Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda

by Marisa Brickman

With the recent release of their new album, Stereotype A, Cibo Matto is quickly proving that they are much more than a cute novelty act that raps about food. Front women Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori have gathered a band this time around (Sean Lennon on bass and Timo Ellis on drums) and have taken their sound to the next level. Cibo Matto mixes all sorts of styles together and the new album goes all over the place incorporating elements of Bossanova, heavy metal, rap and electro.

The debut album, Viva! La Woman found Miho making tons of metaphors to food in her poetic song lyrics, quickly creating the aforementioned stereotype. With the new album, Yuka and Miho are breaking past stereotypes and including a variety of new sounds and subject matter in their work. Stereotype A retains the same eclectic mix of ambient grooves and high-energy thrillers. Chatting with them before the show at the Cradle, Miho and Yuka were quick to point out their likes and dislikes on a number of topics ranging from food, to the music industry, to music, to the Lillith Fair.

Do you wish people would stop asking you about food?

YUKA: Politically speaking as a band position, yes. I hate talking about food, because it’s such a pigeonhole, but personally I love talking about food. I love food and I really believe in a lot of philosophies about how food influences your life. What you eat everyday influences the way you look at the world.

What do you think the role of media is in the music industry?

YUKA: I don’t know for sure, but I wish people would study more about music. I wish they would understand what happened before and what happened everywhere and what is happening now. It is very easy to write about music because you really don’t have to know anything. You can just say I like this because of this and then elaborate and make it factual. It’s not a number, you can’t say it’s 98.5 on this element chart. It’s a totally abstract thing. I wish that people would think about it thoroughly and write about it more carefully.

It bothers me when people automatically assume an artist is compromising their work and their values when they sign to a major label.

YUKA: That’s because a lot of people think musicians shouldn’t eat. I think a lot of people think we should live in some hut. It is a difficult choice for any artist to find your own creativity and figure out what the market requires. Finding the meeting point is always difficult and some people succeed and some people compromise. Some stay very creative and stay successful. It’s time for people to realize it’s not as simple as black and white. Also a lot of people think that when you get the record deal is when you started music. People think that there was Cibo Matto, and before I was just some girl in Japan. If you take a look at your own life, you know how complex it is; you should be able to understand how it is for everybody else.

What was your first experience in the United States?

YUKA: I came when I was an exchange student in California and their kids showed me how to smoke pot. I got my ear pierced, that’s about it.

MIHO: I went to New York when I graduated high school with some of my friends.

Were you guys doing music at all before you moved to New York?

MIHO: I was doing some DJing.

YUKA: I wasn’t a musician at all. I was actually a writer. I did classical music as a kid, but my teachers made me feel absolutely hopeless and never thought I was going to do anything with my life.

Miho, you were recently doing some voice training?

MIHO: I was doing Operetta. It’s not classical opera. I was doing harmonies. I love the joy of harmonies in music.

Tell me about your first band Leitoh Lychee, was it a punk band?

YUKA: We realize now that when we say punk band that it’s a little misleading. Now when we say punk, people think of Sex Pistols or Green Day, but we weren’t like that. It was a lot more avant-garde. It was a lot more experimental and punk in the way that attitude is punk, than the sound. It was really a lot of fun. All the bands I was in before, they wanted a record deal, they wanted to work professionally and they wanted to tour. I loved playing with Leitoh Lychee because we didn’t give a shit about anything. It was really just about getting together and writing music and playing shows and having fun.

I hear you guys used to be into heavy metal.

YUKA: Miho was more knowledgeable about music in the 80s. I’m kind of grasping it lately. I do love the metal music. I definitely love the distortion guitar sound and playing the riffs.

MIHO: When I was a teenager it was big. It was so big, so I hear it everyday somewhere. So I knew all the band names some how, which I didn’t need to know.

Did you like it?

MIHO: It helps to communicate with people. Everybody loves heavy metal anyway so when I would go to a bar, I would just say, ‘you know that band called Stryper, that’s weird isn’t it?’ And people would talk about it, ‘oh my god do you know about so and so.’

YUKA: I think we have a natural fantasy about this big sound. It kind of represents power, it’s a symbol of something loud and everybody’s in the middle going "Rrrgh, Rrrgh." I understand the attraction of heavy metal, I like some songs, but a lot of heavy metal songs are kind of stupid to me. It’s kind of like a Haunted House at Disney World. I’m amazed at how some old middle-age men can keep going "Rrrgh, Ahh."

MIHO: There are some really great old songs, like Metallica and Slayer.

Slayer was of the coolest shows I’ve seen.

MIHO: The gig must be amazing. I bet it was really loud.

What sort of influence have Timo [Ellis] and Sean [Lennon] played on this album?

YUKA: Just the fact that we have a live band really expands our possibilities. It’s not like I have to find sounds for it and then program and then [have to deal with it] not sounding right. It’s so much easier to do it with them. They are very competent musicians and they are versatile. They can try to do bossanova with us, heavy metal and funk music. We are very lucky that they are playing music with us. They really enable us to explore farther territories. They also connect us to a lot of audiences. I think it’s easier for an audience to connect when we have a band and when the band’s sound is pushing the air as opposed to us pushing buttons.

Do you think the fact that you have live musicians has enabled you to be more experimental with sampling and beat making?

No, it doesn’t make me more experimental. It would if I had to do everything by myself, but right now what we want to do now is play music live and I like the format we have.

So you make a lot of references to Obi Wan Kenobi in "Sci-Fi Wasabi." What is the relation of Star Wars to your life and your music?

YUKA: I think we love Star Wars, don’t we all love Star Wars?

How do you feel about having been categorized as a novelty band?

YUKA: It bothers the hell out of me.

MIHO: It’s very frustrating.

YUKA: It was very heartbreaking, you can think of us however you want, you can not like us, but novelty band is very degrading. It was a very sad word for us to receive.

On the flipside of that, do you think it helped you out in anyway?

YUKA: No, absolutely not. As it is, half of the people who come to see us are still not used to looking Asians and then we have the novelty billboard behind us and it really doesn’t help. If anything, it alienated a lot of people from our music?

Have you encountered a lot of biases and stereotypes from people in the music industry for being female, and specifically Asian?

YUKA: Yeah, that’s another thing that’s hard to pinpoint, but it’s true. If you walk into a studio or any office with a man and somebody says, ‘oh, the producer’s here,’ they’ll all go shake hands with the man. And they don’t even mean to be mean, that’s just the way it is. I called the record today and as soon as they realize it’s a woman [on the phone] they treat me differently. On top of it, I talk like a teenager and act like one so it’s very hard for people to take me seriously-- or Miho. She’s standing there and singing all the songs and people ask her ‘oh, who did this?’

MIHO: People always think that someone else [made the songs], it’s really tough.

How do you think we as women can overcome these sort of bias attitudes?

MIHO: We have to do more. In an ideal world, we should be appreciated; it shouldn’t take a lot of effort. It’s not happening, so we have to do more. We have to speak more about it and we have to work more to improve the situation. We have to also appreciate all the other women who are working. There’s a tendency that when another woman is working, you want to criticize them. But, you have to appreciate what they do and encourage each other. We are in a weaker position, for real—big time. We should really support each other and help each other go ahead.

Are there any specific women that you admire?

YUKA: We just did Lillith Fair and we got to know how Sarah McLauglin runs that music festival. It was run in the most careful, amazing way.

MIHO: It’s so much work and she has no private life because she’s been working for Lillith Fair for so long. It’s such a big thing to organize and on top of that she still does her music.

YUKA: She really did a lot to help inspire us. Women artists are very lonely, it is a very man world and we tend to feel very small in this men’s world. It’s so great that all of these women [in Lillith Fair] are so empowered. It was very inspiring for all women to get together and see each other, just to see how we all survived this and how we are doing.

MIHO: It was so great and so positive. I had a lot of interview people say, ‘so what do you think of the Lillith Fair.’ I guess a lot of people, especially men, think so many negative things about it. I was so surprised and so sad.

YUKA: They would say, ‘oh, you don’t really fit into the category.’ I said, ‘why? I’m a woman, I fit.’ This guy said it’s a lot of willowy people singing folk songs and I’d realized he had never been to one. There’s Cheryl Crow rocking out, there’s Luscious Jackson, Maya, Missy Elliot. It’s not all about folk music. As soon as it’s a woman, people really love to pigeon hole them. Women love to criticize other women too. It’s kind of become a habit that we have to get out of. Women ourselves have to realize that we are worth more and that we mean more.

I agree, so many women have such a tendency to suppress other women and that only furthers the cycle.

YUKA: It always happens on the weaker side, whether it’s a race problem, or sexism, the weaker ones always fight with each other and destroy each other. Then therefore the stronger ones always stay on top. There is no danger of being taken over because the weaker ones hate each other. We have to become smarter; we have to kick some ass.