rice was formed in April 2001 by vocalist Yuki and drummer Hiro. The decision to start another band was made awhile back by Kazuki, the guitarist of their former band Raphael. He wanted them to start a new band, learn new things apart from Raphael and then come back together as stronger musicians. However, Raphael never did get back together due to Kazuki's tragic death on October 31, 2000.
The band name was chosen by Yuki while he was eating in a sushi bar. The foundation of the band is "Bonds Rock=rice," which means the creation of sound that will garner attention from the world. In May 2001, the brand-new band held their first tour, rice live 0/∞ Lv:1, which consisted of three concerts, all at Zepp Tokyo. They also presented their logo "Free-air," which is a mix between a Swastika and Taï-ki.
Their first magazine appearance was on the cover of the July issue of Vicious. Their first release was a maxi-single called Angerudie, which was released on July 25th. It contained five tracks, amongst them the song Air, which also appeared on the majority of their subsequent singles and albums. Shortly after, they held another short tour. At the end of October they released the maxi-single ~Kurogane~.
In July 2002, they released their first album, Lobain, also known as Loverain. The band toured again in order to promote the release and their next single, Haruka, came out in October.
In 2004, they continued in pretty much the same fashion as the previous year. They had a few concerts, all of which were sold out. There seemed to be some problems with their label, but they finally released another CD in November, a brand new album called Rame which presented the band's slightly new sound. Their first video was also released that year.
Early in 2007, the band released a best-of album, Trial 0406. Later that year, in October, the band started to spread their activities and, instead of limiting themselves to Japan, they performed in China as well as in East Europe with the band Gram∞Maria.
The band released the single, Heart is always on March 26, 2008. Interestingly, the title track was sold as a live-only single the summer before.
In 2009, Rikkyoku Sympathy, rice's first original album in almost five years, was released. Approximately 10,000 hours were put into its creation. For most people this task would seem arduous, but the band maintains that it was an enjoyable process. The concept of the album and title was combining six directions: heaven, earth, east, west, south and north in order to create something universal and string it altogether with the subtopic of humanity.
The next year rice announced a two-month release campaign. The single Lovers was released in March followed by Sing you in April.
Although rice's popularity might not seem obvious to the outside world, the combination of a style of rock that uses more cellos than guitars and Yuki's vibrato has attracted many dedicated fans. Hopefully, they will continue pursuing their ideal of creating a sound that will garner attention from the world in the years to come.
