BREAK the BORDER

Biography

YOHIO (born in Sundsvall, Sweden) is a solo artist and was the guitarist of Seremedy. He became the lead guitarist of the band in 2009 and debuted as a solo artist in Japan 2012 were he was signed to Universal Music Japan. On February 9, 2012, YOHIO did a showcase performance in Tokyo, performing all 6 songs from his debut mini-album "REACH the SKY". His debut mini album "REACH the SKY" was released in Japan on April 25, 2012. On October 19 he released his first single "Our Story", this was the...

YOHIO (born in Sundsvall, Sweden) is a solo artist and was the guitarist of Seremedy. He became the lead guitarist of the band in 2009 and debuted as a solo artist in Japan 2012 were he was signed to Universal Music Japan. On February 9, 2012, YOHIO did a showcase performance in Tokyo, performing all 6 songs from his debut mini-album "REACH the SKY". His debut mini album "REACH the SKY" was released in Japan on April 25, 2012. On October 19 he released his first single "Our Story", this was the first song with English lyrics.

On November 19, it was revealed that YOHIO will participate in Melodifestivalen 2013, the Swedish national selection for TV-show Eurovision Song Contest 2013. On February 2, 2013 he performed the song "Heartbreak Hotel" in the first semi-final in Karlskrona. He finished on 1st place in that semi final and was qualified to the final in Stockholm on March 9, 2013. In the final he finished on second place with 133 points. However, he received the most votes of the televotes with over 100,000 more votes than the winner Robin Stjernberg.

YOHIO released a full studio album entitled "BREAK the BORDER" on March 27, 2013 in Sweden and June 26, 2013 in Japan. The album was released in a English lyrics version (released in Sweden) and a Japanese lyrics version (released in Japan). Both albums contain the same songs (with English and Japanese titles) except for "Heartbreak Hotel" which was substituted on Japanese version by "Last Kiss", song originally written in Japanese, that has never been officially translated to English.

On August 18, 2013 YOHIO released "You're the One", ballad atypical to a visual-kei artist.

On October 12, 2013 "Welcome to the City" was released, as a cover of Amy Diamond's song.

YOHIO participated in "Melodifestivalen 2014", Swedish national selection for Eurovision song contest. He competed with a song called "To the End", single released on February 23, 2014. In a Semifinal 1, which was held on February 1, 2014 in Malmö, YOHIO qualified directly to the finals, however, did not note previous success as in 2013.

Another studio album called "Together We Stand Alone", which features "To the End" has been released on March 19th, 2014. It contains 12 tracks, 11 of them have English lyrics, 1 being instrumental rock/folk mix track. Also, 1 track (Before I Fade Away) has a bridge in Japanese. YOHIO noted that unlike BREAK the BORDER, he has no intentions of translating Together We Stand Alone, as it's meant for western audience, and that music is not something his Japanese fans would like.

Official site (Japan): http://universal-music.co.jp/yohio Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.