Ryo Okumoto (奥本亮; born May 24, 1959) is a Japanese rock keyboardist, best known for his work with American

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

band Spock's Beard. He joined the band in 1996 and has been a member ever since. When singer and keyboardist

Neal Morse Neal Morse (born August 2, 1960) is an American singer, musician and composer based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1992, he formed the progressive rock band Spock's Beard with his brother Alan and released an album which was moderately successful ...

was in the band, Ryo played

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

and

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

on the albums. Since Morse's departure, Okumoto has been the band's primary keyboardist. He resides in Los Angeles. Aside from his work with Spock's Beard, Okumoto has performed and recorded with numerous other artists and groups, including GPS, K²,

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and later became the lead singer of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis and had a successful solo career, ac ...

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...

, and Asia featuring John Payne. For three weeks in 1998, Okumoto was a member of Eric Burdon & the New Animals, before being replaced by Martin Gerschwitz. Okumoto was a member of

Eric André Eric Samuel André (born April 4, 1983) is an American comedian, actor, television host, writer, producer, and musician. He is best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the Adult Swim surreal comedy series '' The Eric Andre Show'' (2012� ...

's house band on season 5 of ''

The Eric Andre Show ''The Eric Andre Show'' is an American sketch comedy television series created and hosted by comedian Eric André. A parody of late night talk shows, it premiered on Cartoon Network's night-time programming block Adult Swim on May 20, 2012. The ...

''. In 2019, Ryo joined the progressive rock supergroup cover band ProgJect.

Discography

Solo

* ''Makin' Rock'' (1980) * ''Synthesizer'' (1980) * ''Solid Gold'' (1980) * ''Coming Through'' (2002) * ''The Myth of the Mostrophus'' (2022)

with Spock's Beard

* '' Beware of Darkness'' (1996) * '' The Kindness of Strangers'' (1998) * '' Day for Night'' (1999) * '' V'' (2000) * ''

Snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

'' (2002) * '' Feel Euphoria'' (2003) * ''

Octane Octane is a hydrocarbon and also an alkane with the chemical formula C8H18, and the condensed structural formula CH3(CH2)6CH3. Octane has many structural isomers that differ by the location of branching in the carbon chain. One of these isomers ...

'' (2005) * '' Spock's Beard'' (2006) * '' X'' (2010) * '' Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep'' (2013) * '' The Oblivion Particle'' (2015) * ''

Noise Floor In signal theory, the noise floor is the measure of the signal created from the sum of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within a measurement system, where noise is defined as any signal other than the one being monitored. In radio com ...

'' (2018)

with K²

* ''Book of the Dead'' (2005) * ''Black Garden'' (2010)

with GPS

* '' Window to the Soul'' (2006)

References

External links

* Musicians from Osaka Prefecture American musicians of Japanese descent Living people 1959 births Japanese keyboardists Japanese emigrants to the United States Spock's Beard members Inside Out Music artists {{US-rock-musician-stub