Tavito Nanao

Tavito Nanao (七尾旅人, Nanao Tabito, born August 20, 1979) is a Japanese singer-songwriter who debuted in 1998. He has worked with a great number of musicians, including Takkyu Ishino, Salyu and Yakenohara. Nanao has reached a wider audience since 2007, after his album 911 Fantasia, a 3CD musical about the September 11 attacks, his collaboration single with Yakenohara, "Rollin' Rollin'," and the success of his 5th album, Billion Voices.

Biography

Nanao was born prematurely on August 20, 1979, and grew up in a rural area of Japan. Until 13, most of the music Nanao had listened to was jazz, due to the influence of his father. From the beginning of middle school, however, Nanao began to listen to musicians such as a rock band B'z.

In the summer of 1994, he discovered grunge music and would often be absent from school. On New Year's Eve of 1994, Nanao decided to write music, by humming tunes and writing down lyrics, and throughout the next year began writing songs daily. After copying the styles of several bands he enjoyed, Nanao found songwriting a spontaneous activity. In 1996, after a year of high school, Nanao decided to drop out of high school, and in September took a friend's acoustic guitar and multitrack recorder and moved to Tokyo. In a year's time in 1997, Nanao sent in a demo tape for the Sony Soytzer Music Audition, which led to Nanao being signed to Sony.