The Japanese House share music and a couple secrets
by Mark Wheat
March 04, 2017
Amber Bain of The Japanese House hasn't met Kate Winslet, although she does have a connection to the actor. "The reason I'm called The Japanese House is because we stayed in her house — not because we know her!" Bain says. "She was just renting it out. The house is called 'The Japanese House' and I was kind of thinking of weird things to name myself, because I didn't want to use my name."
Three EPs later, the name has surely stuck. "I thought it was important to have kind of a separation between my name and my music," Bain says.
The most recent EP is 2016's Swim Against the Tide, and The Japanese House — comprising Bain, Will Bishop and Freddie Sheed — were in the Twin Cities for a show at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis. While in town, they stopped at The Current studio for a session hosted by Mark Wheat.
"I love touring America a lot more than I love touring England," Bain says. "In America, it's like everywhere is so different."
Something that surprised Bain on tour is that she didn't think she'd like Los Angeles, but she ended up really liking it. "I got there and I was just like, 'Oh, there's actually just really nice juice everywhere'," she recalls. "And it's really warm, and I feel really relaxed and everyone is really slow and chilled, which I like."
A couple facts that surprised Mark Wheat, meanwhile, were the production locations of two of The Japanese House's music videos. Wheat was certain both were shot in the United States, but Berlin, Barcelona and Tenerife provided the locations for the videos.
To hear more from The Japanese House — including which locations go with which music videos — listen to the complete interview using the audio player above.
Songs Performed
"Clean"
"Cool Blue"
"Face Like Thunder"
The first two songs appear on The Japanese House's November 2015 EP Clean; the third song is from their November 2016 EP Swim Against the Tide, both on Dirty Hit records.
Hosted by Mark Wheat
Produced by Derrick Stevens
Engineered by Michael DeMark
Visuals by Nate Ryan
Web feature by Luke Taylor
Resources
The Japanese House - official site
