Popdust

✖

Amber Bain Is Hanging in There

The musician behind The Japanese House is taking fame one day at a time

Jim Morgan

The day before Halloween, a sniffly Amber Bain sat aboard her dimly lit tour bus, dressed in a plaid shirt buttoned up to her neck as she got ready for her show in Brooklyn.

"I've been ill twice [this tour,] which sucks," Bain says in dismay. Sickness aside, she was rocking the hell out of a Canadian Tuxedo. "I'm supposed to be a cowboy," she says. "It's not very good. My band's outfits are much better."

Bain, who curates tempestuous dreampop under the moniker The Japanese House, has become something of an Indie idol these past five years. Her EPs, which initially were shrouded in obscurity, accumulated a passionate, cult-like following thanks to Bain's bright melodies and lyrical sincerity. "I think the impact of my music is a by-product," she said. "I'm not gonna sit and make music to make people feel good. The fact that maybe it does is just a by-product for me; it doesn't affect the way I feel about myself." Fast forward to 2019, and Bain's backstory is well known, her breakup with Marika Hackman heavily analyzed by her fans. I asked if her music has helped ease what she called her "poor broken heart." She fell silent and looked off for a moment. "Sometimes," she said. "It makes you feel both good and bad."

The Japanese House - Saw You In A Dreamwww.youtube.com

"Saw You in a Dream," one of Bain's most popular songs, unfortunately applies to the latter. "It's an intense song to sing every night." But that's the burden she carries for wearing her heart on her sleeve. Her contempt, frustration, passion, anger, love, depression are all on display in her music, and she admits that performing live has become slightly draining as a result. She embarked on a massive North American tour this past summer, and mere months after it ended, announced an additional 28-dates that would put her back on the road until the week before Thanksgiving. "You can take that up with my management," Bain said when I asked her about why she returned to the road so quickly.

Touring has always been a double-edged sword for Bain. She actively wanted to get on the road at the beginning of the year, but she recognizes in hindsight that her eagerness to travel was a result of her depression. "I didn't have a lot in my personal life that I could connect to," she said. "So there was something therapeutic about stepping in front of strangers that like you. When I feel more alone, I enjoy it more, but when I feel okay, I kinda just wanna go home." She snickered slightly. "I have ups and downs. The only thing that helps me connect is the crowd."

Bain admitted that drinking helps ease the anxieties of the road. "When I'm intoxicated, I can let go of the aspects of myself that truly haunt me, and I get a boost of egotism," Bain said with a laugh. "I think it allows you to be a bit of an asshole." She states that every great performer is somewhat of an "asshole." "You have to be a bit of a dick to be engaging sometimes." She frequently takes long breaks from drinking, but even that is a double-edged sword, because while she feels clear-headed, she says she's "stiff" and quick to "make herself cringe."

Press Here Publicity

As complicated as her relationship with touring is, Bain admits that Good at Falling wouldn't have emerged without connecting with her fans. "People might as well have been sitting down," she said when describing her first few years on the road. Her audience's lack of enthusiasm inspired her to push the limits of her sound, to pick up the pace and open up for air. She also gave props to Bon Iver's Wisconsin cabin, where she lived while recording the project. "Being isolated for two months really forces you to try new things. I couldn't have done that if I wasn't isolated or alone."

For now, Good at Falling is in the rearview, and she is eager to return home and begin writing again. But as noted in her latest song, "Something Has to Change," there is still healing that needs to be done. "It's basically about still being in love with my ex," she said frankly, but she assured me that everything is "all groovy." I asked if this whole process has helped her fall in love with herself for a change. She laughed playfully at the concept. "It's an ever-evolving relationship."

From Your Site Articles

The Japanese House's Debut Reminded Me That It's Okay To Feel Things

I'm not crying, you're crying.

When I decided to move to New York City last fall, it was to explore a metropolis supposedly brimming with opportunities for a young writer. It's why many artists move to the Big Apple: to push their limits and ascertain what their "calling" was meant to be.

The sliver of hope that I'd soon be living like Carrie Bradshaw was the only reason I voluntarily dove into the pandemonium that is the L train, Rainbow bagels, finance bros, and $16 whiskey gingers. "Now tell me something, is there a point to this?" Amber Bain sings on "Maybe You're The Reason" – the lead single off The Japanese House's captivating debut Good at Falling – I don't know Amber, I don't know.

The beauty of Amber Bain – who gets her name from her childhood summer home – is that she understands the complexity of human experiences and thinks they're worth singing about anyway. Bain told Genius that "Maybe You're The Reason" is "about being depressed and realizing there's no meaning in anything." For Bain, this realization isn't all bad. As she barrels into the track's explosive chorus, with guitars, synths, and ghoulish auto-tuned vocals all cascading into each other, a voice whispers in her ear: "Maybe you're the reason." Bain said that as she wrote this song, "I thought about my girlfriend at the time, and how maybe loving someone is the reason you live?" Bain understands that trivial stresses burden our subconscious, and that sometimes the meaning behind it all isn't as dramatic as we think it is. Sure, I'm broke, riddled with anxiety, and a homeless guy pissed on my foot on my commute home from work yesterday – but isn't it also possible that those harrowing experiences made that 2 AM bacon, egg, and cheese taste even better?

"Can somebody tell me what I want?" Bain pleads on "Talk All The Time," "Cause I keep changing my mind." Each track shifts and glides as fluidly as the range of emotions we might feel on any given day. In "somethingfartoogdootofeel," Bain quietly broods over melancholic guitars, "All of it was real, it was something far too good to feel." Then the song opens up to breathe, with drums and strings unshackling the track and propelling it into something greater. "We let our heads cave in, subject to a greater thing." In turn, the upbeat Indie-rock production of "You Seemed So Happy" is catchy and optimistic, but peel back a layer and the darkness reveals itself: "You seemed so happy to everybody you knew," Bain sings of her friend who committed suicide. "It's a metaphor for my music," Bain said to Genius, "because if I go somewhere in Europe on tour, they don't understand, they're not listening to the lyrics, and they think my songs are really happy."

As each track grows into something unexpected, you realize that you're at the mercy of Bain's vast emotional spectrum. Many formulaic pop releases of late have established their intention from the first note of a song, but with Good At Falling, you never know where you'll end up. "Wild" may leave you feeling introspective, while "Worms" may make you want to quit your dog walking job and finally get to work on that novel ("Invest yourself in something worth investing in").

The point is, Good At Falling is not a quick fix. It's not something that can be captured in words like "upbeat" or "melancholy." It's as multifaceted as the human subconscious. The project reassures us that feeling all these things is essential to being human. We sometimes forget that we are more profoundly varied than we often allow ourselves to recognize. In one moment, I'm frustrated by the subway dancers, who flip and clap in my face while I'm trying to read my book. Then I change trains. The dancers are gone, I get a seat (for once) on the M, and I watch the sun set over New York's skyscrapers. Sure, I'm sweaty and exhausted and smell like pee, but Good At Falling reminds us that maybe the meaning behind it all is just to look at that damn sunset. "It isn't the same, but it is enough," Bain sings on "I Saw You In a Dream." Agreed.

Mackenzie Cummings-Grady is a creative writer who resides in the Brooklyn area, Mackenzie's work has previously appeared in The Boston Globe, Billboard, and Metropolis Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @mjcummingsgrady.

POP⚡DUST | Read More...

Please Enjoy This List of Actors Insulting Their Own Movies

Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend of March 1

The Best and Worst of the Awkward Ordeal That Was the 2019 Oscars

From Your Site Articles