Rock band LEGO BIG MORL are back from their year-long hiatus with a brand new sound.
lego big morl was formed in March 2006 when Kumamoto-born drummer Hiro Asakawa, whose previous band had just broken up, invited vocalist/guitarist Takehiro Kanata to form a new group with him. The timing was just right, as Kanata’s own band had also just dissolved. Kanata brought in one of his former bandmates, guitarist Hiroki Tanaka, and their highschool classmate Shintarou Yamamoto completed the quartet. The band then began playing shows in Osaka.
In August 2006, they released their first four-song demo, which was sold only at live venues. The next year saw the band broaden their activities considerably, heading outside Osaka and even to neighboring prefectures. That August, they distributed the song Tequila Goodbye for free at live venues.
They put out another demo and a few more limited releases in 2008, the most successful of which was moonwalk for a week, reaching number four on the Oricon Weekly Indies Charts and quickly sold out. Encouraged by this success, lego big morl released their first mini-album Tuesday and Thursday on June 11th and they performed at major events and festivals nationwide that summer. In December, the band had an even bigger breakthrough when their single Ray was used in Fuji TV's drama “Akai Ito”.
Riding on this momentum, the band’s first full-length album Quartette Parade hit stores in January 2009, and they embarked on their first nationwide tour lego big morl 2009 “Quartette Parade” ~tsuika kouen~ that March. They held a successful free live called Thanks Giving in October at Shibuya-AX, and joined Remioromen as the opening act on their Starting Over tour.
In 2010, lego big morl released their third single Drill Drill as a free download. They continued to tour and release new music at a steady pace until 2013. Unfortunately, that February, guitarist Hiroki Tanaka fractured his right wrist in an accident. Since it was expected to take months of surgery and rehabilitation to repair the damage, lego big morl were forced to officially pause activities. Their April tour lego big morl Spring Tour 2013 “Something New” was cancelled, but the band honoured the commitments they had already made for February and March, performing without Tanaka.
However, the members didn’t let this setback deter them; they decided to use the break from touring to focus on developing their sound.
In January 2014, lego big morl revealed the new single Wait?, released digitally and at live venues. The video for Wait? highlighted Tanaka’s return, showing him finally able to pick up his guitar and return to his bandmates’ side. lego big morl began touring and performing at events and festivals across Japan soon after. In April, the band set out to complete the spring tour that they cancelled the previous year, performing at the exact same venues on the same dates they had promised.
On April 30th, with that final lingering regret out of the way, lego big morl switched record labels, transferring over to A-Sketch. They released their first single with the company, RAINBOW, the same day. It would go on to gain the band new fans overseas as the ending theme of anime series “Blade & Soul”. Also around this time, the band began writing their name as LEGO BIG MORL, emphasizing the fact that this was to be a new chapter in their career – a fresh start.
This sentiment was echoed in the title of their next album, NEW WORLD, which was released on October 22, 2014 – almost three years after their last full-length album Re:Union.
