Ken Yokoyama's bio

Out of his Myspace site:

First of all, who the fuck is Ken Yokoyama? Is this a solo project? Is this a band?

Well, I would say, it's more like a band, if you think it's a solo project, and more like a solo project if you think it's a band. That is to say, it's somewhere in between a band and a solo project.

As for Ken Yokoyama, he started his career as a guitar player back in the late 80's. In 1991, he formed a band called Hi-Standard, and toured all over Japan, North America and Europe until 2000, when they disbanded (get it? band … disbanded … a band that disbanded … never mind). They left the world with three full length albums on Fat Wreck Chords.

After a few years of concentrating on running his own label, Pizza Of Death Records, Ken came back to the stage supporting his 1st solo album on which he sings and plays guitar.

In 2004, Ken formed his own band, known as the Ken Band, which keeps busy by putting out albums, playing shows and touring like crazy.

Biography:

Originally serving as guitarist for the massively popular semi-punk group Hi-Standard, Ken Yokoyama splintered off to solo projects when the group unofficially disbanded in 2000. First returning to a development role at Pizza of Death Records (the band's onetime label), Yokoyama soon returned to performance with a series of small groups (the BBQ Chickens and the eponymous Ken Band) before performing solely under his own name. Yokoyama continued much of the sound of Hi-Standard -- a hugely successful formula -- with high-speed guitars and vocals (all in English) anchored by a manically fast drummer (Masatoshi Ishida in the case of Yokoyama's solo efforts) and compositions in the vein of contemporary American outfits such as NOFX. With bassist Serge Verkhovsky and guitarist Hidenori Minami, Yokoyama released two albums on Pizza of Death, achieving high sales for the non-mainstream market in Japan. In 2007, Yokoyama hit the Top Ten mainstream charts with Third Time's a Charm, continuing the quick, manic, and generally happy tone of the previous albums. close