Ryota Kohama | |
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Ryota Kohama during Back to the Future Hearts Tour with All Time Low, Sleeping with Sirens, and Neck Deep at CFE Arena, Orlando, Florida in 2015.
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Background information | |
Native name | 小浜良太 |
Birth name | Kohama Ryota |
Also known as | Ryota |
Born | 4 September 1989 |
Origin | Osaka, Japan |
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Years active | 2000–present |
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Website | ONE OK ROCK official website |
Ryota Kohama (小浜良太 Kohama Ryōta?) (born 4 September 1989), better known as his stage name Ryota, is a bassist in the Japanese rock band ONE OK ROCK. He was in the hip-hop group HEADS along with Toru Yamashita from ONE OK ROCK before they disbanded in 2002.
Ryota Kohama was born in Osaka, Japan before moving to Tokyo. Toru Yamashita, a fellow member from ONE OK ROCK, is his childhood friend. They met together with two other members: Kohei and Takuya. They formed a hip-hop dance group HEADS when they were fifth and sixth-graders. They were also active before their debut and participated in dance competitions around the years of 1995–1999. They debuted with a single entitled "screeeem!" in July 2000 and followed by the second single "Gooood or Bad!" in November, produced by a popular musician under the label Amuse, Inc.. The dance group made a performance every weekends on busy streets in Osaka's Kyoubashi and Tokyo's Akihabara, shopping, and amusement districts.
HEADS disbanded in 2002 and in 2003 they took a break to improve their abilities. At this point, HEADS as a four-member group ended. They merged into a new group with seven other members and were called Ground 0. In 2004, Toru and Ryota continued their activities as Ground 0. In 2005 when Toru tried to explore his acting and took a main role in TV series Shibuya Fifteen, Ryota also played in this drama as a minor character.
In the same year, he was invited by Toru to form a rock band, alongside their upperclassman Alex and Toru's friend Koyanagi Yuu. In the beginning, Ryota had no interest to join a band or play bass, until he listened to Red Hot Chili Peppers and was inspired to play bass by Flea. During early days of ONE OK ROCK, Ryota only talked to Toru because he felt inferior and didn't talk to Takahiro Moriuchi for about a year because he was afraid of him. He was the most furious when Alex was caught groping a schoolgirl on a subway. He almost quit playing bass to learn to play guitar. Ryota joined with Tomoya Kanki and wrote the song "Deeper Deeper".