You may remember her from a Pretz commercial for Glico.
Born in Mexico, this Japanese singer/model/drummer used to work under her real name ‘Yuuna Shishido’. Although she went to elementary school in Japan, she spent her middle school years in Argentina because of her father’s work. She doesn’t keep very good memories of those years, mostly due to the fact that she didn’t speak the language.
To make life easier for her, her parents bought her a drum set when she was 14 and hired nuevo tango legend Ástor Piazzolla’s nephew, professional drummer Daniel Piazzolla, a world famous jazz-tango musician, as her coach. Back to Japan, she started playing with bands during high school, and by the time she entered university, she was part of 8 different bands.
In 2004, she became the third drummer of THE NEWS, an all-girl Japanese rock band. She quit the band after 4 years when she started her modeling career, but at the same time kept playing drums for different artists such as PANTA and Diamond☆Yukai.
In 2005, she was approached by music producers when she accompanied a friend to an audition. They wanted her to debut as a singer, but 5 years passed before an interesting project was developed. During that time, she has stopped playing drums and concentrated on her singing, but her producers eventually suggested she sings while playing drums. That sealed the deal: doing something she was finally comfortable with, she turned singer/drummer for her current project. (http://shishido-kavka.com/)
Here’s a short compilation of some of her songs:
What attracted her to drums was the gap between the fact that although drummers supports their whole band, more often than not, no matter how theatrical or showy they are, lead singers and guitars are usually the ones in the spotlight. This resonated with her feelings: even if she couldn’t become the leading part, she wanted to shine and stand out. But of course all this is in the past since she is now both the drummer and the center of her band.
Oh! and I forgot to add that she plays barefooted. Very sexy!
News and My Life 