Their 2004 world tour contained many lives in different countries, after which the band took a little break. The US label NORTON Records released the cover single 19th Nervous Breakdown, which was part of their Rolling Stones special where different bands covered songs by the Stones. In the year of their twentieth anniversary, the band has not played a lot of concerts until now. There were a few on the side of Guitar Wolf and MAD3, the band of their former colleague Eddie Legend.
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