Artists

Thee Michelle Gun Elephant

Biography

(Taken from the Tokyo Classified web site. It's about the best description of Thee Michelle Gun Elephant in English that's out there.)

There's no rule that says the English and romaji names that Japanese bands use have to make sense: Witness Puffy, Glay, and Do As Infinity. Stringing together three unrelated nouns and one article, garage-punk band Thee Michelle Gun Elephant could win a prize for the most confounding use of English. Fortunately, rather than demonstrating their lack of grammar-ability, the name is actually a kind of homage to two rock bands that Thee Michelle Gun Elephant counts as its heroes.

Known as TMGE to fans, the group's unusual name came from a mispronunciation of The Damned's 1979 album Machine Gun Etiquette. After buying a ticket to see The Damned, an early band member is said to have proudly uttered, "This is a Michelle Gun Elephant ticket." The name stuck; the band member didn't. Thee is a tribute to Billy Childish's offbeat band Thee Headcoats, also one of TMGE's many influences.

First formed in 1988, TMGE went through some transformations before reaching its current lineup in 1991, when front-man Yusuke Chiba and guitarist Futoshi Abe found band mates Koji Ueno (bass) and Kazuyuki Kuhara (drums) at Tokyo's Meiji Gakuen University, where they were all students. In a 1999 interview Chiba said he and Abe had first become friends because they were outsiders and acted differently from typical Japanese.

Taking their outsider status seriously, TMGE has never sounded much like other popular Japanese bands. Hard and edgy, TMGE models itself after groups like The Who, Dr. Feelgood and The Kinks and always seems ready to pay homage to its role models; the cover of the band's 1997 album Chicken Zombies is a recreation of Blue Cheer's 1968 album Vincebus Eruptum (hard rockers before hard rock, in the sixties Blue Cheer was known for playing the loudest rock 'n' roll around).

Consistently moving large numbers of albums and selling out shows in Japan, TMGE's biggest selling album to date is 1998's Gear Blues which reportedly sold 450,000 copies. Their latest release Casanova Snake quickly climbed its way into the top ten selling albums at record stores around Tokyo and on May 6 the leather-clad foursome will hit the road for three months of shows in support of that album.

Though not overly eager to make it overseas -- Chiba says, "If it happens, it'll happen" -- TMGE has released two UK EPs and toured clubs in the UK three times. Called "ultra-cool kung-fu garage punk" by Britain's Mojo magazine, the band has started garnering some serious attention abroad. Releasing their first US single, "West Cabaret Drive," in September of last year, the band also toured the States for the first time, stopping at major clubs in New York and Los Angeles (and not so major clubs in Illinois and Montana). The single received airplay at college stations such as MIT's WMBR where the song reached number 21 in November's playlist, and the group's shows sparked some major-label interest. In spite of the lure of being an international hit, Chiba keeps his head on his shoulders. "For me, it doesn't really matter. I'm looking forward to whatever comes along."
-- Debra Pappler

Members

Chiba Yusuke: Vocals
Abe Futoshi: Guitar
Ueno Koji: Bass
Kuhara Kazuyuki: Drums