Bio

Current Voluntary Mothers, as of August 2010, are
Akihiko Hayakawa: guitars, vocals
Kats-ya Sakurai: bass
Shota Mizguchi: drums
Hiro Hayashimi: keyboards

The Beginning
Voluntary Mother Earth was formed by Aki (Akihiko Hayakawa; g,vo) and ShonMage (ex-dr) in Denton, a small college town in Texas, in the fall of 2004. To be exact, it was formed when ShonMage asked Aki “Are you Japanese?” in Kharma Cafe, a local coffee shop. In the small but creative community of Denton, it was not very difficult to find a good keyboardist. Katsu Hosoe (ex-key) joined the team.

It was, however, next to impossible to find a solid bass player. That’s when they said, “Shit, White Stripes has no bassist, either. We can do it, too” and started rehearsing. It was not long before they found a very unique addition to the band, though; it was Billy White, the drunk Inuit dancer his-self.

They started playing local shows, and quickly created a buzz around town. People kept coming to their shows. Their first CD “Voluntary Invasion” was well received in the local Denton scene.

Miracle Itself Comes Down from Heavens
When they played their first Dallas show in August 2005, a miracle happened. When they started their set, the club was nearly empty, except for a 5-person crowd consisting of members of other bands playing that night.

It was during the third song of their set when the aforementioned miracle itself came down from heavens. All of a sudden, a herd of people began flooding into the place. By the end of the song, the band had a crazy dancing crowd of 50 people. After the show, people came rushing to them and asked vigorously who on earth they were.

The doorman at the club said he’d never seen anything like this happen before. An extraordinary experience. It was only the booking person, who was not in attendance at the show, that would neither wish to believe this story nor book the band again. The club is said to have gone out of business in 2006.

Move to Tokyo
In 2006, the band relocated to Tokyo, Japan; Aki’s visa in America expired. Duh. ShonMage decided to move with the band while the other members decided to stay in Texas . After a 7-month-long search for new members in Tokyo, Yuko Iwasawa(key) and Noriff Micky(a.k.a. Chunko)(bass) were welcomed into the band.

A brand new Voluntary Mother Earth was born. They were now tighter than ever. Their first Tokyo show in February 2007 was a tremendous success with nearly 100 people in the audience. Things looked splendid, or so they thought…

2007-the year to go broke
In May through June, they did their first US tour, covering 14 major cities in the eastern half of the country including Chicago, New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Houston, and Austin, among other cities.

After the tour, they headed straight to the studio somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Texas. “Unacceptable Vegetable”, a 9-song, 50-minute album, was the outcome. After coming back to Japan, Yuko left the band to pursue her own thing in life. Now Voluntary Mother Earth was a trio with more focus on rhythmic experimentation.

“Unacceptable Vegetable”
The new album “Unacceptable Vegetable” was released in December 2007. A month or two later, ShonMage left the band to pursue his own thing. Now, Voluntary Mother Earth became a duo. What the fuck.

2008-Change for the Better
In June, Fujita Fajita, a chiropractitioner, was welcomed into the band as new drummer. The aforementioned album started receiving dozens of good reviews in the U.S. and Europe. “Wow! All of a sudden things start to look Real Bitchen!”, said they.

In December, a certain guitar player showed up to their audition with a really nice-looking guitar in his hand. Below here is our conversation then.

Aki: “Wow, that’s a beauty. Now how much did THAT cost?”
He: “50 bucks.”
Aki: “You’re in.”

The certain guitar player joined this oddball combo from hell. Voluntary Mother Earth was now a foursome again. But as they say, apples don’t last forever. Sometimes they go rotten in the refrigerator. Half a dozen weeks later, the certain guitar player was fired for being too lazy. What the fuck, Voluntary Mother Earth is now a trio again.

2009-the year for all to go broke
VME toured the United States twice this year, only to go further in debt. At the end of the year, after spending a whole year with with certain band members not showing up and being lazy and projecting bad attitude, Aki said, “Fuck this poop” and decided to openly go Nine Inch Nails, so to speak. From the beginning he’s been doing everything from writing every note of every instrument to rehearsing the band to picking up garbage. He’d be doing the same, but from here on without the illusion and pretension of ‘teamwork’ which never really existed.

2010-Village Avant-Garde and brand new band
Being thoroughly burned out, Aki stayed home for the first half of this year to record a new VME album all by himself in his home studio. Village Avant-Garde came out.

Around this time, Kats-ya the bass player for the last U.S. tour called him and said,

“Hi. I want to go eat another slice of cheese pizza in America. I want American pizza. I want American cheese.”

That did the trick. The two of them went on to quickly reform the band in a few months, with Kats-ya recruiting a new drummer somewhere online and Aki a new keyboardist at his friends’ wedding somewhere in Osaka, Japan. With this addition of new weirdos, Voluntary Mother Earth is now in its most humorous and humorful form in its 6-year history.

Voluntary Mother Earth continues to rock those who wish to be rocked in the right hemisphere of their brain, new material and all. Stay tuned.

Past Mothers, honered or dishonered, are:
ShonMage(2004-08) – drums, teenage rock n roll mythologies, “Man, this could go somewhere!”
Katsu Hosoe(2004-06) – keyboard, macho, much equipment he didn’t know how to use
Billy the Eskimo(2004-06) – drunken dance, Eskimo in Texas, beer, lots of beer
Hillary Early(2005) – bass, vocals, and he doesn’t wanna be mentioned here
Yuko Iwasawa(2006-07) – keyboard, vocals, feminism
Noriff Micky(2006-09) – bass, confusion, poverty
Fujita Fajita(2008-09) – drums, beer, chiropractic, tardiness, bad attitude
and a random assortment of others who passed the audition but failed to show up or learn the song. May God help them.