Feature: Who is Dutchman?

Before Sakanaction formed in 2005, vocalist/guitarist Yamaguchi Ichiro had been making music for years. And he wasn't alone. He was in a band called Dutchman for about 6-7 years.

Some may have heard of the name Dutchman from Wikipedia, or from Japan Times Online, some may not have heard of the name at all. Whichever it is, when I found out about Dutchman, I found it rather interesting and gone on to learn a fair bit after researching.

For the longest time I have wanted to share about Dutchman, because it is related to Sakanaction and I believe it will give people a new perspective on Yamaguchi. Thus, after starting this site not long ago, I've been writing this feature.


Dutchman was formed in 1998, when Yamaguchi, then 18 years old, started the band with 3 other schoolmates from Sapporo Daiichi High School. These three guys were Saito Tomoki, Hara Yasuyuki, and Iwadera Motoharu (who is now Sakanaction's guitarist).

Profile photos of the band members. Left to right: Yamaguchi, Iwadera, Saito, Hara.

The band won an audition in Sapporo which got them signed to Victor Music in 1999. This was the start of many things to come.

Yamaguchi wrote at that time that he loved UK and really wanted to watch his favourite British bands Radiohead and Oasis live. He had a strong influence from these bands when he was composing music then. As a side anecdote, Iwadera wrote that he was afraid of the Internet but because of the trouble they went through to make the Dutchman website, he would try to update once in a while.

Yamaguchi had a special section called "Ichirock's Positive Sayings" (Ichirokku no Pojitibu Goroku, or Ichi Poji for short) in Dutchman's website where he wrote his thoughts.

Ichi Poji logo.

On 20 March 2000, the band released their first single, titled "Fly". Only 500 copies were pressed, making it extremely difficult to find now. Here's a rare look at the interior of the CD, thanks to auctioneers in Japan.

2 years later, Dutchman had its debut album "demonstration" on 5th April 2002, which was to become the band's one and only album.  More rare looks at the physical CD here.

Somewhere in late 2002, Ishimori Takaaki joined the band. The band updated its profile and also included this sentence in a brief intro of the band. 

言葉とコード感を大切にし、アレンジでも広い範囲での感性が融合されている。We value the sense of language and codes, so even in the arrangement, a broad range of sensibilities are fused together. 

Group Photoshoot, 24 Oct 2002, Akaigawa Studio

In December 2002, a sampler audition single containing two songs, Sample and Inner World was made downloadable on their website.

If these two titles sound strangely familiar to you, it's because they are. Sample and Inner World both became songs released by Sakanaction, but in a completely different musical arrangement. The ones by Dutchman are strictly rock, whereas Sakanaction's versions incorporate electronic music. It's actually not bad. The Dutchman version has made Inner World much more appealing to me.

In October 2003, a sampler of Mikadzuki Sunset was pressed into CDs that were sold exclusively at their live performances. Yes, this was another song to be turned into a Sakanaction release later on. Here you can see photos of a rare copy of it.

Yet again in between September and November of 2003, Ishimori was either switched out or left on his own accord, while another guy named Kato Tatsuhiko joined the band. 

I would guess this was the first obvious sign that things were not going well within the band. From what I can tell online, anyway. Just a few months later, in early 2004, 4 of the members withdrew from the band because Yamaguchi wanted to introduce the use of computers into their music. Yamaguchi chose to continue on solo as Dutchman. Even then, music label Victor kept him on all this time.

A track called Shiranami Remix was contributed to an omnibus album titled "music for PARDISCO". It is unknown if this was a remix of what we know now to be Shiranami Top Water, but I would say it's pretty likely.

Message written by Yamaguchi about going solo,

displayed on Dutchman's site in late 2004.

After several months of learning to make electronic tracks and doing DJ work in night clubs, there was a slight, but very important update. An image labeled Sakanaction was displayed (the picture link was broken for me) on Dutchman's home page in mid 2005, matching with the time period when Sakanaction is supposed to have formed. 

Yamaguchi was working in a record store (a Dutchman fan claims it to be HMV) during this transitioning period, and it was listening to a Rei Harakami song, owari no kisetsu, that motivated him to form Sakanaction in 2005. He began creating songs again, mixing in electronic elements, and pulled in Iwadera as a founding member as he needed a guitarist. The rest of the members joined in 2006. Keyboardist Okazaki Emi was his colleague from the record store whom he knew played the piano. Ejima Keiichi was introduced by a mutual friend, and Kusakari Ami was poached when her own band broke up. This is how we got the Sakanaction we know today.

The history of Dutchman truly made me appreciate Victor as a music label. It's not easy to find a label who would keep a struggling artist on for as long as they did. It seems that through Yamaguchi, Sakanaction was able to be signed to a label easily. That makes the relationship between Victor and Yamaguchi at a startling 13 years.

It's amazing how far Yamaguchi and Iwadera have come. Yamaguchi, who has persisted in making music despite all the odds, is worth respect for his determination alone.

The first ever Sakanaction live was an acoustic set with just Yamaguchi, Iwadera and Ejima performing at Sapporo KRAPS HALL that had a capacity of 250, and not even 100 people were there (this was mentioned during an MC at Budoukan). It was unlikely that both of them ever thought that one day they would be on Music Station, or be performing at Makuhari Messe, the live with the biggest capacity yet.

All the success they have now is definitely much deserved. May Sakanaction keep on making amazing music and find even greater success!

a.m.

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Note: The content here may bear similarities to the English Wikipedia article on Sakanaction. That's because I contributed a large portion to the Wiki article.

Disclaimer: There may be inaccuracies, loopholes, and gaps of information, although I've tried my best. I did not know about their existence until some time after I got into Sakanaction, and thus it is impossible for me to know everything about the band since its inception.

Sources: Japan Times, Shift.jp (Recommended Reading!), Dutchman Official Website (defunct), Yamaguchi Ichiro official blog.
Photos: Dutchman Official Website (defunct), Yahoo!Japan Auctions users pecoryna, smk123smk123smk123, hshyjp