#yokoscrolls

translating from https://e-talentbank.co.jp/news/139633/

Saito Johnny from Goose house, a group which YouTube channel has reached over 2.54M subscribers and 1.3 billion views, and Shouma, the third brother from Zushi Sankyoudai whose songs like “Junpaku no Hanayome” which often played at wedding ceremonies and “My Baby~ Suki ni Nareba Naru Hodo~” are hits for a long time formed and started a new project as “YOKOscrolls”.

They held a live streams on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram on April 5th, as it is “YOKO Day” (a world play in Japanese where you read the number 4 as “yo” and 5 as “ko”).

They greeted their respective fans, and talked about how the two who are of the same age met, formed the unit, and the origin of their name.

During the stream they also played the instrument version of their song as BGM. At the moment they already have a few songs ready to put into albums. Their musics are composed of digital beats added with country-ish sounds from acoustic guitar, banjo or mandolin, and like those in old games which give us audiences the feeling of “new but also nostalgic”. Also, we were not able to hear it in the stream, but imagining the voices of both men along those sounds sure rose the hopes in their fans.

As they claimed “even if we can’t hold concerts, we want to do something to entertain people as musicians in this dark time”, they have announced their second live stream teaser on their YouTube channel.

Music & Lyrics : Yokoscrolls

Illustration : Tugu

There are people who are strong, but lonely

And there are also people who are weak, but surrounded by love

Are you happy right now?

There is no magic that can make everything goes how you wish it to go

But try and count the smiles

For they are the measurement for happiness

The snow is falling soundly

In the town of Podorui, which does not wait for the dawn

Many various thoughts are dancing in the wind

And the city is breathing quietly

Some people are not able to get the future they want

Some people find themselves in a future they did not wish of

I found a little girl who was shaking, in one corner of the city

The girl asks, while still looking down

What actually happiness is?

I do not know what it is, for it is only visible to you alone

There are rich people who are lonely

There are poor people who are loved

I wonder what on earth would satisfy us

If there is one thing that I understand

There is no magic that can make everything goes how you wish it to go

But try and count the smiles

For they are the measurement for happiness

The little girl thinks for a while

And then she lifts her face and stares at me

There is one big drop of tear

Overflowing from her eye

When you feel like crying, just cry as much as you want

For both tears and smiles come from the same place

This time, the little girl asks me

Are you happy, right now?

If there is one thing that I understand

There is no magic that can make everything goes how you wish it to go

But try and count the smiles

For they are the measurement for happiness

You become happy when you laugh

And if you are happy, then you will smile

Try and count the smiles

For they are the measurement for happiness

One day, someone asks the little girl

Are you happy, right now?

That voice cannot reach her anymore

※Who are Yokoscrolls?

Yokoscrolls is a unit consisted of Goose house's Saito Johnny and Zushi Sankyoudai's Hirai Shouma, that started streaming in April 2020.

・Saito Johnny

has been active as a singer songwriter since 2010 in a group called Play.You House which then changed name to Goose house. He has also been doing a solo activity and released 3 albums.

・Hirai Shouma

has a group with his two elder brothers called Zushi Sankyoudai (Zushi three brothers) that is active since 2008. He wasn't using his surname on stage until recently.

※How did the two met?

Goose house and Zushi Sankyoudai has been working with the same recording engineer for their works and that engineer invited both Johnny and Shouma to a meal once around summer last year. They both (being born in the same year and all) got along with each other.

They then started to write songs together and has written 7 songs by now.

※Now how did the duo started?

Around October 2019, Johnny was doing a live performance and he invited Shouma to come and see. Shouma came and somehow ended up joining Johnny on stage. Then they talked about performing together, since they have written several songs too, on spring this year. They planned to do it on April 5th).

But since the situation doesn't let it, they changed it to live stream.

※What about the name?

”Yoko” in Japanese means “side” so “yoko scroll” is literally “scrolling to the side”.

In the very first version of Mario Bros, the screen does scrolls to the side but if you reach to the end of the screen, it connects to the other side of the screen. That, similar with how 23:59 (the end of a day) is closest to 00:00 (the start of a day), symbolizes how the most different things tend to be the closest to each other.

Just like Johnny and Shouma themselves, they first thought that their way of thinking etc. are similar but in fact they are so different that it "looks" the same. And that's how they got the name Yokoscrolls.

※What is their genre?

They......... haven't decided on one!

Shouma mentioned that their genre is different (Johnny does country and Shouma writes beats) so it's hard to decide, he said he wants to use unpredictable instruments. (He wants we go "are you sure you're gonna use that?!")

Seems like there's many things to look forward!

※Do they have a hashtag?

Yes they do, it's #よこすく