The Birthday Singers

Japanese punk/psychobilly rock unit The Birthday are a project of vocalist Yusuke Chiba and guitarist Akinobu Imai of the J-rock band Rosso. Both men drifted away from Rosso in 2006 and created Birthday after a short stint as a duo under the name Midnight Bankrobbers. The new band found its rhythm section in drummer Kazuyuki Kuhara, with whom Yusuke used to play in Thee Machine Gun Elephant, and bassist Haruki Hirai, and then wasted little time, debuting with the single “Stupid” in the summer of 2006. The first studio album, Rollers Romantics, also arrived in 2006, supported by a Japan-wide tour. By the time of their second album, Teardrop (2007), The Birthday were already big enough to play the country’s number one venue, the Budokan, with the show documented on the DVD Looking for the Lost Teardrops Tour Final. The band kept to the yearly schedule, releasing third album Night on Fool in 2008 following the Motel Radio Sixty Six EP issued earlier that same year. ~ Alexey Eremenko