Merry Go Round

Band members:

Guitar: Hideno
Vocals: Kazuma
Bass: MAXX
Drums: Shoji

Ex-Members:

Drums: Tohru [1991 / 1994 - gone]
Guitar: KEN [1991 / 1993 - gone]
Bass: Shin [1991 / 1993 - gone]
Guitar: DEAD [1993 / 1994 - gone]
Bass: yasuhisa [1993 / 1994 - gone]
Bass: Sakyou [1995 / 1995 - gone]
Drums: KYO [1995 / 1998 - gone]
Bass: Junna [1995 / 1998 - gone]
Drums: Tohru [1999 / 1999 - gone - support member]

Merry Go Round are one of the most unknown bands in Europe, although they were around for more than 10 years and even had a semi-major deal. Being from Nagoya never led the band to the famous label Donuts Record West, where for example Lamiel, Vizell or Phobia were signed. In fact the music differs a lot from those typical Nagoya-kei bands. Their music is far less dark and instrumentally aggressive; and tends more to melancholic ballads, not forgetting to have some harder pieces, too. It’s more comparable to JILS/D=SIRE or the balladesque period of Dir en grey.

Furthermore the band used many sexual themes in their texts and beside them. The number 69 appeared many times and the band linked a site which sold silver jewelry with erotic and typical dark themes.
biography
The story of the band starts somewhere in 1991, when Harii (vo), KEN (gu), Shin (ba) and Tohru (dr) came together in Nagoya. However, KEN and Shin left the band and were replaced by DEAD (gu) (ex- ANTIC DOLL) and yasuhisa (ba). The concrete date, as well as information about possible three other short time members, isn’t given because the band was completely unknown then. Around 1993 their first demotape, which contained two songs, was released but again the information is anything but concrete, because there are sources that state the demotape as released in 1991.

In 1994, the band decided to break up and so DEAD returned to his former band ANTIC DOLL. Tohru joined the band short after, but left them very soon again to join the quite famous Nagoya band OF-J in the second half of the 90's.

In January of 1995, Harii returned on music scene with Hideno (gu) (ex- Laputa), Sakyou (ba) (ex- Ar-page) and KYO (dr) (ex- Silver Rose) as the new Merry Go Round. This date is also the one that is declarated as the birth of the band. In June, the band first gave a concert in front of a bigger audience when playing at an event in Nagoya. This is also the month, when Harii renamed himself into Kazuma and Sakyou was replaced by Junna (ex- OF-J). In this line-up they became very productive for the first time and released their second demotape in 1996. It was limited “only” 5000, which is quite an enormous number for a “newcomer” band.

In May of the same year, their first tour began and included 13 concerts in all of Japan. Their first album -S-, was a short collaboration with BANDAI Music, and was followed by a second tour that found its final in the first oneman. Back at YENBANYA the band released their first singles and videotapes in 1997, that all had rising limitation numbers. In January of 1998, the second album was released and had a total limitation of 15.000 copies. This album was also the introduction for the band to their semi-major status, because it was published by Kitty MME (Mercury Music Entertainment) which was a sublabel of Universal.

On the top of the success in summer of 1998 the first signs for the near end appeared, when KYO went to help his friends at KneuKlid Romance with their tour as support drummer. In November he joined them as full member shortly after the release of #69. However Junna also wanted to leave the band and so they decided to break up a second time. In December their label released a live-video that contained their most famous songs.

In 1999, the band returned as a two-man project of Kazuma and Hideno with several support members and signed under their former label YENBANYA. Most of the time MAXX (Orphee) was their supporting bassist. On drums the fans found a well known member: Tohru, but in comparison to MAXX he didn’t stay a very long time and was only involved in two singles and the fourth album that was released in end of 1999. After Tohru left to join JILS, the band had a number of different members who are mostly unknown. The band didn’t stay together a long time and decided to cease activities again in end of 2000.

In November of 2001, the band came together with the same constelation, including the changing of drummers, and participated at the „Anarchist VS marder suit case“ event, where they played together with d.p.s.. The bands fame started to grow again and so MAXX became a full member in 2003. The other new member and former supporting drummer was Shoji (ex- Lucide). But before the band became famous again the four musicians decided to end the project for a last time. The last live took place at the Takadanobaba AREA on May 15th of 2004. Two weeks later, their label “Marder suit case” released a 'best of' that was limited to only 1500 copies.

Kazuma, MAXX and Shoji returned quite fast as Smells on the indies stages and are still active. KYO and Junna were members of DIET COKE HEAD BARBIE DREAMS for some time, before they disappeared from music scene like almost all former MGR members.

Only Tohru was active for quite a long time and played in a lot of bands including the solo project of Aki (ex- Laputa) and Moi dix Mois. Since he left both bands it became relatively silent about him. · close