Electric Eel Shock - Maybe I think, They Can Beat Nirvana (Xavier's longer version)

If you haven't heard how crazy the Japanese are for live music, you haven't been paying attention. UK & US artists come back from tours of Japan raving about insane audiences and sell out shows. Hell, even fictional band Spinal Tap had their careers resurrected by the Japanese. So what happens when a few of these over-enthusiastic fans pick up instruments? Electric Eel Shock (EES), that's what.

Sounding as if Zeppelin, Maiden and Sabbath have been plucked from their heyday and dumped into in a blender, EES's music is reminiscent of the days before the metal and rock scenes split into a myriad of over-stylised sub-genres. Best known for their riotous live shows, since leaving Japan for America in 1999, they've been touring constantly, returning home only briefly to sell everything they owned to support their quest for global notoriety. The following tour of the States lasted two years; the band surviving by selling CD's and T-Shirts, and was only curtailed by an email from a UK fanzine writer which asked, "Have you got any plans to come to the UK?" EES replied, "No! But we want. You get gig and we will come…" A month later EES were in London, played 12 gigs in 10 days and returned to the US with said fanzine writer as their new manager.

2004 marked the recording of 'Go Europe (European version)' and 'Go USA (American version)', the product of their first ever studio session, which spawned the single Rock and Roll Can Rescue The World, and sent their growing audiences moshing around like freshly salted slugs. The release of the album was followed with tours that took in 30 countries and 27 European festivals over the summer.

While touring Europe the band were based at The Suicide Motel in Utrecht, Holland, where they finished recording next album 'Beat Me' in early 2005, which has since received wide acclaim for its rawness and power. Throughout the rest of last year, their hectic touring schedule continued as they supported The Bloodhound Gang throughout the US and Europe. During this time they also supported the sexually rampant Turbonegro and critically underrated The Dwarves.

So how did it all begin? Well Akihito Morimoto (guitar & vocal) and Kazuto Maekawa (bass) were brought together while still at school by a shared obsession with Black Sabbath, and eventually had some success in Tokyo as part of a five-piece band that unfortunately imploded. Stuck in Tokyo Aki resorted to his other passion, fishing, and sustained himself as a professional angler, and he even still writes for Japan's largest fishing magazine. Kazuto joined a well-known and clean-cut Japanese funk band but was thrown out for his low-slung bass and unkempt appearance. That band's drummer Tomoharu 'Gian' Ito, who had a day job making false teeth, followed Kazuto and the three started practicing together.

Soon afterwards they recorded their first full length 'Maybe I think, We Can Beat Nirvana' and then flew to New York in 1999 for a handful of dates that turned into more than 20 thanks to word of mouth. Around this time they met long-time tour manager Bob Slayer, who previously toured bands such as Led Zeppelin and was the first westerner to be Karaoke Champion of Japan. Regardless of how much of the EES story is actually true (professional angling, making false teeth and a Japanese Karaoke champion?) their onstage energy is indisputable and always provides a cracking live show.