Ringo Sheena - Early Life

Early Life

Sheena was born in Urawa (now part of Saitama), Saitama Prefecture, to Kōtarō Shiina, an employee of the oil companies, and Akiko, a homemaker. She was born with an esophageal atresia in which the esophagus narrows as it approaches the stomach. Treatment of this involved several operations, at least one of which required her right shoulder blade to be cut open. These surgeries left Sheena with large scars on her shoulder blades, said to give the impression that an angel's wings had been removed.

Her first exposure to music came from her father's interest in jazz and classical music; her mother had majored in dance in college and practiced ballet. Her parents owned a large collection of music, a piano, and a guitar, and her father was a devoted reader of music magazines. Sheena started piano lessons at four and studied classical ballet the following year.

While very outgoing as a young child, Sheena became shy and quiet after she and her older brother, Junpei, moved to Shimizu (now Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka), Shizuoka Prefecture due to their father's job. Her parents remember her as a mostly trouble-free child and a good student, except that she could not stand being alone and would throw tantrums if she could not have a friend to play with.

The family next relocated to Sawara-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, and Sheena entered junior high school there. While in Fukuoka, she again became an outgoing person. Her official biography was published as her introducing herself from Fukuoka. In later years, she spoke to interviewers in Fukuoka's Hakata dialect.

Entering junior high school, she realized that it was impossible to become a ballet dancer or professional piano player. Her body had become less symmetrical, due to the results of the operations in her infancy. She could not give power equally to the right and left sides of her body, and she eventually stopped taking ballet and piano lessons. She started listening to a wider range of music other than classical music or her parents' records. She got interested in drama and stage design. She was asked by her drama teacher to add music to the lines of a play, and taking advantage of this opportunity, she began her musical activities. She formed a band with her classmates and performed in the school festival. She initially played drums, but later became the lead singer. Although the band broke up, Sheena began to make demos with the aim of being a professional musician.

While in high school, she worked in about ten bands and improved her musical skills by performing live. She was a guitarist and a lead singer in one band, but she played keyboards, bass, or drums in others.

At the same time, she busked near Nishitetsu Fukuoka station in Tenjin.