By Andrew Hamlin
Northwest Asian Weekly
With influences ranging from Good Charlotte, and Ellegarden to, more recently, Linkin Park and Coldrain, Japan’s One Ok Rock sauntered into the Seattle area for a show at the ShoWare Center in Kent.
Singer Takahiro Moriuchi, known by his stage name Taka, has some knowledge of the United States. “I was raised in Osaka,” he recalls, “but have early memories in San Francisco and Tokyo.”
Taka came into One Ok Rock after being invited by the group’s leader, Toru Yamashita, in 2005.
Since then, says Taka, “We’ve traveled and performed throughout the majority of both the United States and Europe. NY, CA, and the Midwest…The ROCK festival in Japan was the largest audience we’ve ever played for. It was actually sort of weird to see tons and tons of people knowing our music!”
The band’s latest CD in America is “35xxxv,” reconfigured to include all-English tracks. The band worked with top-ranked produced John “Feldy” Feldmann and mixer Chris Lord-Alge.
“Working with people like them,” enthuses Taka, “with great talent and being able to make music with them was an exciting experience every day.”
Taka adds, “We hope to perform on various huge stages all around the world!” (end)
Andrew Hamlin can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.