MARTIN who takes the lead vocal, plays the guitar, violin, and mandolin is a Scottish American from Florida. As he was brought up in a family with his parents both being musicians, he started to play the violin when he was three years old. He won the Grand Prix at a violin competition in Florida three years in a row when he was a junior high-school student. But then he was very much into playing the guitar in his junior-high and high school years, and that brought him to Japan when he was 19 years old. During the days as a guitarist, he first met a studio percussionist KAKUEI (plays the conga, bongos, steel drums, timbales, paticas, and so on). Immediately they became close friends as they found out that they had a mutual friend. They had enjoyed jam sessions at home since then. In 2004, at a gig, MARTIN met TOSHI-LOW who’d become another vocalist and the guitarist of OVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUND later.
OVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUND was formed from their relationship. MARTIN called KAKUEI to join, and TOSHI-LOW called MAKOTO (bass), RONZI (drums), and KOHKI (guitar) who were the remaining members of his own band BRAHMAN. The band was formed in June 2005, after a year when MARTIN and TOSHI-LOW first met.
One day TOSHI-LOW received an offer to put a track into an omnibus album celebrating the tenth anniversary of 7STARS, a graphic designers’ office in Tokyo; the album entitled “The Basement Tracks -10YEARS SOUNDTRACK OF 7STARS” (2005). The work on it was their first studio recording, and the band performed their first show in September, 2005. They released their first album “OVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUND” on July 12, 2006. After that album they participated in big summer rock festivals in Japan such as FUJIROCK FESTIVAL and ROCK IN JAPAN FESTIVAL and in September they went on their first tour in Japan. They vigorously performed on several festivals after then.
そんなおり、デザインチーム７STARSの10周年記念オムニバスの話がTOSHI-LOWの元に舞い込んだ。『The Basement Tracks -10YEARS SOUNDTRACK OF 7STARS』である。これを期にOVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUNDでの初レコーディングを果たした彼らは、０５年９月に初ライブを披露。０６年７月１２日にはついに記念すべき1ｓｔアルバム『OVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUND』をリリースした。ALBUMリリース後には、FUJIROCK FESTIVALやROCK IN JAPAN FESTIVALをはじめ次々と夏のフェスティバルへ登場し、９月に全国ツアーを行うと、さらにその後も数々のフェスティバルなどに出演している。
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