The Pillows is a Japanese rock band best known for their music in FLCL. The Pillows started in 1989, when the legendary ’80s J-Rock band Kenzi & the Trips split up. Former Trips Kenji Ueda (Bass) and Shinichiro Sato (Drums) teamed up with Yoshiaki Manabe (Guitar), who had previously played for 80s hair-band Persia, and Sawao Yamanaka (Vocals).
Their 1997 record Please Mr. Lostman was their first hit in Japan, preceded by a series of popular singles. After a wildly successful tour, the band proceeded to release three increasingly successful follow-up albums over the next two years: Little Busters, Runners High, and Happy Bivouac.
In 1999, The Pillows were approached by Gainax, an anime studio famous for Neon Genesis Evangelion at the time. Gainax wanted to license the pillows’ three most recent albums for their latest anime, entitled FLCL. the pillows agreed, even composing two new singles specifically for the anime: “Ride on Shooting Star” and “I Think I Can.”
The Pillows would not release another album until 2001, but they were still successful; the FLCL soundtracks sold well, as did their own best-of compilation, Fool on the Planet. Sawao concentrated his energies on Delicious Label, his record company side project. Manabe released a solo album as Nine Miles, continuing the reggae experimentation hinted at in earlier albums.
In March 2005, The Pillows played their first ever U.S. show at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, with Noodles. After that, they began to tour other large market cities, including New York City, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In interviews, the members reported being extremely surprised and pleased at the warm reception, and urged fans to try their non-FLCL music.
