The Japanese House: “It’s much more interesting to not be restrictive and embarrass yourself”

Fresh off the plane from a visit to Detroit, The Japanese House (real name Amber Bain) is in high spirits as NME meets her on a summer’s afternoon in a north London studio. It’s finally the long-awaited month that her second album ‘In The End It Always Does’ (out now), lands in the world, following her 2019 debut ‘Good At Falling’, which tracked both the highs and pitfalls of a relationship.

A similar duality echoes through its successor. Whether it’s the vibrant glow of ‘Friends’ or the melancholic ‘One For Sorrow, Two For Joni Jones’, the album details moments of pure optimism, grief and loss from Bain’s immediate experiences and relationships. With the magic touch of producer Chloe Kraemer – Bain’s first time working with another queer woman – the album sprung into life, as she had found a safe space in which she could channel those conflicting emotions.

“I was, in some ways, really happy when I was writing those lyrics, but I was also truly sad,” Bain tells NME of the bittersweet recent single ‘Sunshine, Baby’, which features The 1975’s Matty Healy. Bain has begun to embrace collaboration like never before, with Healy’s bandmate George Daniel, MUNA’s Katie Gavin and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon all playing their part on the new record.

Bain joined NME for the latest in our In Conversation series to discuss how the album came to life, with a little help from her popstar circle of friends.

NME: It’s been four years since ‘Good At Falling.’ At what point in that period did you feel ready to start working on album two?

“What got it started again was working with Chloe Kraemer. We vaguely knew each other before, but during this process have become best friends. I think when you’re in a band, it’s easier to throw ideas around. When you’re on your own, it can be really lonely and boring. In my head, she is a member of the band now. When we combined her input with George and Matty, that really got things going.”

How did you gauge if a song needed a collaborative input, or if you wanted to keep it for yourself?

“Usually, it genuinely just happens organically. For example, Matty’s singing on ‘Sunshine, Baby,’ we were just in the studio… he was singing it as a joke, like in his weird little low voice, kind of doing it for fun. When we wrote ‘One For Sorrow, Two For Joni Jones’, that was Katie from MUNA – she just happened to be in the area, we’re really good friends. It kind of just happens because they’re my friends and they’ve been around, which is nice.”

That sounds like a really nice environment. Did you want the album to centre around a specific space?

“Usually, it’s me on my laptop, in my room, and then it goes through loads of different studios. There’s this one studio in Hackney Wick and I got weirdly obsessed with it, which I’ve never done before. I love that area and it’s really close to my house… rather than in the past, where I’ve locked myself in a studio in the middle of nowhere. People were coming in and out all the time; it wasn’t purposeful but it definitely did become a little hub.”

Do you intend to continue this way, where songwriting fits into your life a bit more with home being on the doorstep?

“I think so. This weird thing happened to me, where for two years I couldn’t really write and I was really tired, like a little sofa cat that just wants to curl up and not do anything. Then I suddenly had this burst of energy; it was like I was on drugs, but the drug was being creative. I couldn’t stop thinking or talking about the album. I had this energy that I still have in a lot of ways, and I don’t want to lose it.”

‘Boyhood’ was the first single to be lifted from the new LP. Was that always the song you wanted to kick off this new era?

“I don’t really remember how that decision was made. I’m really bad with deadlines, so I’d booked a flight to LA to see my friends out there. I think I went from the studio to the airport because I hadn’t finished the lyrics! It felt like it encapsulated a lot more of the new elements of the album, with there being a lot of more live instruments, upbeat, but it also has something quite Japanese House-y about it, maybe the most of all the songs.”

Tell us about your creative relationship with Matty Healy. What have you learnt from your time together in the studio?

“I’ve known him for 11 years and there’s something that tugs on similar heartstrings when we listen to certain kinds of lyrics. The amount of selfies I have of him on my phone, sobbing, when he’s listened to one of my songs! We both get each other excited about music in a really similar way, and I find him really exciting to be around. He and George have a similar dynamic to Chloe and I, in that one of us is running around getting very distracted, whereas Chloe and George are really good at harnessing those things and actually keeping the focus on the elements that are useful.”

On ‘Sunshine, Baby’ you end each verse with the line “Hold onto this feeling / ‘Cause you won’t feel it for long”. In contrast, the same week you released it, you were tweeting about how much you were loving life. When did things turn around for you?

“I was coming to the end of a relationship. It was a weird feeling to be experiencing excitement but also deep sadness, like I was losing something. Now, I feel genuinely happy in my life and I actually hate that lyric… I take it back! When you’re in the happy phase you don’t want to lose it.

“That’s what the whole album title [‘In The End It Always Does’] is about, the circle and everything going around each time. Now I’m in the happy phase, does it have to be a circle? Maybe every time you go round you’re a different person, learning from what you did last time.”

Reflecting on your debut album, how do you now view the artist you used to be?

“I have that love/hate relationship with it [‘Good At Falling’]. There’s that element of being truly embarrassed and wanting to die, and there’s also a naivety that I think is sweet and cute. But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter and to take yourself too seriously is a mistake. It’s much more interesting to not be restrictive and embarrass yourself, I guess.

“It can be funny; there’s a lot of lyrics on this album that, to me, are clearly ironic. That lyric in ‘Sunshine, Baby’ on fitting like a glove [“I miss the feeling that you get / When someone fits just like a glove”] was kind of a joke… to me it sounds like a kid’s book. It was tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic – but it’s a line that people seem to really like. It’s a good reminder that you never know what people are going to connect with.”

Have you had a chance to reflect on the process since finishing the album last summer?

“I’ve never worked with another woman [Kraemer] before in music – not another queer woman – and I realised when that was happening how life-changing that was. I’m singing songs that are essentially queer songs about my relationships with women, and it’s really nice having someone in the room that completely understands that.

“It’s also nice to have someone to roll your eyes with, when some random guy in a studio comes in and tells you what an EQ is or what a microphone is. It’s nice to have someone that understands the patronising nature of a lot of older men in this industry. We want to replicate that experience that we enjoyed so much, maybe with other artists, especially queer artists and women.”

The Japanese House’s ‘In The End It Always Does’ is out now

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