THE HISTORY OF ONE OK ROCK

Band Members:
Vocals: Taka Morita- 17.APR.1988/Tokyo (Current Member)
Bass: Ryota Kohama- 4.SEPT.1989/Osaka (Current Member)
Guitarist: Toru Yamamshita- 7.DEC.1988/Osaka (Current Member)
Drums: Tomoya Kanki- 27.JUN.1987/Hyogo (Current Member)
Rhythm Guitarist: Alex Onizawa- 19.MARCH.1988 (Former Member)
Drums: Yuu Koyangi A.K.A Tomo- 29.AUG.1988/Tokyo (Former Member)
In 1995, Toru Yamashita and Ryota Kohama where in a hip-hop group called, “HEADS”. (Don’t ask my why) They performed along with two other fifth and sixth grade boys and often performed in Shibuya. They participated in many dance competitions and won first place in the majority of them. They often sang together in their songs while breakdancing with Toru being the “rapper of the group”. With a singles coming out and keeping this group alive and active, they took the year 2003 to improve their skills.
Meanwhile in 2001 in October, Takahiro Moriuchi joined Johnny’s Entertainment (A Japanese Music Company) and made his first appearance on TV Asahi’s Music Station. Now okay so you gotta remember, he is the son of Shinichi Mori (Birthname is Kazuhiro Moriuchi, thus the surname of “Moriuchi”) and Masako Mori (Real surname is Morita, thus the surname switch to Takahiro’s name in the future) and they were the leading figures in the music scene in Japan back then so Takahiro was kinda like a Jayden Smith. So anyways the 13-year old child started his career and became a really well-known child. Present-day Taka noted that he was always afraid of his father but his mother was always kind to him (Taka also noted that “he bullied the hell out of his brothers”). Once Takahiro wanted to be a comedian but his dream was laughed at by his dad due to it not having anything to do with his father. In September 2003, Takahiro finally joined Johnny’s new unit, “NEWS” and became the 9th member of the Jpop group. At the time he was attending Keio (A university-affiliated school) but was dropped out due to failing grades and at the same time Takahiro was rumored to be dating a girl in a magazine and was said to be kicked out of Johnny’s as a punishment. (I believe that it is against the rules to date girls or something)
Back to Toru and Ryota, after one year of inactivity of their hip-hop group, HEADS, they merged into one super group called, “GROUND 0” with seven other members. They continued to with GROUND 0 despite their quiet activity in 2004. It was said that this was the point where HEADS or GROUND 0 was pretty much over.
With Takahiro, he joined some cover-band called, “Chivalry of Music”, in 2004 while working a part-time job to maintain his home where he lived alone. His first home was said to be 180,000 yen ($1,715 US Dollars), his second home was 70,000 yen ($667.30 US Dollars), and his third home was 130,000 yen ($1239.27 US Dollars) where present-day Taka said, “he could be noisy”. Still at the time, he was lost in his life, not wanting to go back home to his family and was confused and scared about his future, being kicked out of Johnny’s Entertainment.
In 2005, HEADS or GROUND 0 finally broke up. There was no specific reason recorded though one reason could be because of lack of popularity or lost of interest in the group. Toru and Ryota started to try out acting careers (A notable Toru drama is called, “Sh15ya”, a drama about these 15-year olds living in a generated world or something.) but they stopped after a while so Toru decided to form a band purely for fun. On such a short notice, he told Ryota to learn how to play bass in two weeks so then they could start going to this rented out studio. (Ryota had said that he was emotionally unstable about this idea) While Toru got his friend, Alex, to play rhythm guitar and to be Toru and Ryota’s guitar sensei, Ryota got his friend, Yuu (or Tomo), to play drums for the band. Then all they needed was a singer and that’s when Toru started searching for a singer…
2005, Takahiro is still with the cover-band, playing with his head down with no confidence and unsure about his future. As he noted, he felt as if every live performance was sloppy and just a mere exciting recital. One day, that Toru kid who decided to form a band showed up at Takahiro’s live performance. From what present-day Taka said in an interview, Toru said, “I’m also in a band”. On another performance, Toru came to another performance and said to Takahiro, “Do you have fun singing while staring at the floor even though you’re performing live?” Seeing that Takahiro would sing with his head down. Finally one day, Toru somehow found out where Taka worked and came to his part-time job and said, “Come to my band rehearsal” But Takahiro refused so then Toru said he wouldn’t leave until Takahiro agreed to do so (This is the persuasive power of Toru, learn from him children.) and to Takahiro’s surprise, Toru really stuck to his word and didn’t leave Takahiro’s part time job so he finally agreed to go the band rehearsal and Toru finally left. Though after a few days, Takahiro didn’t show up thinking that Toru forgot about him but Toru didn’t, he showed up at his part-time job again and said a little more forcefully, “Everyone is waiting for you, we’re playing today. Call me when you arrive!” So when Takahiro did show up, he was a bad tempered child and didn’t get along with Ryota, Tomo, and Alex for the first time (Taka noted that Toru got some booing after Taka left) but even so, Toru had every little ambition to get Takahiro into the band, noting that, “If they didn’t get a vocalist fast, they’d be in trouble”. So after a few other visits, Takahiro decided to join the band after finding that him and the other members of this band had similar goals in their lives. Though in the amazing year of 2005 when ONE OK ROCK was born, drama was still in Taka’s life (This was when Takahiro started to call himself “Taka”), Taka’s parents divorced after countless arguments about his father controlling his mother too much and his mother not doing enough housework and so on. As a result, Taka was in his mother’s custody and got his surname changed to “Morita” while his two younger brothers, Tomohiro and Hiroki, were still in his father’s custody. Though this was a drastic change for Taka, Taka said he liked his new surname better due to the traumatic memories he had with his old surname.
In 2006, the drummer quit ONE OK ROCK after countless complains from his parents saying things like, “What are you doing playing in a band that may or may not sell, get real” and not showing up at their lives. ONE OK ROCK signed into Amuse without a drummer then. After several live performances without a drummer, they got to know a teacher from ESP (a musical academy) who recommended this one kid who was about the same age as ONE OK ROCK but was in a band that wasn’t doing that great and from then, they scheduled a meeting with this kid at Shinjuku Station. At the meeting, the entire band had the energy of Toru’s persuasiveness flowing inside of them all. They waited for 15-20 minutes before their possible drummer showed up. When he did show up, ONE OK ROCK noted that he walked as if he was lost and he was dressed in green from head to toe and that he gave off this good feeling with his good personality. The meeting was filled with fun as they got to know this kid named Tomoya Kanki as they went bowling and went out for someplace to eat. Seeing his amazing drum skills and finding him very passionate about the band, they decided to let Tomoya join the band. Taka noted that Tomoya was a little lost about leaving his other band but despite that, he stayed at Taka’s place until he left the other band.
After releasing out singles such as “Naihi Shinso” and “Yume Yume”, they finally released out their debut album, “Zetakubuyo”, in 2007 when Tomoya Kanki officially joined ONE OK ROCK as their drummer. ONE OK ROCK started to grow as a band, having their music videos air on MTV often, starting to perform around cities in Japan, and having managers of venues hand out business cards for them to perform there. Audience started to change as more guys started to appear rather than girls in heels and as the audience number began to grow. Their 3rd album, Kanjo Effect, was the point where Taka became more known as the vocalist for ONE OK ROCK rather than the ex-pop idol. As the two years went on, they became more and more close and started to exchange more ideas to each other about songs. Everything seemed so bright until one event twisted the future of ONE OK ROCK.