Career
Allister
Scott Murphy began playing with pop punk band Allister on bass and vocals in 1998. They were one of the first bands to sign to California based record label Drive-Thru Records, and have released five studio albums — 1999's Dead Ends and Girlfriends , 2002's Last Stop Suburbia (which reached No. 9 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.), [3] 2005's Before the Blackout , 2010's Countdown to Nowhere , and 2012's "Life Behind Machines" — Allister also made a cameo appearance in the 2004 film Sleepover . [4]
While on tour in Japan for the first time in 2001 for a string of sold-out shows, Murphy became intrigued by the culture and language of Japan, and after learning basic phrases to say from stage, he began studying Japanese on his own. During a stint at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, TX, Allister met and became close with Japanese rock band Ellegarden, and they were soon invited to a two and a half month/ 40 date tour of Japan together in 2006. [5] On this tour, Allister released the album Guilty Pleasures, on which Murphy sang most of the songs in Japanese, and the CD went on to sell over 250,000 copies. [6] The following year, Allister member Tim Rogner found out that he was to become a father, and the band announced their intention to go on hiatus, but resumed activity again in 2010. [7]
Solo Work
Scott Murphy went on to sign a deal as a solo artist with Japanese major record label Universal Music Japan - Universal J. [8] In 2008, he released "Guilty Pleasures II", and "Guilty Pleasures 3" as a continuation of the band's past work. Both albums were certified Gold Records by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipment of over 100,000 copies on September 10, 2009 [9] and December 10, 2009. [10]
Scott began making guest appearances on many popular Japanese television shows including: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ", [11] "Music Station", "Music On! TV", "Sukkiri", "Mezamashi TV", "Hanamaru Market" among others, and took an ongoing role announcing for NHK World's "J-Melo" TV program. [12] He also starred in a cheesecake commercial.
Over the next several years Scott released many more albums in the “Guilty Pleasures” series as well as an all English original album titled "Balance". He has released 2 live DVDs, as well as written songs and produced albums for several Japanese artists.
Scott & Rivers
In 2009 Scott began working on a new project with alternative rock band Weezer's frontman and vocalist Rivers Cuomo entitled Scott & Rivers. [13] The pair share lead vocal duties, and released a 12-song album of original songs sung in Japanese on March 20, 2013, through Universal Music. The album contains 11 original songs and 1 cover of Kimura Kaela's song "Butterfly." [14] They played their first show at the Countdown Japan Festival in Chiba, Japan on December 31, 2012, as the first non-Japanese act to perform at the 10-year-old festival, [15] and went on to do a sold out headlining tour in March/April 2013 to promote the album's release. Murphy also joined Weezer on stage at the Punk Spring '13 festival in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya to play Scott & Rivers first single,"Homely Girl." Scott & Rivers self-titled album is currently available physically only in Japan, and digitally worldwide through iTunes. [16]
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