AREA51

Infobox musical artist
Name = AREA51
Background = group_or_band
Origin = JAPAN
Genre = Neo Classical Metal Power metal Progressive metal(lately)
Years_active = 2003 - Present
URL = [http://www.area51-web.com/ Official Site]
Current_members = Kate Cain Yoichiro Ishino Zinn Kawai Takeshi Ochi You Yamauchi

"AREA51" is a Neo Classical Metal band from Japan formed by guitarist Yoichiro Ishino. Yoichiro Ishino writes the songs of the band while Kate Chan writes the lyrics. The songs are written in Japanese and the lyrical themes are love, life, and courage. The most notable thing about AREA51 is that it features legendary heavy metal singer Rob Rock(Impellitteri) as a guest singer in the song "Lord Knows" on the Daemonicus album.

Biography

Yoichiro Ishino began playing guitar in high school which Yoichiro claims that the Beatles was his biggest influence of the time. Later on, he witnesses heavy metal by in which Yoichiro claims that Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force "did it for me" [ [http://www.jmignited.com/transarea51.php ] ] . Yoichiro's biggest influences are Timo Tolkki(ex-Stratovarius, Revolution Renaissance), Chris Impellitteri(Impellitteri), and Michael Romeo(Symphony X). Yoichiro considered female vocals prior to the start of the band because he felt that the female expression would be a perfect match for his music. Yoichiro attempted to get a band for a few years after high school. After many failures, he decided to quit for 2 years and eventually he continued and formed AREA51. The band mainly formed when Kensuke Imai joined as the drummer. AREA51 would spend 2 years looking for a vocalist.

At the time, Kate was a unsigned J-pop singer and listened to Visual Kei as well and had no interest in metal (though later on, Kate did become a fan of Stratovarius). Kate was willing to try a new style of music and had many demos sent to her and she liked Yoichiro's style the most and decided to join as the vocalist. Yoichiro states in an interview about Kate "this may sound strange, but it’s actually very important not to have the same metal background, for the chemistry. If everyone was only into metal, our sound philosophy would be quite limited, don’t you think? For all of us to always be open to new possibilities, her background and inputs are essential for us as a band." [ [http://www.jmignited.com/transarea51.php ] ] .

AREA51 heavily relies on [http://www.jmignited.com/ J-Music Ignited] for foreign promotion. AREA51 albums are sold in stores in Japan but other countries mainly buy their albums through iTunes Store. iTunes Store allows for people in 22 countries to buy their albums.

In 2005, AREA51 released their debut album "Ankh". Ankh slowly earned AREA51 popularity in Japan and eventually popularity in Brazil(eventually, the official website had to put up a Portuguese version of the site for Brazilian fans). [http://www.myspace.com/area51web AREA51's MySpace] states they are signed to a record label called "aprights". The band did many gigs in Japan and planned a Brazil tour which was eventually canceled.

In 2007, their first single "Close To... -you and me-" would be released as a taste of what to expect for the next album. The album eventually released in Japan on March 5th, 2008 and March 26th on iTunes Store. The style from Daemonicus is slightly more progressive than their debut album Ankh.

Band Members

Current members

Kate Cain - Vocals Yoichiro Ishino - Guitars Zin Kawai-Bass You Yamauchi-Drums Takeshi Ochi - Keyboards

Former Members

Kensuke Imai - Drums(Wizards' Hymn) Junichi Ohtsuka- Keyboards(Wizards' Hymn)

Discography

Albums

"Ankh" (2005) "Daemonicus" (2008)

Singles

"CLOSE TO... -you and me-" (2007)

ee also

*Wizards' Hymn

External links

* [http://www.area51-web.com/ Official Website]

References

[http://www.myspace.com/area51web AREA51 MySpace] [http://www.jmignited.com/transarea51.php Yoichiro Ishino interview at J-Music Ignited] Wikipedian user [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mandilore Mandilore] 's connection with Yoichiro Ishino.