AKA Japanese Breakfast

Photography by Mikki Gomez, shot during VIVID at the Sydney Opera House.

Japanese Breakfast: aka Michelle Zauner: aka Grammy-nominated artist and New York Times Best Selling author.

Sometimes an interview opportunity comes along with a musician that you’re really fond of, maybe it’s the artist that provided you and your mates with the soundtrack of your summer or it’s the artist that wrote the sweet lullaby that rocked you to sleep when you felt like sleep was impossible in the wake of your most recent heartbreak. And then sometimes an interview opportunity comes along with not only a musician that you’re really fond of but also an author you’re really fond of, or more specifically in this case; the author of one of your favourite memoirs. This was that interview for me. And I’ll be the first to tell you that the overarching feeling I was feeling while preparing for it, can only be described as plain and simply shitting myself. I mean, imagine being given the time of the day from someone who harbours so much fucking talent. Admittedly, Winter in LA became a song of solace in my most recent heartbreak. Just the timing of her latest record For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) was truly uncanny for me and my sore little heart. And don’t worry I made sure to let her know this, on behalf of all of us sad women. She said she was honored to be a part of it.

Japanese Breakfast recently played at the Sydney Opera House, as part of the 2025 VIVID Live program. If you missed it, there really is nothing to say other than that really, really sucks for you. The good news, however, is that I’ve decided to include some photos from the night. You know, just to rub salt in the wound a little more.

It feels right to start by congratulating you on the album For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women). I loved, really, all of it. Everything from the literary references, to the long music outros, to just the whole overarching gothic feel of it.

Thank you!

As a record, it is quite heavily contrasted to Jubilee. What was the inspiration behind this album?

I mean, I think I knew very early on that it was going to be in kind of stark contrast to what I had put out in Jubilee. I think that after touring an album for three years that had, like a bright yellow palette and was very extroverted about joy, I wanted to write an album that was going to be darker, both sonically and visually and, you know, express that part of my person. And I also knew after making an album that had really big arrangements with strings and horns and didn't really leave a lot of room for me as a guitar player, that that was something really important to me. To go from being a frontman singer for eight out of the ten songs, to then flipping that to being a guitar player for eight out of the ten songs that we play live. Which is exactly what happened. So I knew I wanted to make a guitar album that was darker and I initially wanted to make a really heavy, creepy album. But it sort of turned into an album that I feel like is quite contemplative and eerie and just deep, because those were the sort of things that I was thinking about and going through at the time.

Yeah, the appearance and just presence of guitar in this record compared to the last was something that I picked up on. I can imagine that that made Blake Mills a really fitting choice to produce the album. Was that what attracted you to working with him?

I know, yeah. I think I just had never worked with a producer with such a large oeuvre. Like, it’s always been people that I had known and that had made a couple of records or self-recorded their own, and that I had just felt comfortable with. And so I felt ready to kind of take that step and go into a real studio and work with a producer that had so many great records under his belt. And because I knew I wanted it to be this like guitar album and very arty and weird, he felt like he fit that really well. I mean, I think he’s one of the best guitar players of our time. And it was really fascinating to get to work with him.

I think you could be right in saying that. Has it been hard, or required much of an adjustment period to comfortably play those guitar sections live on stage?

Um, yeah! I mean, I love it. It’s been a really hard record to play. The songs are really delicate and just, hard. They’re challenging for not even just me but like even the players in my band who are all incredible musicians. Like we’ve all had to really step up to the plate in order to bring these songs to life. But it’s been so fun for me to get to play stuff that I didn’t even know if I could play initially. You know, like every night to be really focused and in my body working these guitar parts out, they were very challenging.

How has it been being back on tour after taking what I can only imagine was a much needed year off living in Seoul last year?

Yeah, I mean, it was a really healing year for me, and I think it really was much needed. I don’t even think I realised that that was what I needed. You know, I think that honestly, like after my mum passed away, which so much of my career has been about, I really didn’t even take a beat to like digest that. And I think I put a lot of my recovery and grief into becoming a workaholic. I really latched onto my work as like this life raft. And after many years of doing that, it kind of caught up to me and I was ready to take a break and discover parts of myself I had maybe kept at bay for many years. And then coming back to touring after that year, it was just so different you know, like I got to really enjoy it again. And I also got to really learn what is possible and what is not possible and like how to listen to my body and make it a more enjoyable experience for me and for my band and for my crew and for the fans. Because people want that. There’s that Kim Gordon quote where they said something along the lines of “people pay to watch you believe in yourself,” and I don’t know if I was really believing in myself for many years. I kind of get to really enjoy what I do again.

Fuck yeah, that’s amazing. I mean that’s what it’s all about right?

Yeah! I think I was so scared on the Jubilee cycle because the band got quite big and I was having a lot of stage fright and you know, just saying yes to every opportunity because I just felt like this was my time to really hit it. And now we’re here and I feel like okay we’ve done this before and I'm ready to take it on and don’t have to be so nervous, I can actually just really enjoy getting to do it again, I think.

That’s really cool. I was hoping to quickly touch on your memoir. I read it not too long ago and it has easily become one of, if not my favourite memoir I’ve ever read.

Thank you!

There was so much that I related to. I mean having a dad that grew up in Portugal with English being his second language and you know, my grandparents only ever speaking very broken English but, also having food exist as such a point of connection in our relationship.

Yeah wow, that’s a great food culture too!

It is. I’m particularly interested in your time living in Korea and getting to experience living in the culture that your mum grew up in. Do you feel as though you learnt a lot more about her while you were there?

Yeah, I think about her all the time you know. I was just talking to my husband about this, I feel like as you get older you start to realise that nothing even feels like your own personality, it all just feels like inherited stuff from your parents. In some ways, when I was younger I felt like there was a really obvious connection that I could see to my father, where I'm like quite hot headed and very ambitious. And I didn’t feel like I had much in common with my mum at all until I sort of hit my 30s and I could really start to see parts of her that were a little more subtle come out of me. And as I learned more about her through her sister who was my last kind of remaining relative in Korea, and a big part of the reason why I moved to Korea for the year. It was so special to get closer to her and learn more about her, but also who my mum was before I was born, like this very different version of her that I never knew. In my mind my mum was this very put together, very meticulous, very withholding like somewhat private woman. And to my aunt she was just like a mess! You know, she was this younger sister that would hide cigarettes in her desk and like steal money and borrow her clothes, and had like no future. And so it’s interesting to see the woman that she became and like maybe resembled me very much when I was younger, and now that I’m older and becoming a more mature put together, meticulous person, I can see her very clearly in the way that I navigate the world. I think I have so much of her in me that I never realised until this age.

That is so special! I definitely understand what you’re saying, I mean I’m slightly younger than you are, I’m only 22 but -

Oh my god!

Yeah, I’m a baby!

So baby!

But truly, growing up is just becoming an adult and realising like, oh my parents had lives before me and are also just humans doing this all for the first time too. And how beautiful, that the older you get in a way the closer you feel to the human she was and still is to you.

Totally.

I’m interested in the relationship between your writing, because I find it incredibly impressive that you can write an entire book and then just pump out these records that are equally of such a high standard.

Yeah, thank you.

Do you feel as though you go through periods of existing more as Michelle the author versus Michelle the musician, or do the two exist quite symbiotically?

Yeah, I mean, I think right now they feel quite divided. I think it helps that they each go through periods of pause. You know, when I was writing the book and it was time to give it to the editor, I would be away from it for three months. And the idea of having to write another piece of prose in those months was unfathomable to me. But then to write a record felt so different and so refreshing to get to like have something else, after toiling away on that for so long. I find writing music to be a lot more intuitive and I’ve been doing it for longer, so it feels more comfortable. But writing a book, I think I was able to express myself in a way that has connected with more people than my music has. And there must be something to be said for something that comes more difficult to you and takes a lot more time and revision, being more successful and maybe something that I can clue into my music later on.

There definitely is something to be said for that. I have heard there may be a second book on the way?

Yeah. So last year while I was living in Korea, I kept a diary for like just 10 minutes a day and amassed like a big 250,000 word tome of raw material. So now I’m kind of in the process of rereading those journals, finding the arc, finding what’s interesting about them, and just trying to put them together. It’s about studying the language and living abroad for the year. It’s still a ways away.

Well I really look forward to reading it.

Thank you.