IMARi ToNES -The First Christian Heavy Metal from Japan-: August 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

"Faith Rider" YouTube movie

Originally I wrote this song "Faith Rider" as a joke.

I was having a conversation on mixi(Japanese facebook) with one of my friends who likes heavy metal and motor bike and he came up with a word "Gay Rider", which meaning I didn't exactly know, and he said maybe I should write a song by that name, it was a joke.

But I thought it would be interesting and I was already hearing the melody in my head. And 15 minutes later, I got the song.

I made up a simple demo and my friend liked it. And we decided to play that song with our "just for fun" tribute band. We played it in some party and it was good. And I decided to play that song in my own band IMARi ToNES, and I changed the title to "Faith Rider", and came up with the lyrics. And after several times of rehearsals, it turned out to be a very powerful song, expressing both faith for God and hard core spirit.

It is a simple song. Simple and typical heavy metal song. Because this song is originally a joke song, it was a kind of parody of Judas Priest. It's somewhere between "Painkiller" and "Hell Rider", I tried to write some heavy metal parody. And I'm using many simple power chords. Usually I don't write songs this way, I prefer using more complex chords and riffs. But in this song I used many simple power chords. But just to make thing a bit more interesting, I wrote the main riff using 7/4 times. And just as an homage to Stryper, I added the words "we are soldiers under God's command" in the lyrics.

This song is different from other IMARi ToNES songs. It's exceptional. It's more simple and easy to understand, and it's more powerful.

In the beginning it was a joke song, but it turned out to be one of band's most powerful songs. This often happens in the history of Rockn'roll. Black Sabath "Paranoid", Led Zeppelin "Whole a lot of love", Deep Purple "Smoke On The Water", I heard they were just a additional song written in the last minute.

So now I made a cheap movie of this song, using photos from our latest photo session. These photos represent the character of our band very well. We are always somewhere between heavy metal and pop/punk. Too heavy for pop listers, too pop for headbangers.

I wish we could come up with more professional movie, but it's okay we are just an unknown band from Japan. Possibly the only metal band in Japan carrying a sign cleary saying "Christian Rock".

If any of you like this song, we are glad.

p.s.
Just as mentioned above, we had a photo session and now all our websites are updated with those new photos.
You can check the photos here.
http://www.myspace.com/imaritones/photos/albums/photosession-august-2010/969458
http://www.reverbnation.com/imaritones#/page_object/page_object_photos/artist_243863

Tak / IMARi ToNES

Bio, Bio, Bio...

IMARITONES BIO

Written by Phil Putnam

Of the long list of factors that make ImariTones stand out from the world around them, it is their drive, their reach that tops it all. An unapologetically Christian heavy metal band out of Japan, Tak, Hassy, and Jake have a passion to reach beyond their culture to make the music they love, and to reach beyond their music to bring Jesus into their culture. While drawing comparisons to legends like Van Halen, Rush, and Stryper with their hybrid of old school metal/glam/Brit/70's prog rock, they are one of very few bands in the world that can claim true originality. How so? They are the first Christian heavy metal band ever to come out of Japan.

"There are very few Japanese bands who say 'Hey, we're a Christian band.' A Christian band from Japan almost sounds like a joke, since most people in Japan are Buddhists, or Atheists," says Tak, founder, guitar/vocalist, and frontman of ImariTones. Things didn't start out Christian for Tak, though. Having started playing electric guitar at age 14 and joining his first band at 15, Tak gained local teen success in his hometown of Toyohashi and won awards for his songwriting. However, he quit the band at 17 to pursue a career as a lawyer. Music stayed with him, though, and while playing an acoustic show in Harajuku Tokyo in December of 2007, Tak was impressed by several Christian performers who were playing as well. Feeling that Jesus may be the larger meaning behind music that he always felt was there, his mind and heart opened to Christianity.

Breaking many written and unwritten rules of Japanese culture, Tak, Hassy on bass/background vocals, and Jake on drums/background vocals, are reaching upward and forward to see changes happen in the world. Currently based in Yokohama, their astonishing 15-album discography includes Hero of the Lights, Color of Hers, fireworks, Japanese Pop produced by metal legend Sascha Paeth (Angra, Edguy, Rhapsody of Fire, Avantasia, Kamelot), Welcome to the School, and their most recent release Victory in Christ. Not content to play the standard soft pop/rock of the major label Christian industry, their music is 100% heavy metal and 100% independently recorded and produced. Victory in Christ hit the street in October 2010 with the single "Faith Rider" leading the charge. Originally written as a parody of the big 80's metal of Judas Priest and Stryper, it quickly became a fan favorite and was put on Victory in Christ.

With both their commitment to making stellar heavy metal music and their driving passion to share Jesus with their native Japan and the rest of the world, ImariTones is always reaching to join these two primary goals together. "Since we are a Christian band, our goal is not business success," says Tak. "We are not chasing glory in this world. We are chasing the glory of God." Staying independent and record label-free is an important part of the process for them. "We don't believe in 'music business', especially in Japan, and have chosen to go independent, looking for our own way. We really want to change something about society and about what people think and believe. That's our ultimate goal."

That ultimate goal, to see their native Japan embrace Christianity, is what they reach for most of all, even while their sights are set on the USA and the rest of the world. Some think they're a joke, or a contradiction, that Christianity, Japan, and heavy metal just don't belong together. Some think they're ahead of their time. But if you ask Tak, Hassy, and Jake, they'll say they're doing exactly what they love at exactly the right time, and they're never going to stop reaching for more.