Band Members:
Jon Cattivera: Guitar/Vocals
Jonas Davidson: Bass
Kem Gallione: Drums
David Cattivera: Keyboards

The Past:
Pete Johnson: Guitar/Vocals
Josh White: Bass Guitar
Tom Arnott: Bass on the Recording

The Short Skinny:
Pete from Cutlass Supreme. Jon from Time Spent Driving. Kem From Time Spent Driving. Donahue from the Talk Show. Darnold from Fantasy Football. A rock band that sounds like a combination of all of the above, plus some special treats.

The Long and Skinny:
Pete almost kicked the bucket so he decided to play guitar and sing in a band again. The first thing he did was get an old box of his best clothes out of the garage. He decided he wasn't going to bother with any clothing he had accrued since 1985, and besides, Mervyns recently went out of business, so he couldn't buy Cheetah brand sweatpants any longer. He knew a guy named Josh who looked like he had been struck by lightning and was almost completely grey, so he thought he'd be a good fit to play second guitar. Pete posted a craigslist ad that listed influences of what kind of bands they liked looking for other members (bass, keyboard, drums) and Jon responded about bass.

Coincidentally, Jon had actually jammed with Josh before in the past, a short-lived scenario that quickly spawned one of Josh's many and most revered nicknames: "Satriani." Since Jon's actually a guitar player and sings, they decided to try to make a band with 3 guitars and two vocalists, and find bass later. This went on for a few months. The band quickly learned that Pete's songs didn't sound anything like the bands he listed in the craiglist ad, and Pete had to be told that he had the reverb nob on his amp up to 11. Jon got more feedback about his jeans than his actual playing, and Josh (aka "Pedals") spent more time trying to figure out why his guitar was 10 times louder, 10 times quieter, 10 times more distorted or 10 times more clean than the other guitars when he stepped on any one of his 39 effects pedals.

Eventually, Pete and Jon realized that even though Josh had played guitar in his old band, all he was really playing on guitar was bass parts. So, after about a month of heavily hinting that Josh should play bass, he succumbed and decided that he would take on the low-end and rely on his good looks more than his satriani-esque lightning guitar fingers.

Around the same time, the still unnamed band met this guy that played drums named Andrew Ward. He literally came out of nowhere. Andrew was probably the greatest drummer ever known to man: An all around great guy, super agreeable, very well endowed, reliable and honest with impeccable musical taste.

There was only one problem: Andrew wasn't real. He was just a concoction Pete created to get Kem, (an It's It devouring, "passionate" and caring 15-year-old drummer, who was also in Jon's old band) to actually come to practice and keep his mouth shut for at least the span of a single song. Kem thought Andrew was real for a good chunk of time, long enough to learn how a few songs went, and while Andrew would have been great, we ended up going with the now going on 18-year-old Kem. Truth be told, Kem's playing suited the songs perfectly, and is probably one of the most amazing drummers around, even better than Andrew, but we didn't want to tell him that.

They needed a name. After about 15 million emails, 14.9 million which consisted of Kem talking about Donahue (Josh) being mounted by a lion, the band settled on the moniker "Gentlemen of Japan" carefully lifted from a play called "The Mikado" that no one in the band besides Pete has seen. (Only those born before 1950 know what it is).

After hearing Pete talk about "keyboards" every other song hour since the band started, they decided it was time to find a keyboard player. Naturally, they went online and looked at the fantasy football forums. Low and behold, they found a hair farmer that they could pull away from their fantasy football draft long enough to put their fingers on the black and ivory. His name is Darnold, and pretty soon, he'll be able to play the Gentlemen's songs all the way through without having to look at his notepad.

The GOJ entered the studio in Oct. of '09 to record their first 4 songs. They returned to the studio in early 2010 and recorded 7 more songs. Alex Newport (Death Cab For Cutie, Mars Volta, Melvins, etc) was recruited to mix the record. The 10 song debut full length "Versus Utah" was released on Nov. 2nd 2010 and is available worldwide on iTunes, Bandcamp, CD Baby and more.

The band is currently booking and playing shows in support of the release, and is also writing more material for a 2nd album.

"Versus Utah" Debut full-length CD - Out Nov. 2nd 2010 Order at iTunes Order at BANDCAMP Order at CDBABY

"Accelerate the Corners" - Live @ The Blue Lagoon, Santa Cruz, CA March 2010

All materials © Gentlemen of Japan, only take our stuff if it will make the band bigger and/or make the band a lot of money. Thanks.

Please do not send us any solicitations for hair growth products. Thank you for your cooperation.

Website Design & Dev by Jon Cattivera @ Sleepless Media

Robot Artwork from Versus Utah by Eric Joyner