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More than any other band making music today, Cibo Matto’s songs capture the excitement and ethnic diversity of New York City’s streets. Listening to their music is like walking through your neighborhood on a Friday night. As you pass by each house, you can hear people playing every conceivable form of music from their windows. One apartment is pumping salsa, another is jamming out Ravi Shankar, a jeep rolls by blasting Master P, and the ex-Hell’s Angel’s guy who lives at the end of the block is sitting in a baby pool in his garage cranking Metallica’s Master of Puppets with a can of beer in his hand. Such is the music of Cibo Matto. They are like bluebirds collecting random bits of twigs, string and gummy worms to build a magnificent nest from which to sing their beautiful songs. Whereas some groups choose one particular sound and milk it to death, Cibo Matto’s sound is impossible to categorize. They constantly have their ears open for new and exciting sounds to absorb and turn into something entirely their own. I spoke with singer Miho Hatori recently about Cibo Matto’s past, present and future and their soon to be released album, Stereotype A. | |||||
NYROCK: |
Can you first tell me about how you first got started in music when you lived in Japan? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Well, I was sometimes doing DJ stuff and working in a record shop in Tokyo. That place was a very unique shop. It was the place lots of DJs came to get used and rare records. It had a lot of jazz, funk, Latin and seventies rock. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Yeah, I know that you also did a lot of DJaying when you first moved to New York. | ||||
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MIHO: |
Somehow, I could talk about music with kids in the street and it was the best thing of my life. I learned English growing up in Japan, but we don't learn the right pronunciation of words and it is a real problem with Japanese education. And anyway, I wasn't sure how to really speak when I came here, but kids didn't care about that. Like I would walk around the East Village wearing a Black Flag T-shirt and people would come up to me and say, "Hey, I like Black Flag too!" and I would say "I like them too! Do you like Fugazi?" and then we would get excited and become friends. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
So Black Flag can unite all cultures? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah, isn't it amazing. I think it is so beautiful. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
I read that your first NYC band was called Leitoh Lychee. What kind of music did you play? | ||||
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MIHO: |
It was a punk band. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Were you singing for them? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Well, it was almost like singing, but it was more like a lot of screaming and I was also playing violin through a distortion pedal. It was a lot of noise and Yuka was playing guitar and it was completely different from Cibo Matto. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
So being in Leitoh Lychee is where you first met Yuka? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yes. And one night someone asked us to play at an improvisation night with another person. And the other person couldn't be there, so Yuka and me were the only ones to perform and that was like the baby of Cibo Matto. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
I saw your recent New Year's Eve show at CBGB's and that was the first time I've seen you play with your new band behind you. Your old songs sound more powerful now with a whole band than they did when it was just the two of you on stage with a sampler and keyboard, but do you miss just being up onstage alone with Yuka? | ||||
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MIHO: |
I think it is better now, because the sound is more fuller and the equipment we used to have was very limited. Even the sound on Viva La Woman! is very limited too and I think especially Yuka wanted to do more stuff with our music. Now we have extended our sound and it's possible to play a lot of songs when you have more people. I think it's definitely better.
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NYROCK: |
Your heavy metal song "Blue Train" on Stereotype A kicks ass. I think it is gonna be this summer's "Iron Man" and kids'll be smoking pot to it in mall parking lots all across the country. | ||||
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MIHO: |
Thank you. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
You also have a metal ending on "The Lint of Love." Do you listen to a lot of heavy metal? | ||||
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MIHO: |
When I was a teenager in the early '80s, I listened to it a lot. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Like Motley Crue and Poison? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah. And I had a lot of skater friends and they were always listening to that kind of music. Suicidal Tendencies or whatever. So I have a lot of memories with that music. Also Timo [Ellis] and Sean [Lennon] [both from her new band] are basically metal heads and any time there is a practice and there is some time to kill, they start to play "chuga, chuga, chuga, chuga" [speed metal riff] for no reason. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Do you feel like you need to rock out more after doing Butter 08 [a side project with several NYC musicians including the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russell Simins]? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah, definitely. Butter helps to make us smooth to get into rock and roll. It helped us melt into other areas. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
The samples on Stereotype A are a lot stranger and more heavily layered than on Viva La Woman. How was making this album different from making your first one? | ||||
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MIHO: |
We definitely had more time this time. For the first album we only had one month for recording and mixing and it was a really tiny time. But for this album, we recorded it over a year, so it was a big difference. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Are you going to make any videos for the album? | ||||
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MIHO: |
We are trying to make it, but we are not sure which song we are gonna do. We aren't sure what the single is gonna be, so now we are kind of waiting. Which song do you think we should make a video for? | ||||
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NYROCK: |
You could do an awesome video for "Blue Train" with all of you dressed up as Guns N'Roses. You could get it on MTV's "Headbanger's Ball." | ||||
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MIHO: |
That would be so cool. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
On "Sci-Fi Wasabi" you say, "Obi Wan Kenobi told me in the lobby." Are you excited about seeing the new Star Wars movie? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Oh yes. I feel that time was really on my side, 'cause when I wrote that song I had no idea the movie would be coming out at the same time. But I am very excited to see it. Whenever I buy a movie magazine and there's a story about Star Wars, Sean and Yuka say "I don't wanna see that magazine!" because they basically wanna be surprised when they see it. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Did you see the original movie when you were a kid in Japan? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah, sure. I'm not sure what to call it, cause I'm not a Christian, but what do you call it when you have to go to church when you are born and they pour the water on your head? | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Baptism? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah, I feel it's the same thing with Star Wars. When I saw it, it was like my baptism. It was very powerful to me. I wanted to be Princess Leia and I had a big crush on Han Solo. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
You cover so many styles on this album, from rock to rap to samba. Is there any other style you want to assimilate into the Cibo Matto sound? Like maybe polka music? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah. We definitely would like to try. Our whole mission is about breaking the rules. Cibo Matto doesn't fit into any one genre and when people ask about what kind of genre is it, it's hard to say. We try to do a lot of stuff. People like to categorize, basically. So we always have trouble giving an answer. Pop music has a lot of different elements of music. Even polka too. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
What is your favorite thing about summer in New York City? | ||||
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MIHO: |
Me and Yuka love to take our bikes out and ride around and go through Central Park and meet interesting people. I met this mom who is a hard-core mountain biker and when I saw her, I said "Oh my God, what's that?" 'cause she had the baby on her bike too with a little helmet. She is so strong, you know. Nobody can beat her. She's got mom power! | ||||
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NYROCK: |
When are you going on tour to promote Stereotype A? | ||||
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MIHO: |
We are starting it in June and we're gonna play at the Bowery Ballroom for four shows [June 8-11]. And every night we're gonna have different, great opening acts. | ||||
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NYROCK: |
Well, I think I'm gonna be there every night. | ||||
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MIHO: |
Yeah, come on down. June 1999 | ||||
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