The first plans for
Jinkaku Radio arose in late 2000 and a few months later the band officially started in January 2001. In the beginning they started with the following line-up: vocalist, guitarist and composer
Yuuki, guitarist
Maya, and bassist and producer
Naoki. They began with an appearance much different from what it is now: visual kei-esque outfits with quite some make-up, as opposed to the black suits of today.
In May of the same year, they released their first demo-tape titled
Nejimakidori, which was only available at lives. They performed various times and on December 14th they held their first one-man concert. A few weeks later,
Maya decided to leave the band; however, he did stay for a long time after as a support member.
Shortly after,
Mai, the former drummer of
LUV'ra-doll joined the band as a 'half radio' member, the term that the band uses for its support members. Also their first maxi-single
Kairo was released during this period. Selling out rather quickly, a second press was released a few months later. A funny note about this single: the cover features
Yuuki and
Naoki's dogs.
In April 2003, they finally released their first album,
Shouko. The album sold out within a day and a second press was released.
Maya did not to participate in the recording of this album; instead the guitarist
Rai (formerly of
Falcioune) recorded it with them. About two months later, he officially joined as the new support guitarist and
Maya permanently to pursue his music career with other bands. In December of the same year, they released their second single,
Yuuhodou. It managed to reach the tenth rank on the indies Oricon charts.
In 2004, support drummer
Mai left the band, and they paused their activities for a short while. In June, they found a new support drummer named
Shin, who had previously worked with
Naoki in the project
Lemon-Glass, and so they continued with their activities.
More releases followed then, though only in the form of singles and unfortunately no new album. From being totally self-produced and doing most of the distribution by their own office, they joined Danger Crue (a sub-label of Sony Japan) who took care of the distribution of their CDs from then on.
A special, live-only single was released in November 2006:
Bandgal Shoukogun, a parody song about fangirls. During live performances of this song, the band members dress up with gothic lolita headpieces, and a complete choreography was developed for the song, which included several dancers on the stage. This act can be seen in the live DVD
Bandgal Radio Theater that was released in July 2007, which is their only DVD so far.
In between, another change in the support members was made as
Rai left the band in December 2006, and was replaced by
John. Their next release was the single
Oborozuki in December 2007. Despite being only sold at Tower Records in the first few months, it ranked fifth on the Oricon indies charts. During this time, the band performed frequently, gaining more recognition and fans as time progressed. Overseas, their small but loyal fanbase was slowly growing as well.
In July 2008,
Yuuki and
Naoki announced to be taking a break from live activities, in order to focus on working on their long awaited second album. At some point, they resumed their live activities again, but it took the band until April 2010 before a new release came out, the single
Taiyou. The band finally kept up with their promise in November 2010, as the long-awaited second album
Ichibyou was released, their second album in seven years. It ranked in the top 50 of the Oricon charts. In the meantime, they also worked on their “Sake bandgirl” television show, which was aired in Tochigi and on
YouTube. The show usually had a humoristic approach, and its standard features were an interview with another visual kei band and
Yuuki and
Naoki undertaking activities in the Tochigi area.
In 2011,
Jinkaku Radio once again focused on live activities, although the year only contained two tours. The year did see a new release, namely the single
Akai kutsu in September. It seemed they were on a roll, as a new album was also announced to be released in November as well as a new single, called
Hikizan, set for release in February 2012. The title song was going to be used as the ending song of the anime “Danshi Kokosei no Nichijo”, which would be the band’s first time to have their song featured in an anime--a well-known promotional method to obtain more recognition in Japan. These plans abruptly came to a halt however, after
Yuuki, known for its sharp tongue and quick wit, made a comment about a voice-actress which was deemed inappropriate. As a result, the collaboration was dropped, the release and planned lives cancelled.
Yuuki apologized to everyone that had felt offended, and the band announced to exercise ‘self-restraint’ in their blogs, social media and other public outings. Also the album release was pushed back.
For over half a year, the band was entirely inactive. In July 2012,
Yuuki published the first post since their hiatus on his blog. The post got over a 2000 ‘welcome back’ comments from their fans. However, in September the band announced to be taking a hiatus in order to focus on solo-activities. Their third album,
Yui, was however still released in October. It was once again self-produced and ranked 77th in the Oricon charts.
Shortly after, it was announced
Yuuki would be starting a solo-project, with a first release called
Bangyaru kokoro to aki no sora coming out in March 2013.
Naoki started the band
THE BEETHOVEN together with a number of other visual kei musicians, such as
Makoto, former
Doremidan vocalist.
In their hiatus announcement,
Jinkaku Radio stressed that their break was not a disbandment, but that they would return. We look forward to seeing the band come back stronger than before.
