Southern All Stars (サザンオールスターズ, Sazan Ōrusutaazu?), also known by the abbreviations Sazan (サザン?) and SAS, is a Japanese pop rock band that formed in the mid 1970s.
The band is composed of Keisuke Kuwata (lead vocals and guitars), Yuko Hara (vocals and keyboards), Kazuyuki Sekiguchi (bass), Hiroshi Matsuda (drums) and Hideyuki "Kegani" Nozawa (custom percussion). In addition to the present lineup, former guitarist Takashi Omori had worked in the band until 2001.
After the contract with Victor Entertainment, the band released their top-ten charting debut single "Katte ni Sindbad" in 1977. Since then, Southern has been one of the best-selling music groups in the past 30 years of Japan, selling more than 47 million albums and singles in Japan alone. They have had over 40 top-ten hit singles and 16 number-one albums on the Japan's Oricon Charts as of 2008.
Their 1998 compilation Umi no Yeah!! has sold more than 3.3 million copies and became the best-selling double album in Japanese history. Their most commercially successful song "Tsunami", released in 2000, has sold over 2.9 million units in Japan alone, and provided the band with honor of winning the 42nd Japan Record Awards. The band were also acclaimed and ranked number one in HMV Japan's 2003 list of "100 most influential Japanese musicians". They are also the only group to ever have 44 songs on the Oricon Top 100 weekly single chart simultaneously.
The band has occasionally gone into hiatus while individual members work on solo and other projects, and are planning to do so again in 2009.
Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or stars:
“It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Shake off your heavy trance,
and leap into a dance,
Such as no mortals use to tread,
fit only for Apollo
To play to, for the Moon to lead,
And all the Stars to follow.”
—Francis Beaumont (1584–1616)