Every Little Thing (band)

Every Little Thing
Every Little Thing at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2015　 Kaori Mochida (left) and Ichiro Ito (right).
Background information
Origin	Tokyo, Japan
Genres	Pop rock soft rock synthpop
Years active	1996 (1996)–present
Labels	Avex Trax
Website	www.avexnet.or.jp/elt/
Members	Kaori Mochida Ichiro Ito
Past members	Mitsuru Igarashi

Every Little Thing (also known as ELT) is a pop/soft rock duo from Japan who debuted in August 1996 with the release of their first single called "Feel My Heart". Their name is usually written in English, and only rarely in katakana. They gained massive popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As of 2013, Every Little Thing has sold over 23 million copies of singles and albums throughout Japan. Their second studio album, Time to Destination, is the best-selling album of the band with over 3.5 million copies sold, and became the 10th best-selling album of all time in Japan.

Also known as ELT by their fans, Every Little Thing was originally a trio but became a duo in 2000 with Kaori Mochida as the singer and Ichiro Ito as the guitarist.Mitsuru Igarashi left ELT following the release of their third original album, Eternity.

Ito began playing guitar in local bands around the US Yokota Air Base in Fussa, Tokyo, performing cover versions of songs by rock acts like Van Halen to local sailors. He initially intended to play drums.

Mochida made her debut as a baby in an advertisement for diapers as her mom hoped she would enter the entertainment business. In 1991, at the age of 13, she joined the eight-member girl group The Kuro Buta All-Stars. Though not successful, the experience convinced her to record a two track demo, featuring the two songs, "Mouichido" (The Kuro Buta All-Stars) and a cover song from 1970s/1980s singer-songwriter Mariya Takeuchi.

She sent the demo to Avex Trax, where Mitsuru Igarashi was a producer looking for a girl for a new duo with him as the keyboardist. Impressed by her strong yet sweet voice, Igarashi asked her to join as a duo, and then asked his guitarist friend Ichiro Ito, then working as a studio receptionist, to help on the first single "Feel My Heart", created by Igarashi. Ito, over ten years Mochida's senior, has said that when first meeting the young Mochida wearing gyaru style thick platform boots, he didn't even know how to strike up conversation.