The band Japan, whose other members included David Sylvian, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Sylvian\'s brother Steve Jansen as drummer, began as a group of friends, who all studied at Catford Boys\' School.[citation needed] As youngsters they played music as a means of escape, playing Sylvian\'s two-chord numbers – sometimes with Karn as the front man, sometimes with Sylvian at the fore. Guitarist Rob Dean joined the band later.[citation needed]\n', '

They christened themselves Japan in 1974, signed a recording contract with German disco label Hansa, with whom they recorded three studio albums and became an alternative glam rock outfit in the mould of David Bowie, T.Rex, and The New York Dolls.[citation needed] They switched to Virgin Records to record their subsequent albums Gentlemen Take Polaroids and Tin Drum.[citation needed]\n', '

As the band started to achieve commercial success with the release of Tin Drum, and "Ghosts", which reached the top five in 1982, tensions and personality conflicts between band members rose; Tin Drum was to be the band\'s final studio album. Long-simmering differences among the bandmembers came to a head when Karn\'s girlfriend, photographer Yuka Fujii, moved in with Sylvian and the individual members forged ahead with their own projects. Karn said in an interview that as tensions with their record company had abated following Japan\'s commercial success, band members began focusing on personal differences rather than on the common enemy.\n', '

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