Blonde Redhead’s music has been described as “three dimensional haunted house whimsy.” The band formed in 1993, and their time together has always been somewhat fraught.
Singers Kazu Makino and Amadeo Pace have been both romantic and songwriting partners. Makino once sustained a horseback riding injury that damaged her head so badly, she had to re-learn how to sing.
But through it all, the band has consistently earned glowing reviews from the most discerning critics, at publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum. Blonde Redhead plays the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix tonight. Makino joined The Show to talk about how, for her, music is about something bigger than keeping the band together.
Full conversation
KAZU MAKINO: I think I owe it to music that I was able to survive, ... especially like outer situation and life, condition, environment. I didn't choose to be born in Japan, I didn't choose to, I didn't choose my name, you know, like just things like that.
Many people didn't choose to find themselves in a certain circumstance, but your inner strength or your inner navigation would keep you surviving, you know?
SAM DINGMAN: That's really profound. I hadn't thought about that before, that there are these ways in which songwriting, or maybe just making art generally, is something that you have some measure of control over, and it helps you — I know we aren't necessarily always in control of the art that we make, but it's a way of applying control to circumstances in our life that we did not choose or can't control.
MAKINO: It's almost like all the things that you accumulate inside you, including whatever toxic things and poisonous things and whatever, that could all be released through music, which is a really great way to deal with challenges.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Yeah. You know, that idea that of not necessarily being in control of the music, it makes me think of a quote of yours I read that I wanted to ask you about. You were talking about performing live, and you said you go into another dimension.
MAKINO: I mean, ideally. You don't always succeed, you know? But it does feel sometimes you could be in the right place and right moment and this sort of the sense that something is lifting you up, and you get to kind of almost leave your own body like, or you become, uninhibited. Like I'm extremely awkward, like a shy individual, I find myself. And for me to play music is a great way to relate to outside world, I suppose. And then you'd be less shy.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Can I ask, does the person you are when you're performing music and you have that interdimensional feeling, does it feel like the same person that you are when you're not playing music or, or does it feel like two different people?
MAKINO: Well, it's complicated. Sometimes I feel so at ease about playing music, but it doesn't feel like I'm doing it. Like I hear myself, and it sounds so strong. But then, is it really me that's singing?
I feel almost like a microphone is doing the job because I never, ever sing offstage. Sometimes I go days without saying anything. Or just at times I feel like even if I stop singing, the microphone will keep going.
DINGMAN: Wow. There's another line from the latest record, “Sit Down for Dinner” that I wanted to ask you about that really just hit me very hard. I kind of can't stop thinking about it actually. The line is, “We all had plans before when we got hit.”
Can you tell me the backstory of that lyric?
MAKINO: I, I think it happens so much, you know, something catastrophic. It could be 9/11, it could be pandemic, it could be Gaza invasion. It seems that right now we're like in a generation or era, that we are just having successive historical events. It almost feels unfair that this generation or this era is such a historical, huge catastrophic succession of them, it feels like to me.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Yeah. That makes me think again of one of my, probably my favorite song from the record actually, which is “Rest of Her Life”. It's a really, really beautiful song, and there's this, this idea of the main character in the song — who I assumed was you — talking about leaving one chapter behind and walking on. You say "she walks without you." What were you thinking about anything in particular with that song related to what we've been talking about?
MAKINO: The longer you live, the more things you lose. And the more you have, the more you experience beautiful things that you also have higher and higher risk of losing them, the things that matter to you. And I think that's just the way that it is, but nobody warns you about that, right? Like, as you get older, it's not something that you think about when you're a little child.
DINGMAN: Right. Well, I guess as a last question, we've been talking so much about these things that happen in life that you can't choose and using music as a way of processing the impact of those things and how difficult it is to move on from them.
I know that you've said over the years that for Blonde Redhead, being a band is not always easy. You guys have dealt with a lot of upheaval and tumultuousness. You, you've even said, I believe that this most recent record is probably the last one you'll make.
And yet here you are, a year after the record came out, still on tour, still making the music. And for decades now, you guys have chosen, even in the midst of all of this, to keep being a band and to keep this thing consistent. Tell me about where you are with all that, in this moment.
MAKINO: Yeah, it's really interesting because like we were talking about like, this was not my plan. But your plan goes out the window because world, it throws you into this scenario, this situation that you did not see coming at all. And yet you deal with it in a small way. You deal with it.
My small way was to keep writing songs and to release this album. But I had no anticipation that anybody would want to listen to this. I've always put everything that I have at the time into music. You do your very best, and whether we like it or not, we are built to play music. It seems like that, yeah.
