One of the Japanese music scene's most interesting and consistently creative artists is Ringo Shena, a hard-rocking singer-songwriter who has carved out a unique niche for herself ever since her debut in 1998. She was born in Fukuoka in 1978, and from an early age was trained as a pianist and ballerina. Her given name means "apple," by the way. By age 15, Shena was playing in several bands and writing her own songs. In 1996, as a solo artist, she won an Award of Excellence in the finals...

One of the Japanese music scene's most interesting and consistently creative artists is Ringo Shena, a hard-rocking singer-songwriter who has carved out a unique niche for herself ever since her debut in 1998. She was born in Fukuoka in 1978, and from an early age was trained as a pianist and ballerina. Her given name means "apple," by the way. By age 15, Shena was playing in several bands and writing her own songs. In 1996, as a solo artist, she won an Award of Excellence in the finals of the annual Yamaha Music Quest competition. A string of live performances in various semi-pro groups followed, eventually leading to her debut as a professional in 1998. Shiina has an incredibly wide range of influences. Shena sent Toshiba-EMI a list of artists she likes when she was trying to get a contract. It's 10 pages long and has tons and tons of names, Japanese and non-Japanese, and it's very, very eclectic. In spring 2001, Shena took a year's maternity leave. She then made an amazing comeback with a 2-CD album of cover versions of other artists' songs called Utaite Myori - Sono Ichi (which translates very roughly as "I'm So Happy to Be a Singer - Volume 1"). Besides Japanese, she sings in English, German, French and Portuguese. And she tackles the foreign-language songs with assurance and aplomb. On her scorching version of the Beatles song "Yer Blues", for example, Shena is in full screaming banshee mode, singing against a bone-crushingly heavy backing track. In 2004, Shena put her solo career on hold and formed a band called Tokyo Jihen, or Tokyo Incidents, with Masayuki Hiizumi on keyboards, Seiji Kameda on bass, Toshiki Hata on drums and Mikio Hirama on guitars. Basically, what's happened is that they were Shena's backing band during her 2003 nationwide tour, and now she's joined them as a full-fledged band member, saying she prefers to be part of a band. But there's no question that Shena is the main attraction in Tokyo Jihen.