Joe Inoue Musical artist

Joe Inoue (井上ジョー, Inoue Jō, born August 30, 1985) is a Japanese American rock musician signed to Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Ki/oon Records label. He was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California, to two Japanese immigrants. It was not until middle school that he became interested in music and that eventually led him to start his musical career in 2007. Inoue performs every instrument on his recordings in addition to writing and composing the pieces on his own. Although he was brought up in the United States and English is his first language, nearly all of his lyrics are in Japanese. He claims to have learned to speak Japanese fluently by reading manga and watching anime.He gained prominence when his song "Closer" was used as the fourth opening theme for Naruto: Shippuden. His fifth single "Kaze no Gotoku" was used as the second theme song for the Yorinuki Gin Tama-san anime.Inoue contributed to tetsuya's 2011 solo album Come On! by rapping on the track "Eden" and later wrote and was featured on TOTALFAT's 2011 single "World of Glory", later included on the album Damn Hero. He also wrote the track "Adrenaline" on high school friend and fellow musician Yoko Yazawa's second album Give Me!!!.He has been active on Facebook over the past couple of years, interacting with his fans on a personal level. Inoue has been posting a lot of new unofficial material on his YouTube account, named "VellySillyBilly." He plans to release a new album independently sometime in 2015.