Taiyo Someya

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## Background

### Instruments

Guitar

**Taiyo Someya** (染谷大陽) is a Japanese songwriter and a member of *Lamp*. He composes, plays guitar, and occasionally sings background vocals and plays various percussion instruments.

## History

### Early Life (1979-1995)

Taiyo Someya was born on November 13th, 1979 in Musashisakai, Tokyo, Japan. However, before he turned 1, he moved to Fussa before moving back once again to Musashisakai after only around 6 months. He remained there until he was around 4 years old, when he moved to Abiko, where he lives now.

He was surrounded by musicians from a young age, as his parents owned studio named Alfalfa Studio, and his father Aoshi Someya was a musician and producer. His father was a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix, and Someya would often mistake Hendrix's music for his father's.

### High School and University (1995-1999)

In high school, Someya's interest in music began to grow more, and he sought out people and clubs who were also interested in music. It was here he met Nagai in a club for folk music, and after being impressed by his solo performance of "Hey Jude", essentially forced him to join his band as a rhythm guitarist. This was short lived however, as Nagai quit after losing motivation in under a year, and Someya followed.

Following high school, Someya then went to the attached university and was introduced to new genres like bossa nova, AOR, and MPB. Him and Nagai continued to toy with the idea of creating a new band and would sometimes record Beatles covers, but they felt that they were lacking something. This all changed when he was showing another classmate some songs he liked, and asked him if he knew anybody with similar music tastes, to which he answered yes. Afterwards, Someya was introduced to Kaori Sakakibara, and after talking about their shared interests, Someya knew she was the missing piece they needed to form a band.

### Lamp (2000-Present)

When Lamp formed, Someya did all of the songwriting and arrangements before meeting with Sakakibara and Nagai to practice and record them, although he claims that a lot of the time they spent together was unproductive, and they would all end up just reading or talking for hours. Eventually, the band scored their first gig at the Magnacy in Nishi-Abazu, an all night event at a bar sponsored by a Shibuya record shop.

After getting both an offer from a record company and from a job he had interviewed for, Someya decided to reject the job offer and instead pursue music. While the record company ended up not working out, him and the other members continued to produce music, making a new 10 track demo to send out. Soon, one of Someya's friends set up the members of Lamp with a Motel Bleu representative, where they gave him their 10 track demo. He soon sent a very brief email saying he wanted to talk, and after negotiating a deal, they began to work on their first album in September of 2002, Soyokaze Apartment Room 201.

From there, Someya continued to work on developing his skills and sound to better convey the music he wanted. Following the release of their first album, him and the other band members worked relentlessly, with Someya leaving his house at 10am to pick up Nagai and Sakakibara to arrive at their studio by 1, where they would record until past midnight, with Someya sometimes sleeping in his car. This continued through their work on For Lovers and At Komorebi St. This unending work led to the band members being unable to even recognize if their work was good music.

Someya realized after these two albums that something needed to change, as all of the band members were wearing themselves out over music they weren't truly proud of. He also realized at the time that Nagai had a great talent for composing songs, and urged him more often to write his own pieces, as in his opinion, the best songs on their past albums had all been penned by Nagai. Additionally, Someya wanted to make one album that featured traditionally Japanese-influenced tracks, which ended up becoming Gensou, while also wanting to make an album that showed greater musical evolution and prowess, which became Tokyo Utopia Tsuushin.

## Inspirations

A Spotify playlist containing almost all (work in progress) songs recommended by Someya through his blog is linked below

Someya's Picks

## Trivia

The first CD Someya purchased was *The Boom* by Shima Uta

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://lampnoakari.jugem.cc/?eid=171
2. ↑ http://lampnoakari.jugem.cc/?eid=947
3. ↑ http://kumomi.org/2014/12/30/lamp-tokyo-utopia-tsuushin-column-2011/