Thee Michelle Gun Elephant
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| Origin | Japan |
| Genres | Garage rock Blues rock Punk blues |
| Years active | 1991–2003 |
| Labels | Nippon Columbia Universal Music Group Alive Records |
| Past members | Yusuke Chiba Futoshi Abe Kōji Ueno Kazuyuki Kuhara |
| Website | Rockin' Blues |
Thee Michelle Gun Elephant (often abbreviated to TMGE) was a Japanese garage rock band formed in 1991.[1]
The band was formed in 1991,[2] while Chiba, Ueno, and Kuhara were students at Tokyo's Meiji Gakuin University. They later drew influence from The Roosters. Their unusual name originated when a friend mispronounced the title of an early jam session recording; featuring cover songs of Thee Headcoats (one of the band's main influences) and from The Damned's album Machine Gun Etiquette.[3] Some years later Futoshi Abe joined the band. After an independently released EP in 1995, they signed to Nippon Columbia's Triad label, releasing the album Cult Grass Stars in 1996, followed later that year by High Time, the band enjoying chart success in their home country.[2] Chicken Zombies (1997) gave them a top five hit.[2] The band's 1998 album Gear Blues was the first to be released in the US (in 2000).[2] A lot of their songs were also used in Blue Spring, a Japanese movie made in 2002.
The band announced that they would break up on October 11, 2003, after their Last Heaven tour of Japan. Guitarist Futoshi Abe died of an acute hematoma in July 2009,[4] and vocalist Yusuke Chiba died due to complications of esophageal cancer in November 2023.[5]
All four members have had other musical projects or played with other bands both while in TMGE and after its break-up. Some of these are as follows:
Yusuke Chiba (1968–2023)
Kazuyuki Kuhara (1969– )
Koji Ueno (1968– )
Futoshi Abe (1966–2009)
TMGE have released a number of live and PV DVDs. A 10 disc live DVD box set titled 'THEE LIVE' was released by Nippon Columbia in January 2010.
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