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On Music and Melancholy: A Q&A with Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner

By Isabelle McConville, Michelle Zauner / March 21, 2025 at 11:01 am

You may know Michelle Zauner from her two time Grammy-nominated band, Japanese Breakfast, or from her bestselling memoir, Crying in H Mart. We’re so thrilled to celebrate the release of her fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Michelle joined blog writer Isabelle McConville for an exclusive B&N Reads interview to chat all about songwriting, living abroad, release week, and what melancholy really means to her.

Vinyl LP $20.99 ~~$27.99~~

For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) [Summer Sky Splash Vinyl] [Barnes & Noble Exclusive]

Artist Japanese Breakfast

In Stock Online

Vinyl LP $20.99 ~~$27.99~~

Exclusively Available at Barnes & Noble — Limited Edition Summer Sky Splash vinyl. After a decade making the most of improvised recording spaces set in warehouses, trailers, and lofts, Japanese Breakfast‘s fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), marks the band’s first proper studio release.

IM: Where did this album cycle really start for you? Did it stem from a single lyric or an idea or an experience?

“I felt that this was going to be a record about people succumbing to some kind of temptation and ruining their lives in small or large ways.”

MZ: I started writing the record in 2023, and I knew after Jubilee, which had a very extroverted, joyous personality and a color palette that was very bright yellow, I really wanted to go in a very different direction. I wanted it to be a darker palette, both visually and sonically, and I really wanted to return to the guitar. The arrangements on Jubilee were so large that oftentimes there was no real space for me as a guitarist, and I had to operate as a singer for a lot of that cycle. I really missed the guitar, and I found myself really wanting to do a lot of finger picking, a delicate, intricate style of guitar playing. That’s where the record was born from. I wrote a lot of it in upstate New York, and I was reading a lot during that year. After writing “Orlando in Love,” I had created what I felt was a sort of avatar for the album. I felt that this was going to be a record about people succumbing to some kind of temptation and ruining their lives in small or large ways.

IM: I can see what you mean when you say you wanted to return to the guitar, because it’s on full display with this album. Did you go into this knowing that it was going to be your next album when you first started writing it?

MZ: When I start writing again, it’s always with a large project in mind. For better or for worse, I think I’m only interested in large projects that take a long time. So yes, I always knew that the songs I was writing were going to be a part of an album. I’m a bit old fashioned that way. I still really worship that format.

IM: I do find that all of my favorite artists are album artists. I don’t think anything really compares to it. You’ve been living in South Korea — what has that been like for you? Have you always known that living there was something you wanted to do one day?

“I think I was tricking myself into taking it easy a little bit and dedicating myself to just one thing . . . it was a way to live in the present while still making a project.”

MZ: I don’t know if it’s something I always knew I wanted to do, but it was certainly something I became very fixated on in the last five or six years. When my publisher Knopf said that they were interested in putting out my second book and were willing to support anything that I was interested in, the first idea I had was to move to Korea for a year to study the language and document the process of living abroad. I think I was tricking myself into taking it easy a little bit and dedicating myself to just one thing and living a quieter life. It was a way to live in the present while still making a project. I had the best time there and honestly didn’t want to leave, but I came back in late December after a full year of living there. It was so much fun. My second book is about spending the year learning the language and living abroad.

IM: Are you fluent in Korean now?

MZ: I am not fluent. I definitely expected to be but slowly realized that it was a pretty lofty goal. I did improve a great amount, though. I would say I went there thinking I knew more than I actually did, which was its own humbling experience. I think I would need another year to be fluent and hopefully I can find my way back there to complete my main course.

IM: I’m curious about how being there for a full year and being immersed in such a different culture has affected your creative process? Have you encountered that in any way yet?

“When you live abroad, you’re reborn, in a way. There are all these new things you’re learning how to do in another language for the first time . . . you’re relearning your way in the world.”

MZ: If anything, having a full year where I focused on something simultaneously very simple and complicated was really healing for me creatively because I got a year away from this thing that I really love to do, but it’s complicated when it becomes your job. I think that getting a year away from that world was really, really healing for me. I feel very creative now that I’ve taken some time for myself by being abroad. I don’t know how much of that is actually living there. When you live abroad, you’re reborn, in a way. There are all of these new things you’re learning how to do in another language for the first time. It’s like you’re relearning your way in the world.

I had this really profound experience where I was listening to the hotel concierge explain where the elevators were, what time checkout was and if breakfast was included. If I was in the States, I would be like, “okay, okay. I just want to go to my room.” But because it was in another language, I was so enchanted by my ability to understand what this front desk person was saying and what grammar or structures he was using, and what vocabulary I knew and didn’t know. It forced me to not read too much into people’s tone. I was so happy to be able to understand what someone was saying that I wouldn’t have been able to detect any kind of passive aggressiveness. I wouldn’t be able to overthink what words someone chose because I was thinking very simply. When I returned to the US, I realized how much of that plagues me in my day-to-day life. If someone told me in Korean that there was a line for the bathroom, I’d be like, “oh, there’s a line. That’s what that person is saying to me. Beautiful. I’ll wait in line now.” But in the US, you’re like, “Dude, I didn’t know! Is that person suggesting I’m trying to cut them?” There’s so much aggressive defensiveness in your reading of people’s tone and so much neurosis and overthinking. Being freed from that element was really fun and healing.

IM: I can only imagine. I’ve also always heard about the famous ‘American entitlement’ stereotype that exists when we’re abroad. I wonder if you felt like that aspect was stripped down when you were in Korea? It seems like it’d be a humbling experience.

“There are things I really love about being American, and there are things that I could maybe do without.”

MZ: Totally. I think that year made me realize what really makes me an American, because you’re really confronted with the things that are learned American traits from growing up in this country once you’re taken out of it and living in another country for an extended period of time. That was a unique experience, because there are certainly really good things that come from that entitlement, too. There’s a real extensive freedom that we have where we really worship being ourselves, and that’s not necessarily a trait that is celebrated in other places. I think I really learned that there are things I really love about being American, and there are things that I could maybe do without.

IM: It’s been two years since the initial release of Crying in H Mart, if you can believe it. What have those two years been like for you? What’s been the best part of the publication process to this point?

MZ: All of it has been pretty great. I’ve had a really charmed experience with the publishing industry, specifically with Knopf and the wonderful editors and team I have over there. I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful response to the book. I’ve never felt so deeply validated and understood by people. I got kind of spoiled by my life as a writer.

IM: Did you find that writing a book influenced your approach to songwriting at all?

MZ: I’m not sure. If it did, it maybe just gave me more confidence to really lean into the literary side of this album and the stories I wanted to tell. Lyrics have always been a really important part of every record for me, but I think that on this album in particular, they really took center stage.

IM: I think so too. I think that the incredible production behind it really highlighted those sometimes heart wrenching lyrics, too. I know that this is your first proper studio recorded album. How did you make that decision?

MZ: I just finally felt ready. I felt like it was hard earned, and I had the confidence to go into it, but I’ve always favored time and lack of pressure for the creative process. By being in these semi-professional warehouse studios that are mostly just people with their own collection of gear, I’m not being charged an arm and a leg by the hour. I’ve always felt that if you have the right amount of time, that’s so much more important than having really nice gear or a famous studio. During the Jubilee promotional tour, I had some experiences where I was in real studios doing sessions and hearing the difference between the fidelity of certain microphones and what it sounds like when an actual room is designed to have music played inside of it, and I realized there was a huge difference. I’m finally at a point in my career where I just felt like I’ve always had this in my back pocket, and it’s time to take advantage of it. I felt confident enough as a musician and finally felt that I deserved to be there and was ready for this new tier of fidelity.

IM: I know this is an album about grief, pain, loneliness and melancholy, but do you think any part of it is hopeful, too? I think that it is.

“Melancholy is not an innately negative emotion or condition . . . it’s fixated on the wonderment of possibility in life, but it’s also heartbroken by the reality that you have to choose a path . . . “

MZ: I do. I think melancholy is not an innately negative emotion or condition. So much of this record is very concerned with the passage of time and what gets lost, and the sad inability to keep it at bay or rush ahead of it. Part of that is being so moved by life’s possibilities that there is a pensive sadness about your inability to do it all. I think that feeling has optimism in a way, because it’s fixated on the wonderment of possibility in life, but it’s also heartbroken by the reality that you have to choose a path, and that with every path you choose, you’re neglecting other ones that you could have taken. That’s really what the record is about. I don’t think it’s so depressing of an idea. There is something really lovely about it.

IM: Lastly, who are you reading now?

MZ: I just finished A Woman’s Story by Annie Ernaux. I picked it up at a bookshop in Paris on my husband’s recommendation. I haven’t read a book about grief in a few years, because I read so much about grief to see how other writers were tackling it when I was writing Crying in H Mart, so I had some time away from that. It really struck me how universal that feeling is, and certain desires that feel so niche are actually so widely felt. I also just picked up Joan Didion’s South and West: From a Notebook, which is quite feisty and fun. I’m also reading George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, though I haven’t cracked it in a couple of weeks. I will this week.

IM: Thank you so much for doing this today, Michelle.

MZ: Thank you.