JOKER

JOKER began officially in September of 2003. The members had all been in a band together previously, aside from the second guitarist named Setsuki. Almost immediately after their formation, they were signed to the independent Loop Ash label and they released their mini-album Esaduke, which made it into the top twenty of the Oricon Indie Charts. Unfortunately, after this success came a small flood of members leaving as drummer Shunji and guitarists Setsuki and Kazuhi all left the band. In 2004, two new members were brought in: Yuki on drums and Nono (ex Hagakure) on guitar.

This infusion of fresh blood and talent seemed to give the band a bit of a boost as their single Kakuritsu hendou hit the sixth position on the Oricon Indie Charts and they spent much of the summer touring. However, it was around this time that bassit YU-TO, the only founding member left aside from vocalist Toge, decided to leave. He was soon replaced by Hiiro. Despite all of this chaos, JOKER seemed to be doing well in the Indie visual-kei scene as their shows often sold out and they were able to play with the likes of the then up-and-coming alice nine. during their self-organized event, 2DAYS 2MAN.

They released a new single every month at the start of 2005, culminating in March's Triple７days♪. Unfortunately, two months later, the band played their last show on May 30th at the Kagurazaka Dimension.

While a number of members appear to have left the music scene, three of the remaining members (Nono, Hiiro and Yuki) created a new band together, HeaRt, which was also on the Loop Ash label. Unfortunately, HeaRt went the way of JOKER and was unable to stay together for long. Nono and Hiiro (now known as hixro) have stuck together though, to form yet another band signed to Loop Ash, this one called v (NEU). Drummer Yuki joined biene instead.

Meanwhile, vocalist Toge (now going by Byo) and a previous JOKER founding member, bassist YU-TO (now known as Yuuto), started a new band called SCREW which is currently on the Indie PSCompany label along with fellow visual-kei band SuG.