LOVE PSYCHEDELICO

Overview

LOVE PSYCHEDELICO (ラブ・サイケデリコ), sometimes abbreviated as "Delico", is a Japanese rock duo formed in Tokyo in 1997. It consists of vocalist and rhythm guitarist KUMI and lead guitarist NAOKI, and the pair have been signed to Victor Entertainment throughout their career. Their first album, THE GREATEST HITS (2001), was a major success, selling well over a million copies in Japan alone (more than two million by one count). The duo is also hugely popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia, where they have been known since their 2000 debut as "愛的魔幻". In January 2026 they announced a hiatus following their 25th Anniversary Tour, and they went on hiatus after the final show on April 22, 2026.

Members

• KUMI (born April 11, 1976): vocals and guitar. She lived in San Francisco from age two to seven. She discovered a love of 1970s music such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin at university, and names Sheryl Crow and Janis Joplin among her favorite singers. In 2021 she formed a new band, Uniolla, with Motoaki Fukanuma and others, releasing the album Uniolla.
• NAOKI (born July 21, 1973; real name Naoki Sato): guitar and bass. He admires The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, The Beatles and John Lennon, and has produced THE BAWDIES.

Career

Formation and debut

The duo formed in January 1997 in the music club ACM (Aoyama Creative Music) at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. The group began as a band with several members, but after repeated lineup changes it ended up as just KUMI and NAOKI. Its original name was "LOVE PSYCHEDELIC ORCHESTRA"; because that was too long, the "O" of ORCHESTRA was attached to PSYCHEDELIC to form the current name. In November 1999 a song submitted to an FM station drew a flood of inquiries from listeners and offers from numerous labels. In January 2000 they sold a limited 100-yen cassette through Tower Records, and on April 21, 2000 they debuted on Victor Entertainment with the single "LADY MADONNA Yuutsu naru Spider", the first song the two ever wrote together.

2000s

THE GREATEST HITS arrived on January 2001. Conceived as a demo made while the pair looked for more band members, it was released largely as recorded, with only the vocals and acoustic guitar redone. It reportedly sold one million copies in three days, won Best Rock Album of the Year at the 15th Japan Gold Disc Awards, and earned the duo New Artist of the Year. In March they headlined Japan Nite at South by Southwest and toured clubs across the United States. At the start the duo promoted themselves mainly through their own FM radio show, staying out of the media and using symbolic illustrations on their jackets, and scored a million-seller on the strength of the music alone.

Their second album, LOVE PSYCHEDELIC ORCHESTRA, followed on January 9, 2002 and sold 800,000 copies; the duo was nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards Japan. In 2003 the single "My last fight" became the ending theme of the TV drama Hakoiri Musume!. LOVE PSYCHEDELICO III (February 25, 2004) was their first self-produced album, and they have self-produced ever since; its opener "Everybody needs somebody" was the theme song of the film Hotel Venus. They held the tour "Mind across the universe 2004" in October and their first Asian one-man tour (South Korea and Hong Kong) in November.

In 2005 they released the compilation Early Times, which topped the Oricon chart for two straight weeks, played their first Nippon Budokan show on May 27, and performed in Taiwan in June. Their private studio, Golden Grapefruit Recording Studio, was completed on September 7. At the end of the year they met Yoko Ono for the first time and have appeared at the John Lennon Super Live every year since. In 2006 their arrangement of The Beatles' "HELP!" served as an NHK program's opening theme, and in 2007 they made their first TV live appearance on Fuji TV's Bokura no Ongaku, where they were interviewed by Ono. The fourth album, Golden Grapefruit, the first recorded at their own studio, was released in June 2007, followed by a national tour from October.

On May 20, 2008 they made their official US debut with This Is Love Psychedelico on the Los Angeles indie label Hacktone Records, answering years of overtures from label president David Gorman. They performed at Hollywood's legendary Troubadour and went back and forth between Los Angeles and Japan; the Japanese edition came out on June 18 together with the DVD GOLDEN GRAPEFRUIT BOX. On December 2, 2009 they appeared on the FNS Music Festival for the first time, their first live TV broadcast.

2010s

The fifth album, ABBOT KINNEY, was released in January 2010, inspired by West Coast rock and country and their time living in the US. A national tour began in June, they played one-man shows in Hong Kong and Taiwan in July, and in August they provided SMAP with the song "This is love". IN THIS BEAUTIFUL WORLD was released on April 17, 2013, with a tour featuring percussionist Lenny Castro, known for his work with TOTO. In 2014 they held their first duo-only acoustic concert in Japan and covered "Hikari" for the Hikaru Utada tribute album.

For their 15th anniversary in 2015 they released THE BEST I and THE BEST II on February 18 and toured from May to July with Yukihiro Takahashi on drums. In November an Asian tour included a headline slot at Hong Kong's Clockenflap 2015 and a one-man show in Taiwan. The seventh album, Love Your Love, came out on July 5, 2017, and from September they toured with a completely renewed band lineup. In 2019 they took their acoustic "Two of Us" shows on a national tour for the first time.

2020s

For their 20th anniversary in 2020 the duo issued four releases, including the compilation Complete Singles 2000–2019; the tour was postponed to May 2021. They also gave Takuya Kimura the song "My Life" for his album Go with the Flow. A Revolution, their first album in five years, was released on October 5, 2022, and in 2024 they collaborated with Glim Spanky on "Ai ga Michiru Made". On January 20, 2026 they announced that the 25th Anniversary Tour (February 28 to April 22, 2026) would lead into a hiatus, and the final show took place at LINECUBE SHIBUYA on April 22.

Musical style

The duo's sound is built on NAOKI's striking guitar riffs and KUMI's vocals and lyrics, which blend Japanese and English. Rooted in classic rock, it is reminiscent of the British Invasion of the late 1960s, with both members citing The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as influences alongside American folk and blues. Club-music-influenced programmed rhythm tracks gave the music a contemporary edge that kept it from sounding merely nostalgic. They long wrote riff-centered songs, but around two decades after forming they also began writing from melody and chords. Composition, arrangement and lyrics are worked out together: sometimes KUMI adds a melody to a riff from NAOKI, and sometimes each brings a core melody and chords to flesh out.

Support musicians

From autumn 2004 for nearly a decade, Hirohisa Horie, Kei Takakuwa, Kenichi Shirane and Tomohiko Gondo formed a nearly fixed backing band. From 2017 a new lineup including Motoaki Fukanuma, Kei Takakuwa, Satoshi Bando and Keiji Matsumoto pursued a more organic sound.