The Tokyo Dragons were a

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

band. They achieved success in the UK and worldwide after releasing two successful albums and touring with

Nashville Pussy Nashville Pussy is an American rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. Initially called Hell's Half-Acre, the band's name comes from Ted Nugent's introduction to "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" on the ''Double Live Gonzo'' album. Following the initial 1 ...

The Quireboys The Quireboys are an English rock band formed in 1984 in London, with strong ties to Newcastle. When the band formed they were originally known as The Queerboys and later as the London Quireboys in the United States and Canada, settling at ...

Status Quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...

Do Me Bad Things Do Me Bad Things are a nine-piece English blues/ rock/soul/metal band from Croydon, London, England, who formed in 2003 and split up in January 2006 before recently re-forming in early 2015. History They started out supposedly not intending t ...

and

Winnebago Deal Winnebago Deal are a British rock band from Oxford, England. They formed in the late 1990s at Bartholomew School in Eynsham, with Ben Perrier (vocals, guitar) and Ben Thomas (drums). Perrier and Thomas decided to perform as a duo after ejecting ...

History

The band was formed by friends Steve Lomax (guitar/vocals), Mal Bruk (guitar/vocals) and Phil Martini (drums/vocals) with Ade Easily (bass). They appeared on ''Breaking Point'', an

MTV2 MTV2 (formerly M2) is an American pay television Cable television, channel owned by the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. The channel launched initially as an all-music video service, once the original MTV had started to sh ...

programme sponsored by

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...

in which ten bands were documented going through the process of being spotted, courted and then signed to a

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

. The Tokyo Dragons were signed, and recorded their debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

, '' Give Me the Fear'', at

Rockfield Studios Rockfield Studios is a residential recording studio located in the Wye Valley just outside the village of Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales. It was originally founded in 1963 by brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward. Facilities Rockfield is a two- ...

for Island Records in June 2004. The band released their first

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

, "Teenage Screamers", in June 2004. It reached number 61 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and the song appeared on the soundtrack for the 2005 racing game '' Flatout''. Easily left the band in March 2005 and was replaced as bassist by Mattias Stady. ''Give Me the Fear'' was released in September 2005 and entered the UK Rock Album Chart at number 23. The following month the band released their second single, ''Get 'Em Off'', which entered the UK Singles Chart at number 75. Tokyo Dragons co-headlined the first

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

'New School of Rock' Tour, with The Answer and The Sound Explosion. In June 2005, they appeared at the

Download Festival Download Festival is a British-created rock festival created by Terrance Gough, held annually at the Donington Park motorsport circuit in Leicestershire, England (since 2003); in Paris, France (since 2016); at Parramatta Park, Sydney (since 201 ...

, playing on the '

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

Stage'. The band recorded a second album with

Kurt Bloch Kurt Bloch (born August 28, 1960) is an American songwriter, guitarist, engineer and record producer. Music career Bloch is best known as songwriter and lead guitarist of Fastbacks, and is a member of The Young Fresh Fellows. Record Production ...

for Escapi Music entitled '' Hot Nuts'', which was released in September 2007. They split up a year later, playing their final show at the

100 Club The 100 Club is a music venue located at 100 Oxford Street, London, England, where it has been hosting live music since 24 October 1942. It was originally called the Feldman Swing Club, but changed its name when the father of the current owner ...

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as ...

on 4 September 2008, in support to

Girlschool Girlschool are a British rock band that formed in the new wave of British heavy metal scene in 1978. Frequently associated with contemporaries Motörhead, they are the longest-running all-female rock band, still active after more than 40 yea ...

. Lomax and Bruk then formed a new group, The Sabretooth Tiger Band, with Tom Shotton and Adam Mallett from the defunct band

. They played their debut gig on 5 December 2008 at The George Tavern in Whitechapel, London. Lomax subsequently formed The Sweat, who released their debut album, ''Heavy Sweatin'', via Bandcamp. Martini became the drummer for

, whom Tokyo Dragons had supported in 2005, recorded albums in 2010/11 for

The Union The Union may refer to: Politics * The Union (Germany) or CDU/CSU, the partnership of the German political parties the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union * The Union (Italy), a former coalition of political parties in Ital ...

, a band formed by

Luke Morley Luke Morley (born 19 June 1960 in Camberwell, London, England) is the guitarist, chief songwriter and producer for the hard rock band Thunder from 1989 to present (with a break from 1999–2002, and 2009–2011). Previous to that he wa ...

and Peter Shoulder, then performed and recorded with a number of bands including I Am I,

Spear Of Destiny A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastene ...

, Joe Elliott's

Down 'n' Outz Down 'n' Outz are an England, English Rock music, rock band featuring members from Def Leppard, The Quireboys, and Raw Glory. The group covers bands and artists related to Mott the Hoople including Mott, British Lions, and Ian Hunter (singer), ...

, Alluri and Jim Jones and The Righteous Mind, before joining Wayward Sons, featuring lead singer

Toby Jepson Toby Jepson is a singer and songwriter, and is the lead vocalist and guitarist of British rock band Wayward Sons. He was formerly the lead vocalist and guitarist of Little Angels between 1984 and 1994. Between 2008 and 2015, he was the lead ...

, whilst recording albums with Down 'n' Outz and Spear Of Destiny.

Discography

Albums

* '' Give Me the Fear'' (September 2005) * '' Hot Nuts'' (September 2007)

Singles

References

External links

Official websitearchived
on 11 October 2007
MySpace profilearchived
on 11 March 2006 {{Authority control Musical groups established in 2004 Musical groups disestablished in 2008 English rock music groups Island Records artists