Ryota Kohama was born in Osaka, Japan before moving to Tokyo. Toru Yamashita, a fellow member from ONE OK ROCK, is his childhood friend. They met together with two other members: Kohei and Takuya. They formed a hip-hop dance group HEADS when they were fifth and sixth-graders. They were also active before their debut and participated in dance competitions around the years of 1995–1999. They debuted with a single entitled "screeeem!" in July 2000 and followed by the second single "Gooood or Bad!" in November, produced by a popular musician under the label Amuse, Inc.. The dance group made a performance every weekends on busy streets in Osaka's Kyoubashi and Tokyo's Akihabara, shopping, and amusement districts. HEADS disbanded in 2002 and in 2003 they took a break to improve their abilities. At this point, HEADS as a four-member group ended. They merged into a new group with seven other members and were called Ground 0. In 2004, Toru and Ryota continued their activities as Ground 0. In 2005 when Toru tried to explore his acting and took a main role in TV seriesShibuya Fifteen, Ryota also played in this drama as a minor character. In the same year, he was invited by Toru to form a rock band, alongside their upperclassman Alex and Toru's friend Koyanagi Yuu. In the beginning, Ryota had no interest to join a band or play bass, until he listened to Red Hot Chili Peppers and was inspired to play bass by Flea. During early days of ONE OK ROCK, Ryota only talked to Toru because he felt inferior and didn't talk to Takahiro Moriuchi for about a year because he was afraid of him. He was the most furious when Alex was caught groping a schoolgirl on a subway. He almost quit playing bass to learn to play guitar. Ryota joined with Tomoya Kanki and wrote the song "Deeper Deeper". Since 2010, Ryota usually takes off his shirt when performing, mostly inspired by Flea. He has a lot of tattoos on his body and arms. During English interviews with ONE OK ROCK, Taka accompanied Ryota to improve his English, since Taka is the best English speaker in the band. On 18 February 2017, Ryota married the Canadian singer-songwriter, Avril Lavigne's sister, Michelle Lavigne. It was rumoured since, during an encore at a concert, Taka said "Congrats on marriage, Ryota!" and Ryota replied saying "I registered for marriage this month! Her name is Michelle, please take care of us!" Fans also noticed that Michelle had also changed her name to Michelle Kohama on her instagram account. Ryota later confirmed on Instagram that it is true. On 22 October 2017, he announced the birth of their first child, a baby girl.
Equipment
Ryota has used many different basses, but he mostly uses Warwick basses. He has three Warwick Streamer LX4 and two Warwick Streamer LX5 with different color. Ryota prefers to play clean, but sometimes he adds distortion to his bassline, such like "Deeper Deeper" and "Rock, Scissor and Paper". He painted his amps with the help of a street artist.
