The Tokyo Dragons were an English,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

-based

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

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. The band's lyrical themes mostly revolve around sex, drugs, drinking, fighting, and rock 'n' roll. Initially called Hell's Half-Acre, the band's name comes from Ted Nugent's int ...

The Quireboys The Quireboys are an English rock band formed in 1984 in London, with strong ties to Newcastle. Originally known as The Choirboys, then The Queerboys, billed as The London Quireboys in the United States and Canada, settling at last with their ...

Status Quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...

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.

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, through PMN’s MTV Entertainment Group Subdivision. The channel launched initially as an all-music ...

programme sponsored by

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

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 act (artist or group), where the act makes an audio recording (or series of recordings) for the label to sell and ...

. The Tokyo Dragons were signed, and recorded their debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

, ''

Give Me the Fear ''Give Me the Fear'' is the debut album of Tokyo Dragons released in September 2005. The track "Teenage Screamers" was featured in the 2004 racing game FlatOut (video game), FlatOut. Track listing # "What the Hell" – 3:47 # "Get 'Em Off" – 2 ...

'', 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 founded in 1963 by brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward. Recording studios Rockfield is a two-stu ...

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, and the song appeared on the soundtrack for the 2005 racing game ''

FlatOut ''FlatOut'' is a series of action demolition derby/racing video games created by Finnish independent video game developer Bugbear Entertainment. The ''FlatOut'' series has sold a total of almost 3 million units worldwide. After Bugbear develop ...

''. 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 Albums 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 is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

'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 rock festival created by Andy Copping, held annually at the Donington Park motorsport circuit in Leicestershire, England (since 2003); in Paris, France (since 2016); at Parramatta Park, Sydney (since 2019); Flemington ...

, playing on the '

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

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 ''Hot Nuts'' is the second studio album released by British hard rock band Tokyo Dragons. Track listing # "On Your Marks" - 4:21 # "Keeping the Wolf from the Door" - 3:44 # "If I Run, You Run" - 4:18 # "Killing Everybody You Meet" - 4:38 # " ...

'', 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 between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

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 ...

. 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, and recorded albums in 2010/11 for The Union, 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 was a memb ...

and

Peter Shoulder Winterville were an English blues rock band, whose sound was influenced by the 1960s Blues sound of bands like Cream, and the 1990s Grunge sound of bands like Soundgarden. They released several singles and one album. When the band formed in ...

. Martini then performed and recorded with a number of bands including

I Am I "I Am I" is a song by progressive metal band Queensrÿche appearing on their 1994 album ''Promised Land''. Chart performance Track listing Personnel *Geoff Tate - vocals *Michael Wilton - lead guitar *Chris DeGarmo - rhythm guitar, cello, ...

Spear Of Destiny A spear is a polearm 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 fastened to t ...

, Joe Elliott's Down 'n' Outz, 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

* ''

'' (September 2005) * ''

'' (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