It's been a long wait since we finished the recording of "Victory In Christ" (previously called "God Rocks") in February this year.
Now we are ready to release it....almost!
Because now the artwork is done!
Our friend manga artist gave us the completed album cover last night.
Here it is.
Anime, or Manga picture, as always....because we are Japanese band, and we like kids stuff.
It has Japanese Kanji character "勝利" on it, which means Victory.
Our new album "Victory In Christ" is soon to be released, first in digital format (at iTunes, AmazonMP3, Bandcamp and else), and after that, possibly physical format at Amazon.com. (We know we are the greatest rock band ever in Japan which is almost too good to be true, but at the same time we are VERY INDEPENDENT and still an unknown band, hidden treasure of the world. So please understand about the distribution. We are in Indies era.)
We will give you the detail of digital format distribution, as soon as they are ready.
Just for your information, we are planning a recording of 2 or 3 songs during this year winter. Songs called "Living Water" and "Jesus Train". We're sure it's going to be a blessing for us all. And next year early spring, another, hopefully bigger tour in USA. At this point, we are planning south and east part.
And after that, we are planning some big things, one of them is a concept album about Japanese Christian history.
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".
It's been a while since my last "love letter". Again it's a song from "Hero Of The Lights", recorded in 2004-2005.
このThat's why i love youは、バックグラウンドストーリーというか、いわくつきの曲で、 この曲を書いたのは、もう今からするとはるか昔だけれど、1998年。
そのとき、かのVan Halenが、Extremeのゲイリー・シェローンをヴォーカリストに迎えて、問題作「Van Halen 3」をリリースしようとしていた。
This song "That's why i love you" has some funny background story. It was written back in 1998, which was a long ago. Back then, Mighty Van Halen was about to release that controversial "Van Halen 3" with Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone.
で、発売前に、雑誌でインタビューとか見て、待ちきれなかった僕は、雑誌に載っていたトラックリスト、曲名をもとに、自分で勝手に曲を書いて、「仮想Van Halen 3」を自分の頭の中で作っちゃったのね。
で、この曲は、その中のひとつなんだけれど、 おかしなことに、雑誌に載っていたそのVan Halenの曲のうち、 "That's Why I Love You"と名付けられた曲は、アルバムの発売直前に、諸事情によりボツになってしまい、実際にはアルバムには収録されなかった。
でも、僕は自分で作った「仮想Van Halen 3」のうち、この曲はすごく気に入っていたので、自分のバンドで演奏することにした。
Before the release of "Van Halen 3", I was reading music magazines and there was a track list. I could not hardly wait until the release, so I wrote songs myself by the titles on the magazine. Before its release, I had my own version of "Van Halen 3" in my head.
This song "That's why i love you" was one of those songs I wrote then. But funny thing was, Van Halen's "That's Why I Love You" was not on actual album, since it was replaced by another song at the last moment.
This song is very serious love song. Lyrics is so direct, which expresses the loneliness and solitude inside me. And the guitar solo is very emotional, which was my favorite part.
This song was re-recorded by Mr.Yonemochi, the producer of "Japanese Pop" in 2006. But personally I prefer this original Japanese version for several reasons.
Since one day my eyes was seeing transparent illusions Something nobody else can see, the truth in my heart I was alone at any time, no matter where I may have been I have to take on my destiny and create my way
すがりつけるものは何も無いんだよ この広い世界のどこを探したとしても
There is nothing which can help me Nothing in this world
That's why i love you That's why i love you だから君を失うことなど無いんだよ 生きてるたった一つのＲｅａｓｏｎ知るよ
That's why i love you That's why i love you So there is no way I can lose you And I learn the only reason to live
胸の中に隠してる事実 まるで無視するように 考えすぎだと言い聞かせ 街のビートに沈み込む
You indulge yourself to the beat of the city as if you ignore the fact inside you
たどりつく場所はいつも同じなんだよ この広い世界のどこをさまようとしても You only reach the same place Wherever you may wander in this world
That's why i love you That's why i love you 自分の命を譲ることはできないよ 生きてるそれがすべてのＲｅａｓｏｎだから わかってほしいだなんて言わないけれど 生きてるたったひとつの真実失いたくない ウソはないんだよ この事実に 告げた言葉に 触れた指先に
That's why i love you That's why i love you I can't lie my own life Because that's the only reason to live I'm not gonna say please understand me but I don't wanna lose the only truth in my life
Yes it is all truth The fact between us, the words I told you, the touch I touched you
***
Hope you enjoy the song. God bless, Tak "Tone" Nakamine
IMARi ToNES is so pleased to annouce the release of 2 live recordings.
"IMARi ToNES in Glory Zone" and "Dosamawari Live 2010", which were recorded during our East Coast Tour USA February 2010.
You can download the albums from Bandbox for FREE.
The reason we made these 2 live disks free was, because it was simply a blessing we want to share.
And naturally, we want to fill the gap while we look for a proper way to release our new recording called "God Rocks". Yes we are now a Christian Rock band. And with "God Rocks", we really became a Christian rock band. So we want to offer these live recordings to introduce what we are....the first Christian heavy metal from Japan.
"IMARi ToNES in Glory Zone" was a live recording at Gloryzone Ministries, long island New York. It was one of the best concerts we had so far. And the real miracle was when Tak said "No, you don't have to pray for us. But please pray for our nation Japan." Yes, that is our goal and our promise. We have to change our nation. We are soldiers. We are sacrifices.
"Dosamawari Live 2010" shows IMARi ToNES more as a rockn'roll band. "Dosamawari" means, in Japanese, unkown musicians doing a club circuit (usually very small and dirty clubs and venues) looking for a chance. So this is our "Dosamawari" all the way from Japan. But we all know that's the most important thing for Rockn'Roll.
"IMARi ToNES in Glory Zone" Free download available at Bandbox and Monstar.fm
1:Opening 2:Testimony 3:Precious 4:Love Is To Do Something No One Dares To Do 5: i love you, now ur on your own 6:Only One Wish 7:Iron Hammer 8:Winning Song 9:Faith Rider 10:Pray For Japan
"Dosamawari Live 2010" Free download available at Bandbox and Monstar.fm
1:Testimony 2:Big World 3:Precious 4:Winning Song 5:Love Is To Do Something No One Dares To Do 6: Only One Wish 7:God Kids 8:Iron Hammer 9:i love you, now ur on your own 10:A Girl In The Mirror 11:Illusions
Our ultimate goas is to spread the gospel in Japan and change our home country. (In Japan, many people don't believe in God. Currently only 1% of the population is Christians.) Please help us create a "buzz" with this free release and change the situation a bit.
Thank you for our friends in Japan, especially our church friends at Victory International Church Yokohama. Pastor Yaw and everyone. Thank you for praying for us.
Thank you for Jun-san and Merry-san.
And Ryo-kun, thank you for sending the email to cheer me up. It gave me so much energy to overcome my weakness.
And most of all, our Lord, Jesus Christ, thank you for every blessing you gave to us, and giving us a mission to spread Gospel in our home country, Japan.
As you see, our new songs are very Christian. You can feel the power of Holy Spirit. I guess probably you will like the song called "Love Is To Do Something No One Dares To Do", which is about sacrifice and devotion.
With this new recording, 2010 it's gonna be a very important year for us. And we are gonna make it a big year.
Please support and spread the word, thanks.
And we are just about to leave for our USA East Coast Tour soon.
This time we are going to attend Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. And we will have several other gigs in the cities around East Coast.
If you are near, please come by and see us and we will be very glad.
Here is the schedule. For more detail, check our website or MySpace blog.
Please note that most of the bars are +21.
February 20th (Saturday) Capital Area Christian Church, Harrisburg PA (Millennium Music Conference show case) We play 8:20PM slot All ages show
February 21th (Sunday) Gloryzone church, Bohemia NY (11AM church service worship music, and 6PM concert. For details please check with the church) All ages show
February 23th (Tuesday) Otto's Shrunken Head, NYC We play 9PM slot
February 24th (Wednesday) The Wonderland Ballroom, Washington DC We play 9PM slot
February 25th (Thursday) MOJO 13, Wilmington DE We play 10:30 slot
Febryary 26th (Friday) Clash Bar, Clifton NJ We play 9:45 or 10:30 slot
That's all for now. Thank you very much and God bless you all!
We are now midst of the recording session of new songs. If everything goes well, we can upload some of them soon.
And today we will annouce our short trip to USA in coming February.
We will attend Millennium Music Conference, which takes place in Feburary 18-21 in Harrisburg PA. We will play a showcase gig there. http://www.musicconference.net/
It's not huge SXSW nor CMJ Marathon, it's a mid-sized local conference. But we are very excited to see other musicians and industry people there.
And we will play several more gigs in some cities on East Coast.
We can't wait to play our new songs to you. Because with those new songs, we are more powerful, and most importantly, we are more Christian Rock than ever!
First Christian Heavy Metal from Japan. It's not a joke!
Hope to see you soon!
Here is the schedule.
February 20th (Saturday) Capital Area Christian Church, Harrisburg PA http://www.capitalareachurch.com (Millennium Music Conference show case) We play 8:20PM slot
February 21th (Sunday) Gloryzone church, Bohemia NY http://www.gloryzone.org/ (Worship music, need to be confirmed)
