After being recognized by my parents as a child prodigy and genius songwriter, they nurtured my talents, and, at the age of 13, I was admitted into the Royal Academy of Music – specializing in composition – for tuition and grooming under some of the world’s best teachers. In my second year, I founded Edward’s Operation, and, after a short run of gigs in high-profile London venues, we were discovered by an A&R man from Patient Records. Our debut album was quickly certified platinum and three of the five singles taken from it reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as soon-to-be home Japan. We toured the world, performing at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, and all the world’s major stadiums, grossing more than McCartney, the Stones and U2 combined. We are the recipients of several Grammy Awards, including Best New Act, Best Album, Best Single, and I personally have been awarded the Genius Songwriter Award no less than thirty-three times.
Last year we were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor never before awarded to an act so early on in its career.
It has been a wonderful start to our musical activities. So many honors, so many accolades; and this is only the beginning… at least, in my FANTASY WORLD!!!!
But for those of you interested in the far more mundane events of my REAL life, please read on…
I came to Japan the same year I graduated university (King’s College, University of London, majoring in French with a minor — and a diploma! — in Theology) and have spent my time in Japan engaged in a broad variety of occupations: conducting wedding ceremonies; translating (French and Japanese to English); making subtitles for movies and TV shows; acting in movies, TV commercials, dramas and reconstruction dramas; narration work; and teaching English in a variety of institutions. Edward’s Operation was formed in May, 2003, and after three months of rehearsals, we performed our first gig at The Fiddler, a British-style pub in Takadanobaba, Tokyo, on August 20, 2003.
As for influences and all that kind of thing, well….. (Pause for deep breath…) Before my appreciation of the Velvet Underground there was the Beatles, and before even the Beatles, there was Queen, and all the glam rock stuff I saw and loved (especially the incredibly cool special effects of the 70s!) on Top of the Pops, which I began to watch at a pretty young age.
I remember Paper Lace, Slade, Suzi Quatro, The Sweet (I clearly remember watching – and loving – Sweet’s Block Buster and The Ballroom Blitz, both 1973, which makes me 7, I guess…), and, far more importantly, Queen, whose single (and accompanying video) Bohemian Rhapsody blew me away (the first of many blowings away!)…
For the sake of completion, I must say that even before I encountered rock/pop, there was classical! My parents, who only owned about ten different records, exposed me to Ravel’s Bolero while I was still in the womb… And my elementary school teachers (Headmaster Mr. Murdoch and his wife, who also introduced me to cheese fondu!) played the amazing “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Dukas at morning assembly every day for a week, and I formed a profound love of orchestral music which is undiminished to this day. In fact, I love classical almost as much as rock… Or maybe a little more… I can’t quite decide! (Can’t get into jazz much, however, which I regard as a great failing of mine!)
After Queen, there was the Beatles, introduced to me by friend and classmate Tim Greaves when I was 11. It took me a little while to appreciate their worth, but when I finally got it, I was bitten hard, and went deep, deep, deep into Beatlemania! So deep, in fact, that for a while it was difficult for me to accept that any other artist could be worth listening to!
I was very interested in the Stranglers, but it was the “rebel/punk” clique listening to that kind of thing (at school), and the conservative young me, not wishing to be “tainted by association,” listened to it from afar while feigning disinterest! No such issues now, of course! In fact, even before being exposed to this great band at school, I had “discovered” them by myself a year or two earlier. I had at some tender age (probably 11 or 12) purchased for, if memory serves me correctly, about twelve or fifteen pounds (using all my savings!) a Waltham (now defunct!) cassette recorder, which I used to record random songs off the radio, and (it must have been) in 1978, I recorded (whether by accident or design I can’t remember) the great Stranglers’ song “Something Better Change,” which I proceeded to listen to over and over again, tirelessly, in my bedroom! One day my dad walked in, and with a hint of disgust in his voice, said to me, “You don’t like punk, do you?!” To which I replied: “What’s punk?” I mean, I was only 12 (or so): I’d never heard the word before! I don’t think the Stranglers would classify themselves as a punk band, but now I can say unequivocally that I sure as hell like the Stranglers!!
Man, I loved that cassette recorder, and filled up tape after tape of random songs by random bands: Abba, Manhattan Transfer, all kinds of stuff! I still have all those tapes, too, somewhere…!
I also used it to record my own songs. My parents bought me my first guitar for Christmas 1980 (I wanted a folk, but they bought me a classical… Oh well…), with a simple guitar chord book. The instant I could play those first three chords (D, C, G) I wrote my first ever song: In the Desert. As I learnt new chords, I wrote new songs as a way to practice and remember those chords. Eventually I bought another cassette recorder and would use the two together to create “4-track” recordings, playing and singing the backing tracks onto tape 1, and then playing it back and adding lead vocals and guitar solos or “bass” parts, and capturing the entirety on cassette player 2. Later on, all those recordings were to be an invaluable memo…!
Rewinding a little… The next big blowing away was in 1979, when, while on family vacation in North Wales, every now and then I would catch snatches of Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric?” on the radio. Every time I heard a strain or two of that synth, I was literally transfixed with excitement…
It was Bowie – and more specifically the 1980 album Scary Monsters and Super Creeps – that opened up a whole new world for me. What an amazing guitar sound on that album! Ashes to Ashes: what a truly orgasmic aural experience! What a great body of work he left behind. What a genius that man was. I cried for two days when he died.
In the chronology of my musical education, it is here that the Velvet Underground makes its appearance…
And then, very shortly after that, I had another epiphany: classmate (and now professional opera singer) Andy Rupp left his copy of Jethro Tull’s “Heavy Horses” lying around, so, intrigued by the cover, I listened to it secretly while he wasn’t aound! Wow! Amazing! Got very deep into Tull; and still am. Ian Anderson…! Another genius added to my pantheon of heroes!
Next up: The Monochrome Set (courtesy of Jolyan de Fossard in the year below me): blown away again!
Since then, I have listened to, and love, just about everything. This includes such bands as the Police, Dire Straits, Rolling Stones, U2, Pistols, Kinks, Animals, Caravan, ELP Pink Floyd, King Crimson (love a good bit of prog!), Depeche Mode, John Foxx, Add N to (X) (love a good bit of electro!), Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Coldplay, ACDC, REM, Zappa, Dandy Warhols, Hendrix, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Doors, Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Laurie Anderson, Rush, P-Model, Polysics, Kitarou, Kraftwerk, Les Rita Mitsouko, Brassens, Gainsbourg, Jean-Michel Jarre, and all the rest! Too many to mention!
At school, I began violin lessons at age ten, and continued till the end of high school. I passed Grade 5 (but I was never much good at it – too many other things vying for my time and energy…). I took piano lessons for 18 months and passed Grade 1… which I actually regard as one of my life’s greatest achievements, as I completely lacked the coordination to be a piano player! I passed Grade 4 Singing, and Grade 5 Theory of Music. I was in the school choir for nine years and in the orchestra (second violin!) for most of my school career.
Yes, it was definitely Top of the Pops that started me on my journey to rock superstardom! I remember making a fake mic out of material that I stuffed and sewed together with a piece of string hanging out of it, so that I could mimic all my (glam) rock heroes. And at one stage, I started copying down the position of each single in the charts so I could learn what position the songs occupied. And I couldn’t understand why that position kept changing! I soon gave that up as an impossible task!
I have been a dietary vegan since 1991 and am a member of the UK Vegan Society [LINK: https://www.vegansociety.com/ ] and Friends of the Earth, [LINK: https://www.foe.co.uk/community/local_groups/publicity/free_images?
gclid=CjwKEAjw55K4BRC53L6x9pyDzl4SJAD_21V1HGgGUcfmr8Vp5QgeyWTRHPA56G8tkrnkj8b9yMsz0hoCe5jw_wcB] to whom I donate a small sum each month. I studied qigong and taijiquan (tai chi) with Guo Liang [LINK: http://keitankikou.jp/] for ten years (in Tokyo) and still like to meditate when I have time. For someone so conservative, I’m a real hippy!
I will continue with my day job(s) until our debut album achieves sufficient sales (ten million units should do it) and Edward’s Operation achieves worldwide renown! Hopefully then we’ll be able to fund the recording of our second album without the fear of going completely bankrupt! With five hundred or so (great!) songs in the bag, there’s plenty to choose from, and plenty of albums waiting to be recorded. I hope to get as much of it out as I can before I get too old to get out of bed in the mornings!
幼少時に両親は私を天才的な作曲家と認めて、その才能を数年にわたって注意深く伸ばしてくれた。13歳の時にThe Royal Academy of Music（王立音楽院）に進学。専攻は作曲で、世界最高レベルの先生方の下で教育・指導を受ける。2年生の時にエドワーズ・オペレーションを組み数回だけ有名な会場でコンサートを開いたら、Patient RecordsのA&R（新人発掘プロデューサー）にスカウトされた。デビュー作品は、すぐ にプラチナディスクとなる売上を達成したし、そのアルバムの5枚のシングルのうち、 3枚も大西洋の両側（イギリスとアメリカ）、そして後にすぐに自分のホームとなる日本でもナンバーワンになった。ワールドツアーをやって、Carnegie Hall（カーネギーホール）、Royal Albert Hall（ロイヤル・アルバート・ホール）や世界中の大きなスタジアムで演奏して、ポール・マッカート ニー、ローリング＝ストーンズとU2を合わせた額を上回る売上げを記録した。 ベスト新人、ベストアルバムとベストシングルを含めた多くのグラミーも受賞し、私個人的には天才作曲家賞を少なくとも33回は受賞した。
去年、デビュー後に最も早くこの名誉を受けたバンドとして、ロックの殿堂入りを果たした。
キャリアが始まったばかりなのに、このように成功して、こんなにたくさんの賞賛や賛美を受けて素晴らしいスタートを切ることが出来た… 少なくとも、私の＊夢＊の世界では！！！
…ですので、私のありふれた＊本当の＊人生の色々が知りたいと思う方は、続きを読んで下さい….
私は大学（ロンドン大学、キングス・カレッジ卒。 フランス文学科専攻、神学のディプロマ取得）を卒業と同時に来日し、様々な仕事をしています：映画やテレビ番組の為の字幕制作、タレントとしてＴＶＣＭ、ドラマや再現ドラマ等への出演、 ナレーション、結婚式司式、翻訳（フランス語、日本語から英語へ）、様々な学校で英語を教えて来ました。
エドワーズ・オペレーションは2003年5月に結成されリハーサル開始！ 2003年8月20日に、高田馬場のブリティッシュ・パブ、ザ・フィドラーで初ギグ開催。
