CREDIT: PROVIDED BY ADDISON JOHNSON
Lost In Japan, a local band which consists of four Fanshawe Music Industry Arts (MIA) graduates, is having great success and will compete to play at this year's New Year's Eve event at Victoria Park.

Lost in Japan is an indie rock band that's been taking the local music scene by storm.

Formed by lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Addison Johnson, 20, this powerhouse band also features Nolan Peake on bass, Chris Hoekstra on lead guitar and James Wiseman on drums.

All members of the band graduated from Fanshawe's Music Industry Arts (MIA) program last year and the band was formed not long afterwards.

To the general public, Lost in Japan seems to have reached great heights in a matter of months. However, Johnson shared the history of Lost and Japan, as well as the various image and name changes this musical venture of his has gone through over the years in order to get to their current level of success.

Rewind a few years and Johnson was involved in the pop punk circuit, first through a band known as The Assumers and later with a group called Gods and Kings.

Though Johnson enjoyed this style of music, it wasn't his true passion. This led Johnson to explore other styles of music, recording a solo EP of original songs and pursuing a career under “Addison Johnson”.

Feeling that he needed a more defined image and brand for his music, drawing inspiration from singer songwriter Ed Sheeran, who holds certain similarities, Johnson began performing as “Ginge”.

Johnson performed under this title for the majority of his time in MIA, playing solo, usually with a loop pedal, in a similar manner to Sheeran.

It was during this time that Johnson developed as a performer and business man. “I spent all of first year MIA making contacts…doing shows all over London and that helped me out so much with stage presence and networking skills”, Johnson recalled.

Despite great local success, Johnson was still not satisfied with “Ginge” for several reasons. First, he wasn't a fan of the name.

“I just feel like I wasn't taken seriously with it,” Johnson said.

Secondly, Johnson felt that his music didn't lend itself to solo performance and required a full band to capture the true spirit of it.

This led Johnson to seek the team of musicians that is now known as Lost In Japan.

“As soon as I got a band it was almost known…this is what we need to be doing,” Johnson said.

After going through a few name options the band finally settled on “Lost In Japan” and shortly after recorded a five song EP which quickly gained them lots of attention.

Although, Johnson formed the band, he shares equal credit in its success.

“I founded Lost In Japan, but everyone's running it…It's totally a collective thing, it's not just me anymore,” Johnson said.

Songwriting is also tackled by the entire group. Johnson described how he will “bring [a song] to the band and then [they'll] make it into something either different or the same, just huge…everyone has their inputs”.

The group has obviously found something that works really well, as things have taken off for them over the past few months.

They recently went on a tour to promote their EP and which was met with a very positive response. They have already begun licensing their music in several independent trailers and commercials as well as some big, yet to be released, projects that couldn't be discussed in detail at the current time.

A highlight for them was opening for local legends Ivory Hours at Rum Runners earlier this year.

“That was a good show. That's the first time I've seen Rum Runners that packed”, Johnson recalled. “I was really nervous before I went on stage but it was a good time”.

It seems that this group has only begun to scratch the surface of what they can do and with a full-length album and two upcoming tours in the works, one can only expect great things from Lost In Japan. Johnson has great faith in the current standing of this musical venture stating that “Success is starting to follow Lost In Japan…we're gonna take it as far as we can.”

Success is certainly following Lost In Japan as they recently won the Classic Rock Free 98.1 FM Made In London Contest. Shortly afterwards they were nominated to play for New Year's Eve at Victoria Park. Those who'd like to see them play can vote for them once a day at londonmusicoffice.com/nye-in-the-park-2017/contest/.

More info on Lost In Japan can be found at lostinjapanofficial.com and facebook.com/LostInJapanOfficial/. Their album Ghost & The Wolf is available on major streaming sites such as Spotify.