For Japanese Breakfast‘s Michelle Zauner — also the best-selling author of the memoir, “Crying in H Mart” — storytelling is everything. Her imaginative songwriting led the indie-pop group to mainstream success after its 2021 album, “Jubilee,” earned a pair of Grammy nominations. After achieving commercial and critical acclaim, Zauner was clear-headed about the direction she wanted to take her music next.
“I felt like if this is as big as it ever gets, I want to make something honest and interesting and new and unexpected,” Zauner tells Variety. That’s why, not willing to sacrifice her creative standards, Zauner declined her label’s request to create short visual clips for “Mega Circuit” — the second single for the group’s fourth and most recent full-length effort, “For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women)” — instead of a traditional music video.
“I’m not really interested in making garbage,” Zauner says. “No one wants to pay for a full-on music video, which is unfortunate, because I’m not interested in making anything that doesn’t hold some kind of narrative.”
Ultimately, she won out with “Mega Circuit” and directed a traditional music video. The video, which features Zauner pretending to be an adolescent boy driving an ATV in the woods and meandering about with other kids, was received as a commentary on masculinity and the violence that boys are raised to adopt. It’s also a prime example of Zauner’s skill in examining thorny social dynamics and how they can play out in people’s individual lives and interpersonal relationships.
“For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)” is dynamic for its display of Zauner’s artistic inclinations. Literary and mythological references, narrative storytelling and evocative visuals abound in the album’s portrait of characters in complicated situations.
As its title — a reference drawn from a short story in John Cheever’s “The World of Apples” collection — suggests, the 10-song album is melancholic. Zauner set out to make a “creepy” record full of “dissonant and haunting” chords she discovered before she even stepped foot in a recording studio. The album, leaning into the idea of sorrow, would be a stark contrast to “Jubilee” and its bright, effervescent personality.
Japanese Breakfast will play Coachella on April 12 and April 19 before embarking on an international tour starting April 23. Below, Zauner tells Variety about writing “For Melancholy Brunettes,” directing her own music videos and what her upcoming Coachella set will look like.
I’m sure you’ve been asked this a lot, but was there pressure to recreate the success of “Jubilee”?
I’m now in the process of doing press after recognizing some narratives that have come out. It’s so funny because this has been a major question in this release cycle that’s never been asked of me before. It’s like this leading question of “It’s great, but…” that I don’t know how to move on from just saying, things are fine, everything is great, because I don’t want that to be the narrative of this record.
I think actually what I mean to say when I answer that question honestly is that…it wasn’t my aim to take the next step into arena-level pop band with this album. I actually, in some ways, felt released from the success of “Jubilee” and felt like this was my chance to make something deep and intellectual and challenging, and to believe in that, instead of trying to make something that was just even bigger, more pop-y, more catchy, more attention seeking.
How was it working with producer Blake Mills? What was it about his musical approach that you felt was right for this album?
I wanted to work with someone that had a history of working on many different artists’ records, had his own signature, singular sound, and someone who was an exceptional guitar player. And I really knew that this was going to be a record where there was a strong focus on guitar, and I felt like he was the best person to push me into a new direction and also make sure that guitar was a major focus on this record.
This has been described as your first formal studio album. You were working in professional recording studios for the first time. Did that affect your process of developing music at all?
It felt really hard. One, I have always prioritized spaces where there’s less pressure, and I’m not constantly thinking about how much the room costs, but what ideas and things I want to try and chase, and so I’ve always worked in these semi-professional warehouse-type spaces or bedroom studios. But in the last couple of years, we’ve done sessions and things in really nice studios, and I began to hear the difference in fidelity of what a room that’s equipped with certain gear and a space that’s been designed for recording brings to the table.
I would say it’s almost like the difference between shooting on digital and film. There’s an added seriousness when you shoot on film in the same way that there is when you are in a space like that. It has a deep history. It needs to be a little bit more intentional. It adds a certain quality and pulls some of the weight for you, I think. On this record more than any other, it was a real focus on getting performances really right.
How have you evolved as a musician with this album?
I feel like these are the best songs that I’ve ever written. I felt really confident, especially in the stories I was telling through the lyrics. I’m much more intentional about everything, and either in terms of progression or even just what type of guitar I’m using, or what type of pick I’m using, or how I approach singing a song. I feel the strongest I’ve ever been as a musician and writer.
You inhabit male narrators in a way that’s both playful and also touching on masculinity. What do you gain creatively from inhabiting these kinds of characters?
It’s something that I’ve done honestly from a young age. Some of the songs I wrote for Little Big League, too, are largely from male perspectives. There’s a song called “Lindsey” that’s about a very possessive man that wants to basically own his partner. And I think it was my desire to occupy the other party, as someone who was experiencing the consequences of that type of person, wanting to embody what he could be thinking and his rationalization of all of this and to also expose how crazy and evil it was. I think I like to do that because it’s my way of maybe trying to experience compassion for someone who has hurt me, or I’m afraid of, to get a closer understanding or vantage of those things that are quite foreign to me.
What appealed to you about writing mythological references into your lyrics?
One thing I like about it is that there are these gods that are incredibly flawed. They’re not holy role models. They are just stories of people with great power doing often despicable things.
There’s a song called “Leda” on the record, which is a reference to a very violent story about, basically, the Almighty God of that universe transforming into a swan to rape a woman. And yet, they are these revered mythological characters and gods. I was drawn to that. I was going to a lot of museums maybe, and seeing a lot of art that’s obviously inspired by mythology and struck by paintings with these ancient stories of men making mistakes, succumbing to some kind of evil or temptation, and then suffering the consequences of those things. And I think all of the stories on this record are kind of about these little slices of life of people realizing that they fucked up.
What has directing your own music videos added to your creative expression as a musician?
It started mostly because I was like, “Who’s gonna direct your music video for $500?” You just start with no budget, and you do it out of necessity. And then once you start getting a $3,000 budget, or $10,000 budget, you’re like, “Well, why would I give that to someone else?” Obviously, anyone with that amount of money can make something better than what I did for $500, so now I want to use that to express my imagination because I earned it. I’ve started to get offers about this, and I’m always kind of offended — but I don’t think I could let anyone direct music videos for Japanese Breakfast because it just feels like a part of my canon now.
I don’t feel like an album is complete unless I’ve made three videos for it. Sometimes my lyrics can be cryptic and hard for people to understand. And so I want to try to add a visual component, and to maybe illuminate some of those ideas that I don’t know if I could trust someone else with.
How do you feel about your upcoming Coachella set?
It’s really fun because Coachella is a shorter set, and we have four albums now where we can really cherry-pick what’s gonna work well in that setting. I feel like this album gets painted as a quieter record, but there are also a lot of bangers. I know that there are a lot of songs that are gonna work super well in that setting, and I have had this set list in mind for quite some time that I think is going to work really well.
I’ve been working with Kat Borderud, who is our lighting designer and also creative director in a lot of ways, on the stage production. We really wanted to lean into theatrical set pieces because I was inspired by operas and plays and theater work because a lot of the record feels almost very narrative and has an older feeling. We are gonna have some really exciting set pieces, and then I’ve also been working with a few animators, one of which is Greg Kythreotis, who I did the score for “Sable,” for his video game, and I really love his art and have negotiated a deal where he is doing a lot of the animations for us, because I really like his style, for the video wall.
So I think that it’s gonna be a really special, thought-out third time at Coachella.
The song you composed for Celine Song’s upcoming film, “Materialists,” is included in the trailer. How was it working with Celine and how did that process come to be?
A24 reached out to us, and as far as I knew, I was told that there were other people pitching, and I was sent the screener. I really loved it. She wanted a romantic song, is what she said, but she wanted it to feel smart, and that’s what I tried to deliver. And she really liked it. And I just adore her, and I admire her greatly, and I’m so glad that I get to be a part of it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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