History
Formed by friends at Tokai University in Tokyo, Japan on February 14, 1992. The band formed with Chisato on vocals, Gisho on bass, O-Jiro on drums and both Yuuji and Shaisuke on guitar. Before anything was recorded however the bands line-up changed to Hakuei on vocals, Gisho on bass, O-Jiro on drums and both Shaisuke and Chisato on guitar. This line up stayed for the first single from Penicillin Shock which was produced by Kiyoshi, then of Media Youth. After Penicillin Shock however, Shaisuke left the band to join Deshabillz.
The band made their major debut in 1996 with "Blue Moon" on Pioneer LDC. They stayed on Pioneer until 1998 when they changed to East West Japan. Their sixth single released, "Romance", released January 15, 1998 ranked within the top 10 on the Oricon charts for six consecutive weeks, selling over 900,000 copies. This music became the opening theme of the anime Sexy Commando Gaiden. After they were dropped by East West Japan they changed to Omega A.T. Music (an indie label) in 2001. Omega happens to be under Omega Project Holdings which Yoshiaki Kondou (Gisho) is the CEO of. However they were only on Omega for a year before being picked up by Hiboom, which was an indie subsidiary of Avex Trax. In 2005 when Hiboom was closed, they were picked up directly by Avex Trax and were once again on a major label.
On December 12, 2005 Penicillin celebrated its 15th anniversary as a band. On March 9, 2007 Gisho announced that he would leave the band. His last live was his birthday on May 20, 2007 at Shibuya O-East. Since then the band has continued on as a three piece unit. During the February 11, 2008 live, it was announced the Penicillin would once again change labels, this time to Nippon Crown.
As of 2010, they are now on That Records, a division of their talent agency Duplex Developments.
Penicillin's song "Romance" was covered by And on the compilation Crush! -90's V-Rock Best Hit Cover Songs-. The album was released on January 26, 2011 and features current visual kei bands covering songs from bands that were important to the '90s visual kei movement. It was also covered by Jui for the similar album Counteraction - V-Rock covered Visual Anime songs Compilation-, which was released on May 23, 2012 and features covers of songs by visual kei bands that were used in anime.
They covered "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride", from Lilo & Stitch, for the cover album V-Rock Disney, which was released on September 7, 2011 and features visual kei artists covering Disney songs.
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