EXILE (official web site in Japanese) is currently a very popular band. They have produced a limited number of records under the name "EXILE" (four, one being a conceptual album and one track on a compilation of multiple artists) but are an unusual band for many reasons.

EXILE's story indirectly started roughly ten years ago when a today defunct band called "zoo" released a single called "Choo Choo train". At this time, the economy was doing well in Japan and the song was used in a commercial for skiing facilities in Tokyo, increasing the popularity of the song. Today, Japanese around 30 years old remember this record and the commercial.

"zoo" later disbanded and one member of this formation became member of EXILE as we know it today. With his previous experience of "zoo", he noticed that record companies usually keep a large amount of the revenues made by records. To prevent this, he decided to create a company responsible for selling EXILE's titles and suggested to all the member to become employed in this company. This way, the proceeding of the records would benefit the band more than they would benefit a third party record company.



A few months ago, EXILE became really popular when they re-released the old zoo single "Choo Choo train" (click to listen to a short clip with Windows Media Player 9). As with the previous edition, the song quickly became very popular, perhaps because the lyrics are easy to remember (Fun fun we hit the steps steps, onaji kaze no naka we love we love).

Most of the band's production and audio clips are available here.