[1] The trio is composed of guitarist Akito Katayose, drummer Kenichi Shirane and bassist jan (who replaced Kiyoshi Takakuwa in 2012).
[2] Katayose, Shirane and Takakuwa formed Great 3 after the dissolution of their previous band Rotten Hats (ロッテンハッツ, Rotten Hattsu) in February 1994 (the other members went to form Hicksville).
The group debuted on Toshiba EMI with the single "Fool & the Gang" and the album Richmondo High in 1995.
In the early 2000s, they started collaborating with American musician John McEntire, who produced/engineered their albums May and December (2001), When You Were a Beauty (2002) and Climax (2003), When You Were a Beauty being recorded with the members of The Sea and Cake, Tortoise and Wilco.
On 27 July 2012 they released their first digital single titled "Emotion / Lady"[3] and on 1 August, it was announced the new bass player would be jan.