15JAM was founded by Rully, with her as the only member. It should be taken into consideration, however, that Rully has never expressed exactly what she was thinking when she conceived the band's name. In March of 2003, Rully won the Grand Prix audition prize of Tokyo-FM's MUSICBIRD. As the result of this victory, Rully decided that the time was right for her to release her debut CD!
In June, 15JAM released their debut CD throughout Japan, selling their records in notable music stores like HMV, Tower Records and Virgin Mega Stores. With only one thousand copies to sell, 15JAM went and advertised themselves and began selling their CD on the streets. Thankfully for the band, the combined effort of both shop and street promotion worked, and the band sold every copy in fifty days.
In the same month, Rully was made "NEWFACE" of the monthly magazine Audition. Due to this initial success, 15JAM found themselves openly supported by the media, gaining features in magazines, newspapers and more importantly, on the radio and television.
Rully then became a TOKYO FM radio program personality, with 15JAM's own 'corner' on the station called Ura Rully-ka. The show lasted around two years.
In August, 15JAM released their first promotional video for the song Mizutama. 15JAM held their first promotional live at Harajuku RUIDO in November to great success and quickly established themselves as an up-and-coming indie band.
The spring of 2004 signaled a positive beginning for the band as 15JAM held a live on SkyPerfecTV channel 216, and they continued to perform regularly on the station. Thanks to this publicity, their popularity within Japan rose. In March, Rully offered her musical composition skills to Tokuma Communications, writing the lyrics for Manmaru, which was later a hit for Okada Ayana.
Silence surrounded the band for a few months before in October, 15JAM held their graduation live, in which four of the members (of which no information is made available) left the band. This unfortunate turn of events left Rully as the sole member of the group again and yet, in a more positive turn gave her the opportunity to start fresh. Therefore, with this positive attitude in mind, Rully began her search for new members.
With November came new achievements for 15JAM; after winning the preliminary audition for Warner & Lawson sponsorship, Rully was then chosen to represent the Kyushu and Okinawa prefectures . Furthermore, pre-land was used as the image song for a digital photo printer. 15JAM continued on strongly despite still only consisting of Rully.
Then 15JAM became a four person girl band in January 2005, and in February they held their first one-man tour. JAM BOX had stops in Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Gunma and Fukuoka. For the first time since the group's formation, the girls also branched out into Miyazaki and Okinawa and gained further recognition and popularity with the public.
March signified an important turning point for the group, with the leg of their tour in Kyushu being broadcast on both television and radio, and the group was also featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles. Summer saw the band being chosen as the Kyushu/Okinawa representative in the COME TO MAJOR nationwide audition final. Rully then traveled to Tokyo in order to participate at SHIBUYA O-EAST. This sudden spark of interest in the band got them their own column in the free music magazine JIVE, yet sadly, both the drummer and bassist left the band around this time.
Luck once again appeared to be on Rully's side as only a month later, she hired a new bassist and drummer for 15JAM. With the band reaching new heights in popularity, the group began to work on material for their first maxi single in order to maintain their success. The band recalled that Miyazaki had been a particularly keen area of interest and so returned for another tour in September. This perceptive nature appeared to have paid off for the band when their live performance was aired on local Miyazaki channel UMK and the radio.
Following that bout of success, 15JAM was featured on a cultural broadcast, BS Free Station 2, for a one hour segment. As if that wasn't enough, the homepage of UnderGround Music featured a PODCAST transmission of the group's performance in Miyazaki. 15JAM also performed at a Tsuno Winery event, and the performance was once again broadcast on both the television and radio, a testament to their growing popularity.
In November, the group performed at several important events that gained them further publicity and fans. First, 15JAM performed at the Sony Music Group’s SD sponsored "nadeshiko," in which six groups were carefully selected from the Kanto region. The girls also participated at the Vodafone "LOCK ON ROCK" and proved so successful that they were chosen for the semi-finals. Lastly, 15JAM was selected in the final election of ten groups at the CHOFU Rock & Pops Contest 2006.
December came with the release of their first maxi single and eager fans snatched it up. Admirably, the single achieved the number one spot on the indies chart at both Tower Records and the CD shop MRT micc in Miyazaki. The subsequent release resulted in yet another tour, spanning Okinawa, Fukuoka, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Osaka, Nagoya and Gunma. This tour gave 15JAM more publicity than they could have dreamed off. Multiple performances were shown on television and aired on the radio, and the group was featured in magazines and newspapers once more.
Toward the end of the year, 15JAM was commissioned to hold a regular performance on Kamakura FM, although this was unfortunately postponed when the band lost all of its members aside from Rully in September. The search for new members proved more a challenge this time around, although in February, Aiko returned to the band and new member Tomo joined on keyboards. Rully then elected to hire two support members, and the band returned to their live activities and released their first full-length album in March.
15JAM has been on a quiet spell as of recent months, but one can be sure they will be back in full force in the near future!
