Everybody Wants To Love You: Japanese Breakfast Interviewed

Michelle Zauner on the deeply personal circumstances surrounding her sparkling new album...

Almost everything about Japanese Breakfast’s new album ‘Psychopomp’ feels like a beginning.

Technically her debut – Michelle Zauner released a handful of low key collections before this – the sheer vitality of the songwriting, the urge to live that ripples through each note, makes ‘Psychopomp’ a riveting, engaging listen.

Remarkably, though, Michelle initially viewed this more as an ending, than a beginning. “I actually thought this was going to be my last record,” she tells Clash. “I had been in another band called Little Big League, which was more of a punk project. I had been wanting to work as a musician for the last few years but it just never quite happened for me. Then my mom got sick, and I moved back to be with her, so I was separated from the band for about a year and a half. Then she unfortunately passed away.”

Laden with grief and separated from her band mates, the songwriter lost herself in music, and her native Oregon. “I think that in a lot of ways, on this record in particular, a lot of songs are about grief. It’s like the process of poking grief, y’know. I was really surprised when my mom passed away, it was like a very quiet, internal experience. I’m normally a very outward, emotional person. So I was really surprised that my grief took a very quiet path. And I think that a way for that to be a cathartic experience was to make this record. Because I hadn’t spoken about it.”

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I was really surprised that my grief took a very quiet path…

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An outwardly confident, stridently melodic work, when you scratch the surface of ‘Psychopomp’ you uncover some intense, and often quite dark, emotions. On the record’s final track, for example, Michelle’s feeling of longing has her howling that she will “cling to your sleeves 'til they're like lacerated sails.”

We should be wary of interpreting these feelings as simply autobiographical, however – Japanese Breakfast is a rather more multi-layered project than that. “I don’t think that I always have my voice when I’m singing,” she explains. “There are a couple of songs that I’ve written that take on other characters in their lives. The songs are essentially about life. There are a couple of songs on this record that I feel are in a different voice, that’s not my own. It’s not my personal life, but it’s somehow formed by experiences that I’ve had. But I do write very personal material, and I think it’s certainly easier for me to write from that perspective.”

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Returning to Oregon, Michelle found herself succumbing once more to the landscape and surroundings that underpinned her youth. The mingling of past and present, coupled with the weight of grief and expectation, provide an emotional core for her work. “Most of the songs were written in this little cottage which is on a five acre property that my parents have,” she says. “We live in the country, next to this college town called Eugene. Beautiful Pacific North West. And I think a lot of the songs are about feeling trapped in that area.”

The material on ‘Psychopomp’ later made its way with Michelle to New York, where she took up full time employment and attempted to wrap music around this new life. “I had no desire to really continue on with music as a career path at that point, because the idea of touring in that state was kind of impossible,” she admits. “So I just decided that I wanted to re-focus my energy at that point – move to New York and get a career in, like, business, or something. So I just kind of wanted to make a record for myself, a record that I would like, a personal project that I enjoyed. And so I put together some friends to help me arrange it, and we recorded it in a little bedroom studio.”

Not that New York is some kind of pivotal destination in her life, as Michelle readily admits. “I’m reaching a point in my life where I’m starting to wonder… I do really love living in a city but I wish I had more space. But yeah, at this point in my life I do prefer the city. I’m reaching the age where I’m starting to wonder what it would be like to have my own house.”

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I think a lot of the songs are about feeling trapped in that area…

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During our conversation Michelle mentions a songwriting exercise she used, a project where she decided to write a song – any song – each day throughout a whole month. “This really interesting thing happened where I looked back on those 30 tracks and I really only hated two of them. A lot of them were really, really great raw source material to return to.”

The wide open nature of this project hints at something rather more deep-rooted in the way Michelle approaches making music. “I try not to put any kind of boundaries, because I have done that before, where I get very nervous about how many songs are in a certain key, or a certain structure that’s been used. I think the more that you let that go, and just give yourself the whole freedom to do whatever sounds good, is what you should do”.

“I think that one thing that I noticed about myself is that I like to change lifts in songs. I like transition, and I like feeling that each part has been lifted into another one. And so I think that’s something that I’m always trying to chase, is that I’m always chasing this inexplicable emotional lift. You feel as a song travels. That’s really satisfying for me to create.”

‘Psychopomp’ feels incredibly fresh, but also marvellously detailed – it’s an odd mixture, and one that Japanese Breakfast has worked hard to create. Michelle admits that she continually over-thinks, but explains that “it’s about figuring out a way to realise that’s OK, to just push it out. To do whatever you want to do. And it will turn itself into something else, on it’s own.”

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I do think it’s nice to make some sort of pilgrimage to a space that’s your own…

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Released to a flurry of effusive praise, Japanese Breakfast’s debut album has become a cult concern, the sort of record that gets passed from friend to friend. With clamour increasing, Michelle has been coaxed away from her home in New York, and those five acres in Oregon. She laughs: “I explicitly told everyone that I wasn’t going to tour, but then the record did really well, and I got offered some really amazing support slots, offered to go to the UK. And it was then that I realised that I really wanted to travel again!”

Sounding entirely refreshed, wholly re-energised, Michelle is already focussed on her next record. “I actually think it’ll be a Philadelphia record,” she explains. “I’m working with a producer who is also in the band – his name is Craig Hendrix – and he works in a studio… The War On Drugs also work there. We’re going to be recording in Philadelphia. What little I can take. Because I do think it’s nice to make some sort of pilgrimage to a space that’s your own, to feel like you’re making something special.”

Fixing up her musical wagon and taking the Oregon trail back East, Japanese Breakfast can look forward to her next pilgrimage with some degree of confidence – judging by the response to ‘Psychopomp’, the trail could get a little crowded.

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'Psychopomp' is out now. Catch Japanese Breakfast (and Porches, who you should also check out!) at the following shows:

October
18 Brighton Sticky Mikes
19 Leeds Brudenell Social Club
21 Glasgow The Hug & Pint
22 Manchester The White Hotel
23 Cardiff Swn Festival
24 Birmingham Hare & Hounds
25 London The Lexington

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