Biography

Introduction

Fujiya & Miyagi are an English band formed in Brighton in 2000. They are currently signed to Full Time Hobby Records in the United Kingdom. They are self-described as being heavily influenced by 70's Krautrock bands such as Can and Neu! as well as early-90's electronic music artists like Aphex Twin. The origins of the band's name come from a character in the movie The Karate Kid as well as the brand of a record player . The lines "We're not a couple of shadowboxers/Oh/Oh/Just two Anglo-Saxons" from the 2008 track Butterfingers may be a comment on the band name and how it is perceived.

The first several years after the band's formation were spent in relative obscurity; however, they began to see a drastic spike in popularity between 2003 and 2006 thanks in large part to very favorable reviews from prominent music publications such as NME and Pitchfork Media. They were also the subject of an episode of the MTV2 documentary series This Is Our Music in 2006. The song "Collarbone" has been featured in ads for both Jaguar's 2007 "Gorgeous" campaign as well as Miller Lite's "Bar Stool" directed by Tarsem Singh.

The current members of the band are:

Steve Lewis (Fujiya): 2000–present (synths, beats, programming and backing vocals)
David Best (Miyagi): 2000–present (vocals and guitar)
Matt Hainsby (Ampersand): 2005–present (bass guitar and backing vocals)
Lee Adams: 2008–present (drums)

The story of how they met and formed the band variously reports a mutual hero-worship of world heavyweight wrestler Kendo Nagasaki, and a shared interest in krautrock and early-nineties electronica discovered while warming the subs bench during Sunday league football.

Fujiya & Miyagi recorded the track Butterfingers with Bomb the Bass for the latter's 2008 album, Future Chaos. The song was Bomb the Bass' second single from the longplayer, released on 12" vinyl and in download stores on 3 November (or 25 November in the USA) through !K7 Records. The song's video, which features a puppet keyboard, had been released onto the internet many months before the single release, and had in February 2009 been viewed over 500,000 times on Youtube.