Girl on Run

From left to right: Ayane Hichigara, Ichigo Osana (back), Tsuki Uzaki, and Ai Hirasawa.

## Background Information

### Genres

Hard rock - grunge - sludge metal - stoner metal - heavy metal - river metal - industrial rock - kawaii metal (early)

### Labels

Harakiri - Oiran Japan - Senkaku - A&M - Sub Pop

### Associated acts

Spin - Nine Inch Nails - Whitewater - System of a Down - Soundgarden - Radiohead - Tool

## Members

### Members

Ayane Hichigara, Ai Hirasawa, Ichigo Osana, Tsuki Uzaki

### Past members

Miyako Azanashi, Naomi Michigaya, Lupe Kampanganan

**Girl on Run** is a Japanese rock band formed in Northamptonshire, UK, in 1982. Since 2020, the band's lineup has consisted of vocalist and guitarist Ayane Hichigara, bassist Ichigo Osana, rhythm guitarist Tsuki Uzaki, and drummer Ai Hirasawa, of which Osana is the only member to appear in all incarnations of the band.

Over the nearly forty years that the band has been running, it has seen multiple incarnations, and a total of seven different people in it.

After signing to Oiran Japan, they released their album *Stories from Chernobyl* in 1986. While it was hated by music critics in Japan, it was loved among Japanese youth. While originally a commercial failure, it rose in popularity after the release of their next album, *Pleasant Disaster,* in 1987.

Their contract with Oiran Japan only lasted two albums, and for their next album, *Ayane, Miyako, and Ichigo,* they signed with Senkaku Records, and it became a smash hit in both Japan and America.

Hichigara left the band in 1990, due to her marriage to American vocalist Kurt Cobain, and Girl on Run enlisted Naomi Michigaya as a new vocalist. From there, they released their most popular album to date, *Lightswitch,* in 1991. While their popularity was immense during the early 1990s, it waned after the release of their 1993 album *Just Go Away*.

Michigaya was fired in 1995, and the other two band members reinstated Hichigara, who was mourning the death of her husband since 1994.

After releasing the *Slip EP*, they disbanded in 1999. While they occasionally did concerts together, they didn't fully reunite as a band until 2020, when they released their critically-acclaimed eighth album, *...and Tsuki!*.

After a few disputes, they fired longtime drummer Miyako Azanashi and instated Lupe Kampanganan. However, since Kampanganan was a technical illegal immigrant, she was deported back to the Philippines, and the band replaced her with Ai Hirasawa, longtime friend and drummer of the sister band Spin.

## History

### Formation, first years, and *Shit Outta Luck* (1979-1984)

All three original band members: Ayane Hichigara, Miyako Azanashi, and Ichigo Osana, moved to Northampton, England as teens. Osana moved to live with her aunt, while Azanashi and Hichigara moved due to being accepted into an exchange program. All three of them are Japanese. Osana was in various bands in the Northampton area, including Normal for Norfolk and Sprint, and being three years' Hichigara and Azanashi's senior, she didn't know them until 1983.

Meanwhile, Hichigara and Azanashi were both students at the Keeling Girls' School, and they met at the cafeteria late in their freshman year. After a brief conversation about metal and the 1970s no-wave movement in the US, they traded numbers, and they became friends. A few months later, the pair decided to start a band, originally called the Babygirls.

However, soon after, Ayane was raped by three men in London. Ichigo Osana was nearby afterwards, and pulled a bloody Hichigara out of the water and took her to the hospital. Soon afterwards, they decided to change the name, seeing Babygirls as too feminine of a name. Therefore, they changed the name to Sapien, and played their first concert at the Picturedrome in Northampton, on January 15, 1982. Since they didn't have a bassist at the time, they searched for a bassist. They found a Norfolk native, Kara Schaffer-Sullivan, and enlisted her as a bassist. However, they fired her after a few months because she was inbred and didn't want that image.

Meanwhile, Ichigo Osana was playing bass for ska-punk band Normal for Norfolk, and was touring England during that time. Hichigara was looking for the woman who had saved her life, and scoured London for weeks, looking for her. Eventually, she found out she was in Normal for Norfolk, and during the time she was in London, Osana and her band were playing a show near Ayane's home in Northampton. Hichigara and Azanashi decided to follow Normal for Norfolk, and found Osana at a show in Oxfordshire. They traded numbers and correspondence, and soon after, Normal for Norfolk disbanded. They then asked Osana to join the band, of which she accepted. Ichigo Osana would become the only member of the band to appear in all incarnations of the band.

Soon after, Hichigara and Azanashi both dropped out of school, and the three of them moved to Cardiff, Wales. They toured around, booking shows at small pubs and venues around Wales. They soon gained a reputation within the heavy metal scene in both Cardiff and Newport. They often couch surfed in different friend's houses, and slept in cars. However, soon after, when they could afford it, they moved into an apartment, and with money from their friend Tony Bourge of Tredegar, began writing their first album. During the time, Hichigara and Azanashi were addicted to various drugs, including the muscle relaxer gabapentin. The album was influenced heavily by the heavy metal scene in both Cardiff and Newport, in Southern Wales. According to Azanashi, it took 5 weeks of daily practice and writing, and after that, they went down to Cardiff to record the album over a month with the money that Tony Bourge gave them. Azanashi was also in a brief relationship with Bourge. After a lot of conflict within the band about track listings, they released their album, *Shit Outta Luck*, on August 19, 1984. It didn't receive much radio play, usually credited to its wide array of time signatures and depressing, bleak nature. The only song that got decent airplay from that album was "Lorry".

### Repatriation to Japan, the first Bus Tape, and *Lost in Time* (1985)

After the release of *Shit Outta Luck,* they toured around England and Wales for a few months in 1984. Then, in December 1984, producer Akina Rushizaya sent the band a letter after seeing their show in Newport. She asked the band to come to Japan, for the possibility of Rushizaya being the band's producer and helping them with the second album. Soon after, in January 1985, they relocated to Japan, deciding to finish the *Shit Outta Luck* tour out there.

They met with Akina Rushizaya, who also helped produce the album *They Call Me Baby* from the band Spin. Spin's drummer, Ai Hirasawa, also met the band at a show in Yamaguchi in February 1985. Soon after, Hirasawa was enlisted as the manager for the band.

During this same time, the band toured throughout Central and Southern Japan. They also recorded a live video of their concerts, interspersed with personal commentaries from each band member. This was the first installment in a series of videos, which would become *The Bus Tapes.* It showed concerts being played, the band members eating and talking, and also scenes of physical violence. There was a scene in the first installment of *The Bus Tapes* included a scene of Ayane assaulting and robbing an older man who had touched her backside.