Remi Matsuo

Remi Matsuo (松尾レミ) is a Japanese musician, singer-songwriter, and artist.

Matsuo was born in the rural country village of Toyooka, Nagano, Japan on December 7, 1991.

Her parents operated a shop that sold collectables, records and other miscellaneous goods.

She has a younger sister, who attended fashion school.

Many of her relatives, including her grandfather, were painters and Remi entered drawing competitions as a child.

Her father had a large record collection and she grew up listening to classic rock, but found the sound of vinyl records to be old-fashioned and muffled.

She also heard Shibuya-kei played at home as a child, and came to admire Maki Nomiya.

In junior high school, Matsuo learned to play guitar from an adult acquaintance.

She was then shocked when she heard The White Stripes.

They recorded with analog equipment, but had a contemporary sound quality.

This saw her fall in love with classic rock, and she started listening to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and watching Woodstock DVDs.

Having wanted to become a painter since the age of two, Matsuo said after falling in love with music in junior high, she desired to do both.

She realized she could achieve this by starting a band; she could sing songs and design the album covers and merchandise.

Matsuo attended Matsukawa High School, where she was vice president of the student council in her third year.

Her favorite band in high school was Bump of Chicken.

When a member of the band would recommend a classic rock act on the radio, she went to her father's record collection and listened to not only to the recommendation, but any related works as well.

She is best known as vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Glim Spanky since 2007.

Matsuo formed Glim Spanky in May of her first year of high school to perform at the school's 2007 cultural festival.

The band's name comes from Matsuo's interest in Celtic culture and fantasy literature; she read a book describing a Goblin's "glim" and added "spank" to describe their aggressive drive towards the music industry.

The bassist and other guitarist quit after the festival, but Matsuo wanted to play another live in a week and recruited an upperclassman to play bass as a three-piece.

Eventually, the bassist assumed it was difficult for Matsuo to play all of the guitar by herself and recruited another guitarist into the band without her permission in November; Hiroki Kamemoto.

Matsuo found that Kamemoto was not only committed to the band, but was also able to immediately understand and provide the guitar parts she wanted for songs.

They then began writing their own material and started focusing on the band full time.

Matsuo said she felt she could not express her feelings if the songs were not her own.

Kamemoto noted that Matsuo's parents and their acquaintances were all writing original songs, so it only felt natural for them to do so as well.

Matsuo would go to the closed down karaoke bar they rented in Iida, Nagano directly after school, practice all day, and have her parents pick her up at night.

On days off from school, they would practice from 8:00 in the morning, until 1:00am at night.

Glim Spanky won the Rock Banchō held by Sony Music in December 2008 and were finalists at the 2009 Senko Riot, a nation-wide teenage artists-only festival held by Sony, Tokyo FM, and au.

They were one of 14 finalists chosen out of 5,500 groups to perform at the latter.

Matsuo said that before Senko Riot, adults in her hometown would laugh at her when she told them she wanted to make a living in music, but the other acts she met there showed her it was not a pipe dream and she decided to move to Tokyo to make her dream a reality.

Matsuo enrolled in the design department of Nihon University's College of Art.

She chose the college because she felt, with its film and photography departments and Tokyo location, it had everything she would need for her band activities.

However, her father strongly felt she should attend a foreign university and Matuso said it might have been harder to get his permission than it was to study for the entrance exam.

Glim Spanky's bassist and drummer decided to stay in Nagano and although the older Kamemoto was already attending Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya, he transferred to the closer Dokkyo University so he and Matsuo could continue the band in Tokyo.

Matsuo and Kamemoto resumed Glim Spanky activities as a duo in April 2010, utilizing support musicians.

Matsuo stated that their first four years playing live houses in Tokyo were difficult, but because they were particular about their sound, stage presence, costumes and artwork, she was confident that the music industry would not leave behind a band with such a complete package.

Glim Spanky had their first release in December 2013 when Space Shower Music released the mini-album Music Freak nationwide.

Formed by Matsuo in her first year of high school, the group made their major label debut in 2014 and consists of her and lead guitarist Hiroki Kamemoto.

She is known for her husky vocals, and frequently collaborates with and writes songs for other artists.

In June 2014 the band released their second mini-album and their major label debut, Shōsō, via EMI R (now known as Virgin Records).