Miyako Azanashi

Miyako Azanashi (アザナシ都, Azanashi Miyako) is a Japanese rock drummer and percussionist, best known as the founding member of Girl on Run and Everclear. She remained the drummer for Girl on Run until December 2020, where a publicity tour in Los Angeles took a bad turn and ended up with Miyako entering an angry tirade on stage. She is known for her intricate drumming, her brash and aggressive personality, and her work with various bands.

Miyako's career has spanned four decades, and unlike her bandmate Ayane Hichigara, she's been in various bands in various different styles.

Early life
Miyako was born on August 30, 1966, to Sakura Azanashi and a US Air Force traffic controlman. According to Miyako, Sakura was an amejo, an Okinawan term for a Japanese woman who seeks a man from the US armed forces. Miyako didn't know her father, since he left back to the US when she was 3 years old. From there, she was raised by her mother and her aunt, Kokoro Azanashi. Her mom never remarried, and decided to stay single forever.

At age 13, in 1980, Miyako was sent to England by her mom to go to Keeling Girls' School in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. She decided to join the light music club, and picked up the drums. Since she lived alone, and subsisted off money her mom sent her, she decided forgo lunch money for a month to buy a drum set. Practicing with Black Sabbath and Dave Brubeck records, she soon became a proficient drummer.

She quickly gained a reputation at the school for her violent tendencies and her affinity for mischief.

1981-1984: Formation of Sapien, and search for a bassist
In 1980, Miyako enrolled in Keeling Girls' School, in Northamptonshire, UK, at the age of 13. She left her native Okinawa to go study at said school. Soon after, she decided to join the light music club the school offered, but not knowing any instruments, she decided to pick up the drums.

Living off money her mother gave her, she used a months' lunch money to purchase a drum set, and spent hours on end teaching herself drums, playing along with Black Sabbath and Dave Brubeck records. After two months of practice, she became the drummer of the Keeling Girls' School light music club.

Soon after, she met Ayane Hichigara at the lunch hall nearing the end of her sophomore year, in 1981. Hichigara was admiring a poster of the band Black Sabbath, which drove Azanashi to strike up a conversation. Soon finding they both shared the same love for heavy metal and the no-wave music from New York, after a month, they started a band together, called the Babygirls.

After a few weeks, they changed their name to Sapien, and played their first show at the Picturedrome in Northampton. They didn't have a bassist, and only four people attended the show.

After that, they searched for a bassist, and after a few months with a bassist who was inbred, by 1983 they had found Ichigo Osana, Girl on Run's permanent bassist.

In 1984, the band released Shit Outta Luck.

1985-1987: Rise to prominence and public image issues
Throughout the mid-1980s, Girl on Run gained notoriety with their albums Stories in Chernobyl in 1986 and Pleasant Disaster in 1987.

It was noticed by many fans through the time that her addiction to heroin and benzedrine led her to become increasingly angry and violent in real life, on top of her confrontational stage personality. There were two separate occasions in 1987 alone where she got into physical altercations with fans at shows.

1988-1991: Stardom and Mamasan Festival 1989
In 1989, Girl on Run released Ayane, Miyako, and Ichigo. This album got the band to #1 on the Asian Alternative charts in Japan, and #3 of the Heatseekers chart in the United States. With every album they released, they also released a videotape called The Bus Tapes, that was a video of live performances, interspersed with scenes of the bandmates on tour, including eating, soundcheck, and acts of physical violence.

The Mamasan Festival, held in Zuunmod, Mongolia, was the biggest rock festival in Asia at the time, and 1989 was the first year that Girl on Run was eligible to play at it. Girl on Run co-headlined with sister band Spin and Mongolian progressive metal band Hurd, and they played the festival. Energy was rather scarce, and power often kept going in and out. About 25 minutes into their concert, as they were finishing their song "Sandwall", a light came undone and ended up puncturing Azanashi's snare drum. In response, she used her drumsticks to puncture holes in every drum, then proceeded to throw the drums into the crowd. Three people were injured as a result, and Miyako was arrested and sentenced to two years in jail for assault. It is said that performance is what killed the Mamasan Festival, as the last festival was held in 1991.

Because of her prison sentence, Azanashi was not present during the recording of Lightswitch.