Kazu Makino will always look chic. Through the hazy lens of Zoom on her phone, the Blonde Redhead singer-guitarist waves from inside her mint green apartment in New York City. A few plants hang in the window where natural light floods in, illuminating a paper lantern, a spotless desk, and her trusty Gibson. She’s pulled a chair up to her kitchen countertop where the camera appears to be placed, and occasionally slumps her elbow on the top of the old-school stove as she talks, often looking to the ceiling to find the right words as she conjures decades-old memories. Her hair, amber blonde fading into dark brown, spills over a knit sweater with maroon stars.
When you’ve lived a life as cool as Makino’s, interest in her stories comes naturally. Born in Kyoto, Japan in 1969, she obsessed over records from France and England as a kid despite her strict upbringing on traditional Japanese values and classical music. By the early ’90s, she relocated to New York City as a twenty-something in search of change. She found it when she stumbled into twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, her future bandmates in Blonde Redhead, along with the music of Lush, Dionne Warwick, and Marvin Gaye in the city’s legendary venues.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Makino forming Blonde Redhead with the Pace brothers. What started as a noise-rock band became an experimental project tapped into and influencing the spheres of dream pop, shoegaze, and indie rock. Her deep friendship with Unwound and Fugazi—spawned from their 1995 tour together—left a mark on Blonde Redhead’s most famous run of albums, the former’s Vern Rumsey playing bass on their 1997 LP Fake Can Be Just as Good and the latter’s Guy Picciotto producing 1998’s In an Expression of the Inexpressible, 2000’s Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, and 2004’s Misery Is a Butterfly. The band’s seventh album, 2007’s 23, was a mysterious slice of chamber pop, and the closest they’ve ever come to mainstream success.
Blonde Redhead just released Sit Down for Dinner, their first new album in nine years, and a revitalized comeback at that. Makino lights up with eagerness while discussing the songwriting process and their upcoming tour. “I’ve been quite aggressively chasing some kind of independence. I could see the twins were a little intimidated, so I took advantage of that,” she laughs. “My approach is a weird combination of naiveness and experience.”
A wistful type of gratitude paints her face as she recounts Blonde Redhead’s adventures, like the time Steve Albini gifted her a gold Beyer ribbon microphone on tour, or watching fireworks in upstate New York with Sufjan Stevens. Even while exploring a solo career with 2019’s Adult Baby, Makino found herself sharing secrets with some of her lifelong idols. “I’m still stunned,” she says, struggling to find the words.
Below, she revisits the music that’s shaped her whirlwind life, five years at a time.
Johan Sebastian Bach: “Concerto in D Minor BWV 974”
Kazu Makino: I grew up in a household where I was not allowed to listen to anything but classical music. My father was a classical music fanatic, a devoted fan of Mozart and Bach. Those two composers were playing constantly at a low volume: in the car, in the house, while I’m sleeping, when I’m waking up. My alarm was Bach radio. My grandfather was a violinist as well, so it was a rule that was laid down on me. I’m kind of alarmed that he was maybe a bigger fan of Mozart than Bach, but I only remember the Bach music. There’s so much music that he wrote that became a part of me, even now, like this song.
I took piano lessons as a kid when I was very little. I had the tiniest room—in Japan, they count the size of the room by the number of tatami, and my room was four and a half tatami! That’s tiny!—and still I had a standup piano in that room. So I basically had to do many things on the piano. If I wasn’t playing, I closed the lid and would sit on it and watch TV that was on the top of the piano. I never went too far with piano lessons, but I did learn how to play. I switched to sports at one point, but I kept taking lessons until I was 12 or 13. My teacher was very far and I had to walk a lot, so I started cheating [laughs].
Ryuichi Sakamoto: “Asadoya Yunta”
My very first performative experience and transcendent feeling from music was during the summer in Japan. It was the holiday Obon. People gather and there’s this traditional drum-oriented music where everyone dances. I was probably seven or eight. My mom is from a very small fisherman’s town that’s very far down; if you go straight down from Kyoto, that’s where it reaches. We used to visit there, and by that port I had my first out-of-body music experience. I just danced like an insane person to the drums of this traditional music. The local people were like, “Oh, that girl from that family? She’s totally mad. She won’t stop dancing.” I was probably the last person to stop dancing [laughs]. I clearly remember the way I felt during that moment, and it’s the same thing I get onstage today: what it’s like to perform. It got started that day.
I love Sakamoto’s version of “Asadoya Yunta” because it reminds me of that memory. The woman’s tone, quite a high pitch but super solid, is always the same. That’s something I still feel so much connection to. Being Japanese as well, I’m sure he feels the same way.
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The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St.
I started to sneak home music from classmates during junior high, and I became obsessed. “Shake Your Hips” and “I Just Want to See His Face” were kinda spiritual for me. This is something that classical music couldn’t offer, and it was the supplement I needed from music. I was already playing violin and music at school, starting an all-girls band, but nobody was that into the Rolling Stones. So I begged my aunt, because my parents would never allow me, to take me to a concert film of the Stones. I think it was that concert at Hyde Park. I took a bullet train to Tokyo and went to the film as if it was a real concert. I can still remember how insanely excited I was, waving my arms! It wasn’t really the Stones that I needed. It was the blues in general that I was so attracted to. I also really loved the live performances and how ambiguous the whole thing was to me: the way Jagger performed, how relaxed Keith Richards seemed onstage. I found that dynamic unbelievably cool.
Les Rita Mitsouko: “Marcia Baïla”
I left to go to university in Tokyo, but never actually graduated. Somehow I was still surrounded by music from Japan in Tokyo. But something I picked up that really opened my eyes was [the French new-wave group] Les Rita Mitsouko. The energy that [singer Catherine Ringer] had. She’s not a great singer yet she was so impactful to me. Mitsouko is a Japanese name, so I thought, okay, they’re French… but Japanese? From there I learned about [Sex Pistols impresario] Malcolm McLaren, all that really super theatrical music, the Style Council, lots of British stuff.
That’s the interesting thing about living or growing up in Japan: We’re so isolated that all this information comes to you without any context. You just get hit by this music like lightning without knowing any backstory or cultural reference points, and you’re instantly converted. You listen to it, you love it, and you become it without even understanding the background.
My Bloody Valentine: Loveless
Soon after, I moved to New York City but I didn’t have any friends. The main reason I left was because my father was so opposed to me pursuing music. What he did was quite conflicting; they wanted me to have the musical education, but they didn’t want that to be my profession. For the sake of having some kind of freedom, I got away. I was listening to so many different things during this New York period until I hit a wall of noise sound. It was Lush and My Bloody Valentine. I went to those shows and I just remember falling apart every time. Like, “Oh my god, this is what I want to do. I want this noise.” Hearing them, my spectrum of who I am as an artist was complete. Blues and noise—that mix built who I am as an artist.
Indie rock, especially at the time I started, had My Bloody Valentine and Lush on one side, and the other side had Sonic Youth, Beck, Nirvana, bands I loved but definitely didn’t identify with. That wall of sound, which people call shoegaze, was very much up my alley. I rejected that other side because I didn’t think I would ever make it in that environment. It was very much based in white culture, like Royal Trux, or there was slacker rock where nothing about it was slacker; it was way too serious and eager. I knew I didn’t belong there.
Unwound: The Future of What
The Future of What I love so much, but Fake Train is insane, too. New Plastic Idea and Repetition? Insane. Those albums, I don’t know. All these bands were coming to New York to play—Fugazi, Unwound, the Make-Up—and we became really fast friends. I’m so honored and fortunate that our paths crossed. Fugazi is huge, of course, and they make such amazing music. But as far as my sensitivity, I really felt like the earth was shaking when I heard Unwound. When we toured with Unwound and Fugazi, I remember thinking, I wish I could play this for Bach. I bet he would get it.
We all looked forward to their show. Fugazi, us, we all sat down on the stage and watched Unwound so closely, just trying to absorb as much as we possibly could. They were just so careless in the way they played, like they were in a parallel universe where they didn’t need to look at each other. They were three individuals doing things in a way that made you think: How are they fitting together?
We started opening up for Unwound and they were fascinated by us, but they were so superior, musically. I never said it, but I felt like I was their student. Slowly, we were getting more popular, and it was so uncomfortable because they didn’t care. They were like, “Let’s switch! I think it’s clear that more people are here to watch you.” That was a weird transition, as a fan, but then it kept going because Vern [Rumsey] was just so self-destructive. It was quite sad, especially because they could have had massive success, you know? Justin [Trosper] is a true intellectual, and the contrast of him and Vern was savage. Not that Vern wasn’t intelligent, but he took pride in coming off like a bad boy. The impact they had together as a band, their charisma, the attack Justin had with his singing? Justin played [guitar] with a bass pick but really, really soft. I was shocked to see that for how massive their sound was. It wasn’t like the fire was coming off their fingers. I love, love, love that about Unwound.
Serge Gainsbourg: Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg
After we graduated from that punk-rock attitude, I slowly went back to my classical roots and my fascination with French culture that started as a teenager. I see Serge Gainsbourg as someone who kind of thrives off of classical music. I think his big influence is [Frédéric] Chopin. There are many songs where, later on, he confessed, “I’m not a true musician. I’m not. I’m a thief. I ripped off so-and-so, and that song.” It’s not just that he did that, but there are so many feelings and emotions where—how do you say—his character seeps through his music. For many years, that was my Bible. I devoured it all. There’s so many iconic Serge albums, but it has to be Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg. You can hear that influence and literally name each song and what he took it from. It’s basically classical music but with, you know, a lot of sex.
Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different
I needed to develop and educate myself further on the blues, and this period was when I really found out what came before the Stones. Betty Davis came after them, of course, but I learned quite a bit from listening to her and I’m still in awe. My friend Steve Gamboa, who played drums for the Make-Up and is a great DJ, used to make me mixtapes and that’s how I first heard her. We would trade literal cassette tapes with one another. I had one from Justin from Unwound, too. We listened to those in the car on tour nonstop.
When I spent time in D.C., they had what they called “group houses” where basically all the musicians were living together and all they did was throw dance parties. Every day was somebody’s birthday party and they would dance. There was nobody listening to any indie rock music; they were just listening to soul music. Those records, a lot of Black soul and funk music, came to me through the friendships we made in the D.C. punk-rock scene.
Terry Riley: Le Secret de la Vie
Part of what made me love Unwound so much was the repetitiveness and noise in their music. Knowing that I identified with repetition, I gravitated towards Terry Riley because he is that. I felt like there was a common thread with religious music there, too. I had moved to Italy and was living on this island when Terry Riley came through, so I went to the show and I got to speak with him afterwards. He said, “You should come by my house and we’ll play piano together.” When I heard that, I was like, “Wait, maybe I should come live there and study with you!” [laughs] And he said, “No, I didn’t say that. You already know how to make music, you’ve already learned the language. You are not gonna learn a thing from me because you can only learn from you. But I would love to just play with you.” And so from time to time, I would send him an email and he would always write back and say the most encouraging things. I still try to learn his music and try to play flute.
This was after our last album, Barragán, and when I just started working on my solo album. I was listening to Terry a lot and was in very close contact with Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was my hidden producer on that. I was living in this world that I can’t even describe, having Ryuichi listen to it before anyone else. It was like sending a demo to God, you know? Those two had huge impacts on me, but Terry was someone I would always listen to during that period and wonder how something could be so moving.
One night I had an identity crisis hearing [Sakamoto’s album] async and couldn’t work on my album anymore. I remember thinking I don’t have what it takes to finish this. Ryuichi helped me by saying he understood that feeling and hoped he didn’t lose whatever he achieved on async. He tried to make me feel better by sending me music that made him feel the same way, music that gave him an identity crisis, like Duruflé’s Choral Works. He encouraged me to keep going.
Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell
I don’t know if this is the right thing to say because English is not my first language, but some people fly too close to the sun. When I think about Sufjan Stevens or Ryuichi, Terry Riley, Frank Ocean, I feel like their music is great, but you love them because you can really hear their suffering, their agony, their pain. They have been given a role to filter not just their own feelings through music, but other people’s suffering and pain, too. I always feel so sad for them. Like, why them? Why do they have to bear that role of witnessing so much hardship and the difficulty of just being alive in this world and then translate it through music? I have endless respect and support for this type of artist.
I went back to Japan for the first time since the pandemic and there were changes in my parents’ lives. I had to help my father change his living situation. It’s never easy to prepare them for the next chapter, the next chapter, the next chapter, and then you die. Yet I’m so grateful for that and to return to Japan and still feel like it’s my home.
Sufjan and I share the same birthday, maybe one day apart [Stevens’ is July 1, Makino’s is July 2], so we’ve spent two birthdays together by his place in upstate New York. He made it so special. I was quite shy, and maybe being the same sign is why he’s just as shy as me, but I really appreciate his way of carrying himself. He wears super colorful clothes, he’s super different, and I love the way he’s not shy of being shy, like he just kind of stares at you and then doesn’t say anything. Everything about him hits close to my heart. He was obsessed with the fireworks then, almost like a child, and even though we didn’t talk much, I felt so much tenderness, intimacy, and warmth from him and his partner.
Now I think about Sufjan and his surroundings quite often. His music has been helping me quite a bit: Carrie & Lowell, Call Me By Your Name, his recent piano work that sounds massive. I listen to him in the middle of nowhere in Japan, trying to clean up my parents’ shit. I’m amazed by his responsibility when dealing with very difficult stuff. He’s the type of person who flies quite close to the sun. I hope he’s doing alright, I hope he’s happy, and I hope he’s gonna manage. Because some people just have a very difficult role to feel things so intensely, and that’s not easy. It’s a big ask—even of someone phenomenal like him.
