Amber Bain of The Japanese House is pretty sure her songs are psychic. “I often feel like there’s some prophetic element to writing,” she says, sounding only half-kidding. “You’ll be like, ‘Why am I saying this random thing?’ And then months later that random thing ends up happening.” It’s the kind of statement you can only pull off when your new record is titled In the End It Always Does.
Bain started the album in 2021, wrapped it in 2022, and here she is in 2023 still trying to figure out what the hell she wrote. “It’s rare I sit down and go, ‘I want to write a song about this,’” she laughs. “Most of the time I’m just sitting there feeling. I don’t know what I’m saying — it’s just complete gibberish. ‘Boyhood’ was actual gibberish for a long time.”
Relationships loom large on the record — the ones that imploded, the ones with herself, the one she has with her teenage self. “Sunshine Baby? I started that trying to fix my relationship,” Bain says. “I finished it when the relationship was over. The chorus is grasping at the last crumbs of it. Now I hear it and it’s not hopeful, it’s resignation. But it wasn’t supposed to be.”
She finds it hilarious how songs sneak up on her like old ghosts. “There’s certain songs I still can’t listen to unless I’m ready to feel sad,” she says. “I listen to ‘Sorry I Am’ and it doesn’t feel like I wrote it. It feels like it’s just happening to me.”
The inspiration web is messy — Joni Mitchell shows up everywhere, even in the name of Bain’s dog, Joni Jones. The piano riff that opens In the End was born out of an obsession with 101 Dalmatians. “I was watching it, got really obsessed with the music — ‘A Beautiful Spring Day’ — and I’d watch it on repeat until the video broke,” she says. “So I tried to replicate that style — me bashing a keyboard basically.”
She also recently covered ABBA. “I did ‘Super Trouper,’” she says, almost apologetic. “I always found it kind of annoying — too happy. Then I sat at the piano, played it slow, and thought, ‘Oh my God, these are the saddest lyrics I’ve ever heard.’ All the best songs can turn into a ballad and still sound amazing.”
Even though we're hearing these songs for the first time, there are some that have already had their moment with Bain, like Sad To Breathe. “I don’t relate to that at all,” she says, grinning. “It’s so dramatic. But when you’re heartbroken it feels like that. Over the top. Like the world’s about to end. Then you come back to it and think, ‘Ah. It didn’t.’”
Which, ironically, sums up In the End It Always Does better than any prophetic chorus ever could.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
