Q&A: Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner on melancholy and her new album
“All of my ghosts are real, all of my ghosts are my home,” Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast sings in her singular way — sweetness laced with sorrow.
Four years ago, the release of her Grammy-nominated album “Jubilee” dovetailed with her bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart” — chronicling her love of Korean food and loss of her mother — to produce a season of success. Then came a film adaptation of her memoir, for which she wrote the screenplay. With the Hollywood strikes, though, it came to a grinding halt (and later a full stop, when actor and director Will Sharpe left the project).
In the aftermath, Zauner recorded new tracks. She sidestepped the spotlight by moving to Seoul — where she immersed herself in Korean language and culture — the subject of her upcoming second book.
Zauner talked to The Associated Press about her fourth studio album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women).” Out Friday, it’s that rare thing: a cerebral yet deeply felt album from an artist with just enough commercial success to secure resources for her still-quite-indie vision.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
AP: The album cover looks like a very sumptuous painting. It’s very memento mori with the skull and flowers — and then there’s oysters and a tray of bloody guts. Where did the idea come from?
ZAUNER: I really loved the idea of being on the album cover, but not showing my face. I was feeling pretty introverted after the years that followed “Jubilee.” It was a really natural desire to just focus more on the work and less on me as a figure.
I had noticed this kind of trope in many paintings of women collapsed over tables, overcome with melancholy. It looks like I’m this collapsed, spoiled prince just with a table full of excess, and still miserable.
I dressed the table with little Easter eggs from the album — almost like a still life where every object has some kind of meaning. There is a bowl of guts that is a line from “Here is Someone,” and there’s milky broth and oysters, which are lines on “Orlando in Love.” There’s flowers in a vase, which I mention in “Winter in LA.”
AP: Melancholy is a motif throughout the tracks. It feels like a different flavor or color of grief than your earlier work. How would you describe the kind of sadness you wanted to capture?
ZAUNER: At this time in my life and the way that I think about melancholy, it’s very intertwined with time and the passage of it. And this desire to get ahead of it and to keep it at bay — and the sort of melancholic reality that it’s forever passing. I think of it not so much as like a violent sadness or longing or heartbreak, but kind of this pensive, anticipatory grief about the passage of time.
It evokes a specific kind of feeling of being sort of on edge. Or, like, a taut feeling. Most of that dissonance, I think, comes from the chord changes or the progressions. I originally wanted to make a creepy album, and those sorts of changes felt really essential to achieving that kind of eerie sound.
AP: You recorded this album, shelved it, went to Korea for a year, came back to New York and are now releasing it. Why did you shelve it for a period of time and what’s it like now listening back to the recordings?
ZAUNER: My last record was also shelved for a year because of COVID, so I’m honestly used to that process now. I’ve actually found that I really love my records even more with time away from them.
There’s so much that goes into preparing for an album to come out, from the visuals to mixing and mastering to prepping for the tour that, honestly, that kind of separation is really nice.
I’m not someone that’s super precious. I have a very clear idea of what I want, and I am someone that is good at knowing when to finish.
AP: You’ve talked about the toll that touring takes on the body, and pressures that come with reaching a certain level of recognition. What are ways you’ve learned to take care of yourself?
ZAUNER: It’s so hard to just eat well on tour because you’re so confined to what’s around a venue. I eat a lot of Asian food and sometimes when you’re in the middle of America, there’s not a lot of options that are, you know, not Panda Express.
It’s so hard to just not eat a home-cooked meal for months at a time. I’m actually going to be bringing a rice cooker on this tour, which is something that I did at the beginning of my tour days that I’m returning to.
I bring a yoga mat and stretch. Your body just gets like, so f—-d from, like, sleeping in a moving bus in a tiny little coffin hole.
I probably am going to be sober for all of my tour time. I always really loved having a couple of drinks to get loose. But if you’re doing that every day, it takes a toll on you eventually. A lot of the women I know that tour regularly have all sworn off alcohol, and I was very obstinate about it, like “It’s fine, I can do both, I can have it all.” But this is the tour that I finally accept that there’s probably no drinking.
I’m also an only child and I need a lot of privacy and alone time. I think that my self-care is just like, “You are allowed to disappear.”
AP: You’re touring with the same musicians as the “Jubilee” tour, right? What are you excited about playing, venue-wise?
ZAUNER: I’ve somehow assembled 15 people that I happen to get along with really well, which is extremely rare for me. I feel like that’s the best thing that I could have ever done for myself is just find 12 to 15 people that you can spend an ungodly amount of time together with and still like each other at the end.
We’ve never played the Ryman in Nashville, and that’s something that we’re all just super excited about.
I’ve had such an allegiance to Union Transfer in Philadelphia because the coat check is named after me.
AP: The coat check is named after you?
ZAUNER: Before I became a professional musician, I used to work the coat check there. Once, someone gave me a fake hundred-dollar bill. I gave them like $98 of real change. And the manager was upset about that and told me that I was going to have to pay it out of my paycheck, which was like more than I made in the five hours that I had worked that shift. I had no money at this time.
Anyway, my boss was really cool about it and he stepped in and paid the $100 for me. I never forgot that. Years later, when we sold out five nights at Union Transfer as a band, I paid him back the $100 onstage. After the last night, they surprised me by naming that coat check “the Michelle Zauner’s coat check.” There’s like a big hand-painted sign, which is very sweet.
AP: I think a lot of listeners will be surprised to hear actor Jeff Bridges’ voice on “Men in Bars.” Who would be a dream collaborator next?
ZAUNER: I really want to make, like, a sexy album and I really want to work with the band Air. I really love “Moon Safari.”
I think because I sort of disavowed synths for this album, I suddenly am like, “Oh, I want to make like a sexy, synth record.”
They write just such amazing bass lines and like, such cinematic music. Let’s just put that out into the world.
By ANNA FURMAN
Associated Press
