Above: a short video that a friend edited together of my band The Goood Things live performance

I used to think that my dream-job was being a writer or a rock star. When I arrived in Japan in my mid-twenties, I had a fresh start and so I auditioned for a cover band and became their lead singer. I lived in the suburb of Noborito at the time, so we called ourselves ‘No Burritos’. I’d always thought that the appeal of being a frontman was performing on stage in front of a crowd. However, after covering other bands' songs for about a year, I began to get tired of it and realized that something was missing. 

I fell in love with singing again after starting my own original hard rock band called ‘The Mootekkis’. The name came from the Japanese word ‘muteki’ and suddenly I was thinking about music all the time. I was coming up with melodies on the train, writing lyrics at work, and then jamming out these ideas with my bandmates in the rehearsal studio. It felt great to play our original tunes live in front of an audience of people who were wearing our T-shirts and saying that they listened to our songs on rotation. 

When I got married, I became more committed to my family. The Mootekkis members lived in different parts of Tokyo, so it was difficult to get together and eventually we broke up. Luckily, I’d already started another band with a guy who was close friends with my wife - they share the same birthday! We called ourselves ‘The Goood Things’ because our music was easy to sing along to and (like beer) put people in a good mood. 

In the last few years, I’ve redefined my dream-job as anything that involves working closely with family and friends. If the band doesn’t work out, I’d like to open a craft beer and hamburger shop someday. 

You can listen to The Goood Things' music here

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The expressions written in bold above are from my 'Speak like a native' lesson called 'Music You Like'. If you want to learn many more music-related words and phrases that are used in daily conversation Trial lessons are 1000pts for 45 minutes - click here