Speaker 1: Pushkin. Michelle's Honor is the lead singer and creative force
Speaker 1: behind the indie dream pop band Japanese Breakfast. This year,
Speaker 1: Zanna released a series of career defining projects that propelled
Speaker 1: her band to widespread critical acclaim. Earlier this year, Zanna
Speaker 1: released her New York Times bestselling memoir, The Wildly Popular
Speaker 1: Crying in h Mark. The book, which began as a
Speaker 1: New Yorker essay, has since been optioned by MGM O'Ryan
Speaker 1: for a film adaptation. The book details Honor's time caring
Speaker 1: for her cancer stricken mother in the period after her
Speaker 1: mom's death when Michelle recorded Japanese Breakfast sublime debut Psychopon.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Michelle's book came out, Japanese Breakfast released their
Speaker 1: third and most ambitious album, Jubilee. It has been named
Speaker 1: one of the best albums of the year by The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and PR and Billboard. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Broken Record producer Lea Rose talks to Michell's Honor about
Speaker 1: her triumphant year and exactly how big she wants her
Speaker 1: band to become. Zanner also talks about casting the soprano
Speaker 1: star Michael Imperioli in her video for Savage good Boy,
Speaker 1: and why she ended up going a little too far
Speaker 1: in the video's neck biting scene. This is broken record
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondson. Here's
Speaker 1: Leah Rose with Michelle's honor. You've had a really big
Speaker 1: year this year. You released Crying in h Mark in April,
Speaker 1: it's been on the New York Times bestseller list for
Speaker 1: several weeks, and then your third album, Jubilee in June,
Speaker 1: and the album's doing really well. Yeah. Are you thinking
Speaker 1: about your next writing project or is it more of
Speaker 1: a next album? Yeah? I feel pretty fried, to be honest.
Speaker 1: It was a really overwhelming year and I'm like so
Speaker 1: relieved and happy with the response. It's just definitely above
Speaker 1: and beyond all expectation the best way. But for the
Speaker 1: last seven years, really had a couple projects in the
Speaker 1: works really grounding me. And I do have the screenplay
Speaker 1: for Crying in h Mark, but that kind of feels
Speaker 1: like I'm revisiting something that I've worked on before. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was just telling my husband, I
Speaker 1: feel just really lazy because like for the first time,
Speaker 1: I'm just like I don't have this drive to juggle
Speaker 1: three projects the way that I did for the past
Speaker 1: few years, and I have a little bit of guilt
Speaker 1: that I'm just like, I just like, don't I want
Speaker 1: to just eat at restaurants and like chill for a while. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I heard you say that you're in a stage right
Speaker 1: now where you're just sort of an empty vessel and
Speaker 1: you're just looking around and you're thinking. So when you
Speaker 1: first started out and you were in some of your
Speaker 1: early bands and you would play music for your mom
Speaker 1: or you would talk to your mom about it, it
Speaker 1: seemed like she hoped it was just a passing phase
Speaker 1: and you would kind of come to your senses and
Speaker 1: get a nice, stable job. That did happen for a
Speaker 1: period of time after your mom passed away, you know,
Speaker 1: once things started to pick up with Psychopomp. Did you
Speaker 1: ever consider just giving it all up for that reason? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was part of what moving to New
Speaker 1: York and getting a job was was just like part
Speaker 1: of it was like, I'm twenty five and if it
Speaker 1: hasn't happened for me yet after almost ten years of
Speaker 1: doing the grind, that's probably not going to happen, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's time to give it up. I'd never actually
Speaker 1: like wore to nine to five job without something else
Speaker 1: on the backburner creatively, and trying to do that very
Speaker 1: quickly revealed that I just feel so completely unfulfilled by
Speaker 1: that lifestyle. You know. I would work from in New York,
Speaker 1: like a nine to five job really is like eight
Speaker 1: to seven, and I would eat my little sweet green
Speaker 1: at my computer like everyone else, and I would leave
Speaker 1: just feeling like I did nothing. I just felt so
Speaker 1: completely unfulfilled every day. And even still when I did that,
Speaker 1: I realized, like, Okay, I need some kind of project,
Speaker 1: and I would go to Crown Heights like after work
Speaker 1: at seven, drive in rush hour traffic mix with Ned
Speaker 1: Eisenberg from like eight to midnight, and then go to
Speaker 1: bed because I just felt like I couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 1: sleep without doing something that day. And then I just
Speaker 1: got very, very lucky and really won the lottery with
Speaker 1: that album. Can you talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: you started to record Psychopomp and how you eventually were
Speaker 1: able to get that out in the world. So my
Speaker 1: mom passed away in October twenty fourteen, and then I
Speaker 1: would say probably in December of that year. I stayed
Speaker 1: behind in Eugene for another six months to kind of
Speaker 1: just make sure that my dad was okay mentally and
Speaker 1: help him sort of pack up this house that they
Speaker 1: lived in for you know, fifteen years. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a really dark period of my life where
Speaker 1: I was just stuck in this house and in the
Speaker 1: woods with my dad's like oh the furniture and the decorations,
Speaker 1: where my mom's had to fold her clothes and put
Speaker 1: them away and sell things. It was just a really horrible,
Speaker 1: darkest period of my life. And you know, I needed
Speaker 1: like a little project to just like figure out what
Speaker 1: was going on. And there was this little shed at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the property my parents had, like you know,
Speaker 1: three to five acres like in the forest. When I
Speaker 1: was done for the day, I would like go down
Speaker 1: there and like write some songs. My husband was living
Speaker 1: with us and he played bass on the album. And
Speaker 1: then my my first boyfriend and good friend, Nicolae Gamer,
Speaker 1: who I talked about in the book. He was living
Speaker 1: in Eugene and he came and played guitar and introduced
Speaker 1: me to this guy, Colin Redman, who played drums and
Speaker 1: had a little bedroom studio, and so that became a
Speaker 1: way for me to kind of just like let off
Speaker 1: some steam and you know, kind of like figure out
Speaker 1: the things that I was feeling after this whirlwind six
Speaker 1: months of living in Eugene taking care of my mom
Speaker 1: who had stage four cancer. And you know, so I
Speaker 1: wrote Psychopomp and those guys helped me arrange it and
Speaker 1: played the other instruments, and then my husband and I
Speaker 1: moved to New York, I think in May or June
Speaker 1: of twenty fifteen, and the album needed mixing, and I
Speaker 1: had this college friend, Dad Eisenberg, who I thought was
Speaker 1: a very talented mixing engineer, and we actually started opening
Speaker 1: up those songs while I was working that nine to
Speaker 1: five job in advertising. Yeah, what I thought was going
Speaker 1: to be mixing ended up being like adding a lot
Speaker 1: of SyncE and speeding up songs and adding samples, and
Speaker 1: Ned really kind of revitalized an album that was maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit more straightforward. Did you love it? Were
Speaker 1: you proud of it? Like? What was your thought about
Speaker 1: it as you were mixing it and adding more to it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think that Ned is a brilliant producer,
Speaker 1: and the stuff that we were doing there and even
Speaker 1: you know, when I was recording in the gene. I
Speaker 1: thought it was great. But I thought everything that I
Speaker 1: did was great, you know what I mean, Like my
Speaker 1: old band, I thought all of our albums were great
Speaker 1: and no one else really cared about them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that we made a great thing. When we
Speaker 1: were done, I like sent it out to all these
Speaker 1: tiny labels and no one wanted it. Everyone you know,
Speaker 1: passed on it. And then eventually I found this small
Speaker 1: label called Yellow K Records, and you know, they were
Speaker 1: interested in putting it out, and in my mind, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, we'll press five hundred copies and over
Speaker 1: the next ten years will like slowly sell that. And
Speaker 1: I told him straight up, like I'm not going to tour.
Speaker 1: I have this job, i've health insurance. I like I've
Speaker 1: done that. It's not it doesn't work. Like I'm over
Speaker 1: that lifestyle. I have to like focus on this. And
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, that's fine, and he was still willing
Speaker 1: to put it out and they got a PR person, Aloy,
Speaker 1: who's still my PR person. And you know, when he
Speaker 1: told me he was hiring a publicist, I was like, why,
Speaker 1: you know what a waste of money, Like, it's not
Speaker 1: going to do anything, and the record got great press,
Speaker 1: and I got offered the Mitzky tour. I had labels
Speaker 1: that were interested, and around that time, I had like
Speaker 1: a year end assessment of my progress at my job
Speaker 1: and I thought I was getting a raise, and they
Speaker 1: actually told me. I was like not doing what And
Speaker 1: so like the owner, I think he's kind of like
Speaker 1: a punk guy actually, and like I think he thought
Speaker 1: I was like funny, and I think he felt bad
Speaker 1: for me that I was so blindsided by this, you know,
Speaker 1: this end of the year progress part that he misspoke,
Speaker 1: I think. And he offered me a two month severance,
Speaker 1: which was crazy because I'd only been there for nine months,
Speaker 1: and like he was letting you go. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: like if you're not happy, like if you're so surprised
Speaker 1: by this, like maybe it's not you know, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: you should go do something else or whatever. And so
Speaker 1: I took my paid Christmas vacation and around that time
Speaker 1: I had been offered all these cells by showcases. I
Speaker 1: thought about it. I came back and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll take that two months everance. And in my mind
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, well you have two months of
Speaker 1: pay to like see if this is going to turn
Speaker 1: into something and reassess, and then it ended up doing
Speaker 1: really well. We went to south By, we got signed,
Speaker 1: I got a booking agent, I got this you know,
Speaker 1: North American tour, and I never worked another job since then.
Speaker 1: So what do you think it was about the album
Speaker 1: that stuck this time? I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's a There was a number of things. I
Speaker 1: think when you know, maybe I had just finally paid
Speaker 1: enough of my dues, Like maybe my name had kind
Speaker 1: of been like bubbling up, and there was a kind
Speaker 1: of clarity and focus that my other band before it
Speaker 1: didn't have, because I could kind of like be this
Speaker 1: directorial force that I had kind of you know, the
Speaker 1: band before it was kind of more of a democracy.
Speaker 1: It was like four people like you know, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of like writing music. Then that was a
Speaker 1: little bit harder. It was a little harder than what
Speaker 1: I wanted to make me or that what I or
Speaker 1: more naturally like comes out of me. I guess like
Speaker 1: I was in a band with three kind of dudes
Speaker 1: that came up in punk and hardcore, and I think
Speaker 1: that Japanese Breakfast I was able to kind of lean
Speaker 1: into like more pop sensibility, more indies, So it was
Speaker 1: just more listenable, more palatable. And yeah, I think also
Speaker 1: a narrative like came out, like when when we wrote
Speaker 1: a press release, like I didn't say anything about my
Speaker 1: mom passing away, but you know, as you can probably tell,
Speaker 1: like I'm a pretty open book, easy person to interview,
Speaker 1: and like I think that, you know, when people ask
Speaker 1: like what is the song about, I told them, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: And that narrative kind of came out on its own,
Speaker 1: and I think that it resonated with people and that
Speaker 1: was part of it. And I just got lucky the
Speaker 1: right place right. Who knows why, but that's my theory.
Speaker 1: It's also very good. Yeah, I wouldn't chuck it all
Speaker 1: up to luck. The cover image is so arresting. It's
Speaker 1: just it sort of stays with you. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit mysterious, like what's going on here? How did you
Speaker 1: pick that image? And where did you find? I know
Speaker 1: it's your mom's in the picture, but how did you
Speaker 1: come across the image? I mean, first of all, I
Speaker 1: you know, was packing up the house and threw so
Speaker 1: much stuff away except for all the family photos. So
Speaker 1: I was like going through all these family photos all
Speaker 1: the time, and so they were certainly like top of mind,
Speaker 1: and it was also free, so I didn't have to
Speaker 1: hire anyone. It was just like the image. I like
Speaker 1: this image, you know. I think my mom looks so
Speaker 1: beautiful there, and like she's with her friend and she's
Speaker 1: around my age, you know when I lost her, and
Speaker 1: it really just looks like she is like in the sky,
Speaker 1: Like it looks like they're on a cloud and she's
Speaker 1: reaching for me. Yeah. Well, I mean I've done so
Speaker 1: many interviews that I haven't really talked about this, but
Speaker 1: like when I think about that album cover, like it
Speaker 1: does look kind of like it's a woman reaching down
Speaker 1: below from like a cloud or something, but it also
Speaker 1: looks like it's a woman like letting go of someone beneath,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's like just so much what that
Speaker 1: album is about. You know. I was like having all
Speaker 1: these dreams about my mom and it felt like it
Speaker 1: was her way of like reaching towards me or something.
Speaker 1: But it was also like, you know, about becoming an
Speaker 1: adult after like you like lose your parents maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit sooner than you're ready to, and yeah, like
Speaker 1: having to to Forgohn after that and being let go
Speaker 1: of So yeah, it felt like so fitting for that
Speaker 1: time and the themes on that record. She just paces
Speaker 1: Dais sniffs That's in Heaven from Japanese Breakfast debut album,
Speaker 1: Psycho Pomp. We'll be right back with more from Michelle's
Speaker 1: Honor after the break We're back with Lea Rose and
Speaker 1: Michelle's Honor of Japanese Breakfast for the second album, did
Speaker 1: you have kind of a creative frame for it? Did
Speaker 1: you have an idea of where you wanted to go?
Speaker 1: So we played south By must have been twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and everything exploded for me as an artist there. And
Speaker 1: I had this song Machinist. That was that song about
Speaker 1: it falling in love with the robot and in my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, after like doing all this press around Psychopomp,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to talk about this
Speaker 1: ever again. I want to I don't want to write
Speaker 1: an album about grief. I need to like write an
Speaker 1: album about like a sci fi concept album that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with my personal life and everything to
Speaker 1: do with like fiction. And I had kind of promised
Speaker 1: Dead Oceans, like I told them, you know, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you must have another album ready to go or something,
Speaker 1: and I had kind of lied and been like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's ready to go, sign me, you know. But
Speaker 1: it was kind of a good way to go about
Speaker 1: it because I, you know, I had all of the
Speaker 1: pressure of like a successful kind of debut that I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, like I need to avoid the sophomore slump.
Speaker 1: Maybe the best way to do that is just do
Speaker 1: it fast, like just right, you know what feels good
Speaker 1: to you immediately. But then when I started trying to
Speaker 1: go in on this like very heavy handed sci fi
Speaker 1: concept record, I was like, you know, your mom still
Speaker 1: just died, like that was like two years ago, and
Speaker 1: you're still going through a lot of these feelings. And
Speaker 1: I think I ended up being an album much more
Speaker 1: about this different type of grief. I was like kind
Speaker 1: of dissociating a lot. I felt very out of touch
Speaker 1: from reality and you know, kind of spacey. I guess.
Speaker 1: So I think that it's kind of like a very
Speaker 1: loose concept record about grief and mourning and kind of
Speaker 1: like removing yourself from feeling in this way. And I
Speaker 1: had kind of like a bad falling out with Ned Eisenberg,
Speaker 1: the producer who worked on Psychopomp, and I reached out
Speaker 1: to my friend Craig Hendricks, who ended up joining the
Speaker 1: live band, and he recorded my old band, Little Big
Speaker 1: League's first album, and the two of us like forged
Speaker 1: a really wonderful collaborative relationship from starting with that record.
Speaker 1: It was really a very insular process. It was very
Speaker 1: concentrated one month of like largely just writing, arranging recording
Speaker 1: in his little warehouse studio, like just me and him
Speaker 1: playing all the instruments and putting it together. And I
Speaker 1: felt like that's what I needed to kind of avoid
Speaker 1: the kind of pressures of the sophomore slump taking its
Speaker 1: toll on me. Yeah, I feel like your fashion really
Speaker 1: exploded between album two and three. And is that just
Speaker 1: because of like now you have access to more resources?
Speaker 1: Is it knowing more designers? How did that happen? And
Speaker 1: it's been so incredible to see, thank you? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean it started with just like needing something to wear.
Speaker 1: And a big change was I'm I started hanging out
Speaker 1: with cclu was my stylist, and she's you know, become
Speaker 1: a really good friend of mine, and the two of
Speaker 1: us like went from you know, begging small designers to
Speaker 1: loan to us, buying and returning a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: like and she just you know, I think she really
Speaker 1: introduced me to fashion in general as an art form.
Speaker 1: And I started actually really enjoying it and feeling really
Speaker 1: good wearing different things and it becoming a part of
Speaker 1: the show and having different themes for different eras. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I think about musicians like be York
Speaker 1: or David Bowie or you know, John or whatever, like
Speaker 1: it's nice for me that you can think of their
Speaker 1: album cycles, like what sort of era they're in, you know,
Speaker 1: getting to be a bigger artist, you just start to
Speaker 1: tear apart all of the details of like what can
Speaker 1: you add to make it better? You know, all these
Speaker 1: little things. It's not just like adding more musicians. It's
Speaker 1: not just like adding more instruments and like more like
Speaker 1: detailed analogue sound. It's also like what does the backdrop
Speaker 1: look like, what does the production look like, what does
Speaker 1: the lighting look like? What well people are looking at
Speaker 1: what we're wearing, what does that look like? Or like
Speaker 1: the drumhead or you know, the microphone decoration, whatever, like
Speaker 1: any detail like it just as this level of this
Speaker 1: heightened level of thoughtfulness, I like the idea of like
Speaker 1: integrating that and every single thing that we do, and
Speaker 1: so the wardrobe started to kind of take on that
Speaker 1: sort of meaning for me too. And the more that
Speaker 1: I learned about different designers and the more that Ceci
Speaker 1: kind of integrated me into that world, the more exciting
Speaker 1: and fun it was to kind of come up with
Speaker 1: more ideas and make that a part of the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so cool. Oh, thank you. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you specifically about a couple of the songs
Speaker 1: on Jubilee. Oh great, okay, So Tactics. Yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: seems to be new on Jubilee. There's string sections, and
Speaker 1: you talked about, you know, as your evolution as an
Speaker 1: artist went on, you started adding different elements into the scores,
Speaker 1: and this is just seems like a huge jump from psychopump.
Speaker 1: So where did the idea come from. Yeah? I started
Speaker 1: writing a lot more songs on piano for this album,
Speaker 1: and so Tactics was a song that started on the
Speaker 1: piano and I really wanted it to be this kind
Speaker 1: of Randy Newman type ballad, and Craig transposed the introduction
Speaker 1: that was originally played the piano to a string quartet
Speaker 1: and then he kept saying like he had this like
Speaker 1: Bill Withers beat in mind, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. This is a ballot.
Speaker 1: This is a Randy Newman ballot. And once I heard it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that Bill Wither's beachs Like yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that that makes complete sense. And that was sort of
Speaker 1: how that song came together. Cool. I feel like that
Speaker 1: song hasn't gotten it's too. That's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: songs on the record, and I'm surprised that more people
Speaker 1: don't gravitate towards it. And then Savage, Oh, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you could talk a little bit about the video too
Speaker 1: for that as well. Yeah, so Savage, good boy, I
Speaker 1: wrote after reading a news headline about billionaire's buying bunkers,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, that's a horrifying reality in
Speaker 1: my mind, Like that song is about a billionaire kind
Speaker 1: of coaxing a young woman to live with him in
Speaker 1: his bunker as the kind of as the world burns
Speaker 1: around them and global warming ticks over, and I think
Speaker 1: over time, it's kind of like revealed that this guy
Speaker 1: who just thinks that I'm just playing this game, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm doing what it takes to win. I'm doing what
Speaker 1: it takes to survive and protect my family. Over time,
Speaker 1: it just like that reality of just that mentality of
Speaker 1: hoarding wealth on such a high level reveals itself as
Speaker 1: a more and more menacing perspective. And so I wanted
Speaker 1: a very literal translation of that video. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, my dream savage good boy was Michael Imperioli
Speaker 1: because and we thought that, you know, my cinematographer and
Speaker 1: I love the Sopranos, and we followed him on Instagram
Speaker 1: and just saw that, you know, he was kind of
Speaker 1: in the scene like he's a big shoegaze fan, and
Speaker 1: he's brillianto most of Sumny and My Bloody Valentine, and
Speaker 1: I just thought that he might be down for a
Speaker 1: kind of, you know for him, probably very low budget
Speaker 1: music video appearance. And you know, he looks so great
Speaker 1: now and it's kind of like a different role for him, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's always been this kind of like working class,
Speaker 1: sort of tough guy, but he looks so handsome and
Speaker 1: like I think that you know, dressed up in that way,
Speaker 1: like he looks like he could be this other type
Speaker 1: of guy. And so I thought it would be fun
Speaker 1: to cast him. Really really lucky that he was in
Speaker 1: it because he's so great in it. What was it
Speaker 1: like to work with him? I mean, being a big
Speaker 1: fan of the Sopranos and then you're just like so
Speaker 1: physically close with him in while filming that video and
Speaker 1: you're like biting his neck like was that? Oh God? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was great. I Mean he's a very generous person
Speaker 1: and a fantastic actor, and I'm really grateful that he
Speaker 1: had no ego and he would just you know, he
Speaker 1: really let me direct, you know, and he really took
Speaker 1: me very seriously, and you know, reassured me and many
Speaker 1: times to give him feedback and that he was going
Speaker 1: to take it seriously. And and you know, watch I
Speaker 1: was the first time I worked with a real actor
Speaker 1: really and a professional actor. And yeah, just seeing like
Speaker 1: the small variations that he made from take to take
Speaker 1: like and what he could give like was so fun,
Speaker 1: you know, to like watch a true actor work in
Speaker 1: that way. Was it hard to give him feedback? I
Speaker 1: mean it was it hard to articulate what you wanted.
Speaker 1: I had a real vision for it. The hardest thing
Speaker 1: was getting the blood to work to make the bite
Speaker 1: look believable. Was it in your mouth? It was in
Speaker 1: my mouth. And it was initially like I was trying
Speaker 1: to squeeze a bottle from off camera and the bottle
Speaker 1: got stuck, like the blood wouldn't come out, and actually,
Speaker 1: like during the first take, my brain kind of crossed
Speaker 1: wires and like I kept trying to squeeze the bottle,
Speaker 1: it wasn't coming out, and I was like, oh, it
Speaker 1: was on film, So I was like, oh, you're burning film.
Speaker 1: The come out, come out. And as I was clenching
Speaker 1: my hand down, my mouth also started clenching down. And
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until after the take that I had
Speaker 1: like accidentally bit the shit out of my imperial neck
Speaker 1: and he had this huge bite mark, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm so sorry. Like now you think
Speaker 1: I'm just like weird, kinky, like freak trying to like
Speaker 1: get one in, and I like, I was like I
Speaker 1: was trying to explain to him, and he was very understanding,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I was just mortified because I
Speaker 1: was the last ache of the day and of course,
Speaker 1: and like you know, I was just like stressing about
Speaker 1: time and I just felt so bad. Wow, he's a trooper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more from Michelle's Honor. We're back with
Speaker 1: the rest of Leah Rose's interview with Michelle's Honor. Has
Speaker 1: it been performing shows? Did you feel like you were
Speaker 1: rusty at first when you were first performing? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And I think it was tough for me because I'm
Speaker 1: not the type of singer that like sings in my
Speaker 1: free time, you know, so getting my voice like back,
Speaker 1: and you know, you've been just like the swagger of
Speaker 1: being a front person after not talking to people and
Speaker 1: then suddenly seeing thousands of people watching you is really tough.
Speaker 1: And so I said, I think that the tour was
Speaker 1: really really hard for me to adjust. We were also, yeah,
Speaker 1: bigger group for the first time, bigger profile, bigger crowds,
Speaker 1: bigger venues, on a bus. It was a real adjustment
Speaker 1: and I felt a lot of performance anxiety that I
Speaker 1: never experienced before, just questioning if I deserved to be there,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was just a huge change. And
Speaker 1: also like my stamina I think has really suffered, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard about this from a lot
Speaker 1: of people with any job. I just it's harder to
Speaker 1: do more than one thing a day. And it used
Speaker 1: to be I would work on my book or work
Speaker 1: on a soundtrack while on tour, I would multitask or
Speaker 1: be able to do press and stuff. And this time
Speaker 1: I just really I felt like I was on that
Speaker 1: show naked and afraid, like towards the end of the days,
Speaker 1: where people are like it's just not worth like exuding
Speaker 1: the calories to move and so you're just kind of
Speaker 1: like sitting still for a really long time to just survive.
Speaker 1: I felt like that where I just all I could
Speaker 1: do was play the shows and I could really just
Speaker 1: focus on surviving tour this past couple of runs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when you were just starting out and you were
Speaker 1: starting to do live shows, how did you think about
Speaker 1: what you were going to be like on stage? Who
Speaker 1: did you model yourself after, if anybody? I wanted to
Speaker 1: have like a kind of like orchestral classic element, Like
Speaker 1: I always think of my dream show as being as
Speaker 1: curated as like the b York Vesperutine shows with the
Speaker 1: choir from Greenland and the hard Player and mottin Muse,
Speaker 1: Like I would love to be able to get to
Speaker 1: the point where it can just be more and more
Speaker 1: creative and curated and inventive like that. But then there's
Speaker 1: also bands like Wilco or Death Cab who are these
Speaker 1: like rock bands who have had these really long careers
Speaker 1: with really diverse, ever changing albums, and I and just
Speaker 1: seem like there are bands that have really good head
Speaker 1: on their shoulders and are also kind of just always
Speaker 1: pushing themselves to do better. And so I feel like
Speaker 1: those are my two main models that I tried to
Speaker 1: go for as we get bigger. And then I've heard
Speaker 1: you talk also about Karen Oh how you really admired
Speaker 1: her growing up and your interview with her in interview
Speaker 1: was so great and so nice to hear you two connecting.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about meeting her. Were you
Speaker 1: super nervous for that? Did it live up to what
Speaker 1: you were hoping that it would be. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like that was my like meeting the president, like for
Speaker 1: other people, you know, Like I felt like that was
Speaker 1: the person I was the most nervous about meeting. And
Speaker 1: I feel I almost like didn't want to meet her
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to ruin my image of her
Speaker 1: or whatever my fantasy for we didn't meet in person
Speaker 1: because it was during the lockdown, and I didn't we zoomed,
Speaker 1: but it was just our voices, which I was kind
Speaker 1: of nice, honestly, because I feel like I could just
Speaker 1: really concentrate on the conversation and made it a little
Speaker 1: bit less nerve racking. But I also really appreciate that
Speaker 1: she's a very She's just a career of genius and
Speaker 1: my hero and so brilliant and intelligent, but she also
Speaker 1: is very nervous and relatable and earnest and uses a
Speaker 1: lot of filler and talks kind of like fast and
Speaker 1: jolty in the way that I do. So I think
Speaker 1: I felt kind of naturally pretty comfortable with her. It
Speaker 1: felt like we were kind of cut from a similar cloth.
Speaker 1: And she read my book and enjoyed it, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's very encouraging of me in the perfect way. And
Speaker 1: I wish I wish I had a full record. I
Speaker 1: did ask Interview to send me the recording, but I
Speaker 1: think they thought I was joking. I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to listen to this recording like every night when
Speaker 1: I fall asleep, because you know, I'm pretty sure at
Speaker 1: one point she called me like a singular artist, and
Speaker 1: you know, hearing your hero call you that or just
Speaker 1: appreciate your work. It's just a real career highlight dream
Speaker 1: come true. It was. It was everything that I wanted
Speaker 1: that conversation to be. I was really really lucky. That's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking about you watching Karen Oh when you were younger
Speaker 1: watching videos, it reminded me of in your book when
Speaker 1: you talk about when you finally started to tour after
Speaker 1: Psychopomp came out. You would see the like the sixteen
Speaker 1: year old girls and the audience who were looking up
Speaker 1: at you in wonderment and how much that meant to you.
Speaker 1: Can you just talk about sort of like that full
Speaker 1: circle moment. Yeah, I mean I would say that our demographic,
Speaker 1: more than other indie bands, has a lot more young
Speaker 1: Asian people, particularly young Asian girls. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that people enjoy like seeing themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like a rare thing when you're
Speaker 1: a minority in America. And yeah, I mean it's just
Speaker 1: a real honor. I've had a few young girls come
Speaker 1: up to me and say, you know, you're my care
Speaker 1: know and I can feel what you feel. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really strange coming from a place where you know,
Speaker 1: I talk about this in the book, but there was
Speaker 1: still this real scarcity mentality that I had to kind
Speaker 1: of tackle of just seeing this woman who inspired me
Speaker 1: to see myself represent sented in this very white, male
Speaker 1: dominated industry, and then also this feeling of insecurity that
Speaker 1: you know, oh, there's already one Asian American woman doing this,
Speaker 1: there's not really going to be room for another. It's
Speaker 1: exciting to see that change, and the younger generation have
Speaker 1: a lot more role models to look up to that
Speaker 1: look different. In your interview with Mark Ronson, you were
Speaker 1: talking about how you've never recorded in an actual big
Speaker 1: recording studio and worked with an outside producer. Is that
Speaker 1: something you're considering for the next project or do you
Speaker 1: think you'll sort of stay in line with what you've
Speaker 1: done with the past three Yeah. I think that that's
Speaker 1: actually a really exciting new terrain for me. You know,
Speaker 1: we did do our Spotify sessions in at Electric Lady
Speaker 1: and you know, which is a very legit studio, and
Speaker 1: I did record some strings and piano at this very
Speaker 1: nice studio called spice House Sound and Philly, and I
Speaker 1: think that those experiences were what led me to you know,
Speaker 1: gave me the experience of what it was like to record,
Speaker 1: like what makes a studio like that special. I had
Speaker 1: this moment where I was recording better than Mask for
Speaker 1: the Sable soundtrack, and I had recorded you know, ten
Speaker 1: to twelve vocal performances just on like an SM seven
Speaker 1: and my Apollo twin, and I had camped them together
Speaker 1: feeling like, you know, oh, it's the performance that really matters.
Speaker 1: And then I recorded a scratch vocal at spice House
Speaker 1: sound on like they're in very nice vintage Norman and
Speaker 1: these all these preampts, and you know, that scratch vocal
Speaker 1: sounded way better than any saying that I had come together.
Speaker 1: And I think that that was kind of a really
Speaker 1: eye opening experience, or like hearing what an acoustic guitar
Speaker 1: can sound like when it's engineered properly and electric lady,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's kind of like always like the
Speaker 1: simplest stuff like that that really you can hear the
Speaker 1: difference now, and I think that that's what's really So
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that I did the records that I
Speaker 1: did this way because I learned so much and I
Speaker 1: think maybe just like I have more reverence for studios
Speaker 1: now that I would I can afford to go in
Speaker 1: and record and bring this sort of elevated version of
Speaker 1: a new record too. It sounds like your voice is
Speaker 1: getting over the course of the three projects, like your
Speaker 1: voice is getting clearer and clearer and more upfront. Is
Speaker 1: that a conscious decision sort of? You know? I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's nice to hear you say that. I think
Speaker 1: that there are a couple of things, like, I think
Speaker 1: certainly the fidelity of our recordings improved over time. The
Speaker 1: budgets certainly improved over time. My knowledge and ears I
Speaker 1: think have improved over time. But I also think I've
Speaker 1: always been really shy about my voice. And I think
Speaker 1: touring for the last five years has made me a
Speaker 1: much more confident singer and performer. And I've gotten a lot.
Speaker 1: I've become a much stronger vocalist. I feel like that
Speaker 1: something I can personally really hear from album to album
Speaker 1: is just becoming you know. I think I've challenged myself
Speaker 1: more just the songs that I write. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I've just become a much better singer just because I
Speaker 1: do it every day, you know. And when I was younger,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't touring regularly and I had a
Speaker 1: lot less confidence in my voice. I've heard you talk
Speaker 1: about possibly wanting to make a more pop album at
Speaker 1: some point in the future. Absolutely, I think it was
Speaker 1: something I actually started to do on Jubilee More and
Speaker 1: you know, I have like dabbled in over time. Like
Speaker 1: you know, there's a song like called Kokemo, Indiana on Jubilee.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a thirty two year old woman that's
Speaker 1: married and it's a very stable, generous relationship, but you know,
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear about that really, and like
Speaker 1: you know, Kokomo, I wrote from the perspective of a
Speaker 1: young boy living in Cookemo, Indiana who's saying goodbye to
Speaker 1: his high school sweetheart, who's moving to Australia for a
Speaker 1: study abroad program. That was the narrative in my mind.
Speaker 1: And I've certainly never been a young boy in Cocomo, Indiana,
Speaker 1: but I know what it's like to feel stuck in
Speaker 1: a small town. And I know I remember what it
Speaker 1: was like in high school when a relationship ended before
Speaker 1: you were ready, And so I wanted to write a
Speaker 1: sweet love song about just a boy that was like
Speaker 1: you know, I know this isn't forever, and you're about
Speaker 1: to go impress the whole world with the person that
Speaker 1: I fell in love with, And what if he could
Speaker 1: just be okay with that? What if you had the
Speaker 1: maturity at that age to just like have it and
Speaker 1: then let it go. So I feel like I've already
Speaker 1: started to write that way and it's been really fulfilling,
Speaker 1: and it can be just as moving or better. The
Speaker 1: Mask is a song I really love that I wrote
Speaker 1: for Sable and you know that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with me, and I feel like that's the most compelling
Speaker 1: song I've ever written as an artist, truly, and I
Speaker 1: didn't put any any personal detail there and that is
Speaker 1: really exciting to me, and I think that I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to harnessing that more and more over time
Speaker 1: as a recording artist. What has been your biggest pinch
Speaker 1: me moment up until this point. There's so many things
Speaker 1: that happened this year that are totally unreal. I mean,
Speaker 1: the first one was the New York Times bestseller list.
Speaker 1: That was That's something that like, I'll always be that now,
Speaker 1: you know, I get buried with that, which is incredible
Speaker 1: that that was the first huge thing of the year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Playing five nights at Union Transfer in Philadelphia. We sold
Speaker 1: out five nights at the venue where I used to
Speaker 1: work the coach Check and my old boss, Sean ackknew
Speaker 1: had had the coach check a big coach check painted
Speaker 1: sign that that's called Michelle's Honors CoA check now, which
Speaker 1: is incredible. And Yeah, Jeff Tweedy covering uh Cocoma Indiana
Speaker 1: was really a major pinch me moment. I've you know,
Speaker 1: Wilco is the perfect band. They are what I aspire
Speaker 1: my band to walk in the footsteps of. They're just
Speaker 1: a classically great and everyone loves them. And when I
Speaker 1: wrote Cocomo Indiana and we were coming up with a
Speaker 1: string arrangement for it, I mean we had a moment
Speaker 1: where we were like, is this too close to Jesus, etc?
Speaker 1: Like this is I mean, this is so inspired by
Speaker 1: just like the elegance of that arrangement. And when I
Speaker 1: wrote posing for Cars, I was like, I want this
Speaker 1: solo to feel like the solo and at least that's
Speaker 1: what you said. And so to see like my one
Speaker 1: of my songwriting heroes like cover my song was really
Speaker 1: wild and really really pinched me special. Yeah that's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: three days from now, I'm gonna be covering Jesus Etcetera
Speaker 1: with him at ACL So that's like my big pitch
Speaker 1: pitch does my I'm in Austin early, so I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've been practicing. I know Jesus Etcetera. I've
Speaker 1: like listened to as songs since I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: and like I actually walked down the aisle at my
Speaker 1: wedding too. She's a job like to a Wolco song,
Speaker 1: but I've known. I mean, Jesu et Cetera is like
Speaker 1: the biggest Wolca song and like I love that song.
Speaker 1: But even still, I'm like so nervous, like like what
Speaker 1: if I forget I thought you don't get nervous before
Speaker 1: a gigs, I weirdly do know. And I get really
Speaker 1: nervous about doing anything on other people's stuff because if
Speaker 1: it's my own thing, like I don't really care about
Speaker 1: messing it up because that's like just me. But if
Speaker 1: I'm doing something like for someone else's band, I get
Speaker 1: really nervous about it or even just like I was thinking,
Speaker 1: like I get really nervous about even just like sustaining
Speaker 1: a syllable for the right amount of time, like I
Speaker 1: don't want to like change the melody at all, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: Or I don't want to say like so instead of
Speaker 1: this or you know what I mean, Like even like
Speaker 1: small changes that are so like negligible, Like I get
Speaker 1: like really anxious about like tampering with someone else's work
Speaker 1: in this way that I don't I don't care if
Speaker 1: I like, isn't that part of it? Like isn't that
Speaker 1: okay to sort of slightly change it internalize it? And
Speaker 1: I'm sure it is. I mean, like when he covered Kokemo,
Speaker 1: like he definitely like changed the melody, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, it's like endearings, it's him,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's fun. But like as a young
Speaker 1: one being invited to do this huge thing, like I
Speaker 1: want to do it perfectly, and sometimes like that'll like
Speaker 1: really psych me out in this way that I don't
Speaker 1: get as nervous about for my own show. So are
Speaker 1: you guys going to be singing it together? You like
Speaker 1: trading off verses or how's it gonna I actually don't know.
Speaker 1: I have rehearsal and two day on Wednesday, and I
Speaker 1: guess we'll figure it out there. That was texting Jeff
Speaker 1: tweetie and I was like, I'll like sing the chorus
Speaker 1: with you or like I'll see you know, we treat verses,
Speaker 1: and he seemed to like really want me to like
Speaker 1: kind of take it over. He's like, oh, people are
Speaker 1: tired of hearing me sing my songs and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: they're not, okay, but yeah, we'll see what happens. I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's so excited. Yeah. So ultimately, when you
Speaker 1: think about your career and where you are now and
Speaker 1: what's happened just really over this past year, how big
Speaker 1: do you want to be? I think that, like my
Speaker 1: mentality is like I'm gonna push as far as I
Speaker 1: can go, just out of like curiosity of like how
Speaker 1: far we can go? Like how would I even be
Speaker 1: in control of that. I have to just do my best,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about like making it as big as
Speaker 1: I you know, I could do this. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that like Mountieri does, like where it's just it's just
Speaker 1: him and he does all his own press and booking
Speaker 1: and you know, management and all that stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's also like a curiosity that I feel like of
Speaker 1: just well, how far can it go? You know, like
Speaker 1: I never thought I would be in a bus, Like
Speaker 1: I never thought I would be playing five nights at
Speaker 1: Union Transfer. I never thought any of this stuff, and
Speaker 1: we're far beyond my wildest ambitions. Even as like a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl that knew nothing about the music industry,
Speaker 1: I never ever thought that I would make it this far.
Speaker 1: So I kind of just I'm always going to write
Speaker 1: music that's interesting to me. I'm always going to like
Speaker 1: follow like principles that are meaningful to me. But I
Speaker 1: also I'm very curious of just like well, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to like shy away from it getting bigger cool. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to day
Speaker 1: to talk. It was so much fun connecting. I've been
Speaker 1: like completely immersed in your world for the past month,
Speaker 1: so it's really nice to talk to you about I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. This was so thoughtful and I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed my time here. Thanks for Michelle's honor for the
Speaker 1: insightful view into her creative evolution. You can hear a
Speaker 1: new album you Belie, along with our favorite Japanese breakfast
Speaker 1: songs at Broken record podcast dot com. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record, Broken Records, produced with
Speaker 1: helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez, but engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Mia LaBelle Broken Record is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
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Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Michmund