MIYAHARA started playing the guitar in a band during the junior high school and moved onto Bass while in high school. Then he changed the instrument to drums that he had been practicing since junior high. In 1995, he founded SPECIAL OTHERS with his high school friends. They started performing vigorously and released a mini album titled “IDOL”in June 2006 as their major debut album. Since the beginning, they actively performed at various music festivals. Their originality and energetic performance have made them quite popular.
Ryota “TOYIN” Miyahara
(Drum/Percussion: SPECIAL OTHERS)
About SPECIAL OTHERS http://www.specialothers.com
Forming in 1995, the members of SPECIAL OTHERS were high school classsmates at Kishine High School in Kanagawa Prefecture. From 2000, based in Tokyo and Yokohama, they played everywhere from the street to clubs and restaurants utilizing the advantage of being an instrumental band. Praise of their performances quickly spread and they released 2 albums on independent labels in 2004 and 2005. After playing festivals such as the Fuji Rock Festival they made their major debut in June 2006 with the mini-album “IDOL”. After that then they played all the major Japanese festivals such as Rockin On Japan, Summer Sonic, Rising Sun Festival, and were also increasingly accepted into scenes from other genres, increasing their fanbase. April 2009 saw the release of their 3rd album “PB” which entered the charts at no.10. Their first headline show at Zepp Tokyo sold out immediately after tickets went on sale.
2011 was a ‘collabo year’ when they purposely focused on collaboration projects and put together all their collaborations in an album “Special Other” which also entered the charts at no.10. In 2012, all their tracks to date were released digitally abroad and in March, for the first time, the band went on a tour of America. Their 5th album released in October was called “Have A Nice Day” an entered the charts at no.8 and stayed in the top 10 for 4 weeks running – leading to a very successful 18 date national tour. On June 29th 2013 they have became the first ever jam band to play a headline solo show at the world famous Budokan.
The ‘middle names’ of the members of the band were given to them by Tony Allen.
Miyahara says on Gaai Drums…
I first selected by design and started trying out the ones that I thought it would sound good. This Gaai g snare sounded like the snare sound I had in mind. I always had something like “the ideal standard snare sound” in mind and this snare played the exact my ideal sound. “WOW! This snare exists for me!!” I thought and bought it without any hesitation. Oh…and the Gaai logo design! It’s just simply shown as a letter “g” and I thought “This is It!!”.
The character of the sound is crispy and bright. The response from soft to strong is really good. When tuned at the pitch I like, the balance of harmonic and attack is just right. Therefore it’s so easy to vision the sound image. I don’t tune it at low pitch too often, but even at my favorite pitch, this produces low sound quite well. On the other hand, when tuned at high, this does not sound clogged. I used this snare for almost all the songs in the album “Have a Nice Day” and I always use Gaai "g " snare at live performances.
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