Aries9

Aries9 is a modern rock project of Japanese-born musician Ari Koinuma, based in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, USA. Aries9's music features sophisticated songwriting and abstract and often introspective lyrics, and incorporates influences from grunge, progressive rock, hard rock, metal, and punk rock. Ari was originally born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived in the area until he was 12 years old. Piano was his first instrument, having started taking lessons at the age 10. Then his entire family moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil, because of his father's career.

Ari was originally born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived in the area until he was 12 years old. Piano was his first instrument, having started taking lessons at the age 10. Then his entire family moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil, because of his father's career. It was there that he encountered American and European hard rock, which captivated his interest. Ari counts Bon Jovi, Europe and later Skid Row among his earliest influences.

When he was 16, he had a chance to spend 3 weeks in a summer Bible camp in Iowa. This experience also had a strong impact on him, as later he chose to go to college in the area. He studied classical music composition at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, while he played the guitar in cover bands. This was the era when grunge broke into mainstream radio, and he was influenced by the popular rock acts that his band covered, such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead, among others.

After graduating and marrying a fellow St. Olaf student, Ari moved to Austin, Texas with his wife, in search of opportunities to pursue his music. Immediately he joined a local band, which broke up after one gig after months of rehearsals and over a dozen original songs. Disappointed by this experience, Ari started performing as a solo singer/songwriter in the area coffeehouses. This attempt did grow into a 3-piece band with a rhythm section, but once again the band imploded after a failed attempt to bring in a singer to sing songs Ari wrote.

Burned out, Ari put his own music on hold and focused instead on activities that would bring income, such as performing as a hired-gun guitarist, transcribing, and teaching how to record music with computers. In 2000 he landed his first film-scoring project, composing and producing music for an independent short. A string of shorts and documentaries followed over the next several years. In 2003 he also started recording demos for local singer/songwriters using his laptop. These two activities culminated in 2005, when he scored his first feature-length film and produced the first full-length album. Though both projects were highly successful, he was unable to build upon them immediately, and was forced to take a job as a full-time web designer. This employment and the birth and growth of his daughter (born in 2003) led Ari to conclude that he was not going to pursue projects where he was held accountable by his clients for the time being.

Having put his budding film scoring and producing careers on hold, Ari unshelved his original material and began recording them on his own. A plan to release a 5-song EP eventually turned into a 10-song full-length album. He decided to release it under a project name Aries9, rather than under his own name, to give it a possibility of growing into a band, following the footsteps of other solo-turned-band acts such as Foo Fighters, Gorillaz and Porcupine Tree. The project was launched in fall of 2007 with the release of its debut album, "Darkness Reveals the Beauty of Truth.?

www.aries9.com