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Minnesota’s SICK OF SARAH lead singer ABISHA UHL is back in Japan. Considering it to be her first home, she lived there until she was 18, spending a lot of that time on military bases.

The five-piece band that brought Abisha to fame started out in 2005 and things have been busy since then, having produced 2 LPs, including their 2011 album “2205” shrewdly released through BitTorrent, achieving platinum-equivalent status. The band is known for stage-blasting performances, Abisha often seen crowdsurfing into the crowds. She loves the human contact with her fans and is one of those rare people who will spend real time with them, even joining them for a spot of sightseeing.

We met up with Sick of Sarah last year in London when they supported LA band UH HUH HER at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. A fine old time was had backstage and SoS went on to blow the headliner right off the stage. (READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SICK OF SARAH HERE)

Almost one year on, we meet up with Abisha in Shibuya, Tokyo for a photo shoot (SEE OUR FULL PHOTO GALLERY HERE) and to talk music, touring and Japan. We settle ourselves into a cheap izakaya with edamame and “samurai sake” before getting down to business.

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Welcome back to Japan! How long since you were last here?

I want to say about 3 years ago. I was visiting my parents in Okinawa and then I came to Tokyo to do a radio interview with Tokyo FM.

So, you grew up in Okinawa before moving to the States in your late teens. For people who don’t know, what are the differences between growing up in Okinawa compared to say Tokyo?

So, the difference between Okinawa and Tokyo is Okinawa has a very islander kind of lifestyle, it’s a lot more chilled and laid back, as opposed to Tokyo where it’s way more high energy, lots of people going places constantly – there are a lot more people – that’s the biggest difference. I really liked the islander style – it’s so laid back and I’m still like that. Tokyo is probably a little too much for me… I mean I love it, it’s like a party here, which is also fun.

What are some of your favourite things about Japan?

I love everything about Japan! I definitely consider Japan my first home, and I’m always going to consider it my first home, just because I feel more at home here than I do in the States. I like the people, I love the food and the vibe – people are so friendly and so down to earth, you can leave your bike somewhere and not have to lock it up, you don’t have to worry about people stealing your shit – it’s really cool.

As a band you’ve never toured Japan, is that something you’re looking into?

We would absolutely love to tour here. It’s just so expensive to do that, so that’s one of our dilemmas. But yeah we want to tour Japan – it’d be crazy! I would love to come over here with HUNTER VALENTINE or GIRL IN A COMA – bands that we’ve toured with in the States, because you kind of get this ladykiller tour thing that we’ve got going on, and we’ve done it all over the US and Canada. But, yeah I’m sure there are groups over here we’d love to play with – GROUP A would be the number 1 band we would want to tour with here!

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When did you start getting into music?

I started playing the drums when I was about 11 or 12. I played the drums for a couple of years, then as soon as I picked up a guitar when I was 13, I stopped playing drums and focused all my attention on writing. I started writing right away – I had a knack for it. Both of my brothers were musicians, so I really looked up to them and that’s what’s really got me inspired to play music.

I just grew into it and my brother was very encouraging, and that really made me happy. I wanted to be like my brothers – I was like, “They’re so cool!” so that was definitely a reason I continued doing it.

How long after you moved to the States did you form Sick of Sarah?

Well I moved there when I was 18 and I formed the band when I was 23, so I kind of lived a little bit, did some college, dropped out… I was 25 when we actually got discovered. We did this showcase that we really didn’t want to do because it was like 500 dollars to be in this showcase. They really wanted us to be in it, but we were like, “We’re not gonna pay 500 bucks to be in this show!” Then, they ended up just putting us in it anyway because they really wanted us to play it, and there was a guy from Hollywood Records who really liked us and told his friend to watch us. Then we were flown out to LA to record a five-track demo, which is really bad looking back at it now, but that’s how we got our manager. He then formed an independent record label, and 2 albums later this is where we’re at.

We’re now working on our third album, we’ve travelled all over the world, we’ve toured with THE BANGLES, we’ve made good friends with HUNTER VALENTINE, we’re friends with HEART, we’ve opened up for JOAN JETT – we’ve done a lot of really cool things and played with a lot of really cool bands… GOD-DES AND SHE, GIRL IN A COMA… It’s been a great ride and we’re still on it, so it’s fun!

How do you feel about being a female lead singer in an industry dominated by males? Do you find you’re treated differently?

I don’t feel like I’ve had any weird experiences and I don’t feel like I’ve ever been treated differently, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. I’ve played with guy bands and sometimes they’ll kind of brush us off, but then they’ll watch us play and and they’re like, “Ok, you guys are good!” I’ve noticed, I guess, that we get treated differently, no matter who’s watching, but then after they hear you play, you gain more respect. I think you’ll get that whether or not you’re a female or a male though.

And how do you feel about the state of the music scene for women in the industry? Do all-female bands get as much exposure?

I would think that, exposure-wise, it’s almost harder if you’re in a guy band, because the music industry is just saturated with guy bands. So if you’re in a female band, people might take more notice because it’s not as common to have that – there are fewer female musicians than male musicians, so it might actually be more of an advantage. I’ve always heard female musicians kind of get the brush off though.

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What was the deal with the BitTorrent re-release of your album “2205” in 2011?

Yeah, we released our music to BitTorrent – they liked our music and they asked us if we wanted to do this, so they were basically like, “We’re going to release your record for free on BitTorrent” and we broke the charts as far as downloaded records. Like we had over 1.5 million downloads of the record, so that was a great thing – it was awesome.

Amazing! So where is Sick of Sarah musically at the moment? Can we expect a new release soon?

Yes, we’ll be releasing a new album. We have all our songs demoed up and now it’s just a matter of kind of working out the kinks. We’re going to record at the end of summer, so it should be released before 2014.

Have you guys picked a title yet?

It’s going to be called “Abisha Rules!” No, we haven’t thought of a name yet, we’ll see… But I am thinking that “Abisha Rules” would be a fantastic name! Or “Abisha’s Awesome” or “Abisha’s Ichiban.” I’m going to talk to the girls about it – I hope they’re down with it? Probably not…

Any crazy stories from your last tours?

It was really cute in London – we ran into some girls at a Chipotle or something, and the girls literally dropped all their food when they saw us. That was really funny! There’s some crazy shit, people are funny and they’re aggressive, and we get a bunch of cool presents. And marriage proposals are fun – I think I’m engaged to at least a few hundred girls right now, and maybe like two guys. Oh bras, yeah, we get bras thrown on stage, which is fun. We got a really big pair of panties one time, and a huge bra! People drop their pants and take off their panties, which is a little strange. I’m like, “Uh… you might need that!”

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SHATTERJAPAN met up with Darren Williams, aka British producer and DJ STAR SLINGER, in the offices of major entertainment company Yoshimoto Kogyo in Shinjuku. After waiting in the massive cement hall with the rest of the press for 20 minutes, I was lead into a tiny conference room where a very tired-looking Darren was waiting, and after a quick chat about the best places to go shopping in Tokyo we discussed touring, Japan and the state of the music industry.

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First of all, welcome to Japan! Is it your first time here?

Yeah, it’s my first time in Japan, second time in Asia – the first time was Singapore, I went there just before I went to Australia. I prefer Japan a lot more – it’s got more of an identity. I just think it’s more vibrant, but at the same time it’s quite welcoming, the food’s amazing, the architecture’s nuts, it’s just like a massive metropolis, so it’s good!

You arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday – have you had a chance to see the city?

So far, I’ve been doing a lot of press. Yesterday, I did like 8 interviews, coz I’ve got this album coming out soon, and then today the same thing. Also last night, I did a live stream in a department store, Parco, at 2.5D studios – it’s hidden away. I wish it’d been recorded, but it was just a live stream. I think only 1000 people tuned in, but that’s quite a lot.

I wish I’d known about it! So you’re supporting Gold Panda on this current tour – how did you guys meet?

I’ve known GOLD PANDA for a while – we have the same manager and I remixed his track “Marriage” a couple of years back, so we’ve seen each other a lot since then. He needed a support act to take with him and I just said, “Yeah, I’m keen!” I’m just here for the Japan leg of the tour because I’ve never been before – seemed like a good opportunity. It’s good to be here, for sure.

When is the new album coming out?

The new album should be out in the UK this summer, and in the US… maybe Japan, depending on what the label want to do here – I have to ask them…

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How did you get into music in the first place?

By being around it. I guess it depends what sort of music, but I think I got most of it from the radio, even the dancier stuff. I would hear it on late night radio, like Pete Tong’s Essential Selection. There were a lot of dance DJs on UK radio, so thank you to the BBC for exposing me at a young age!

What were you doing before your music took off?

I was working in an art house cinema when I got spotted by my manager, and I had to give that up because I was playing so many shows and eventually made a living out of this. I’d just finished my degree in music technology. I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing this. I’d probably still be at the art house watching films every day, getting paid really badly for it.

As a producer and DJ, what does your work involve?

It’s hard to explain what a producer does. “Producer” can be quite a broad term, but I think it’s someone who can make a track from scratch. A lot of people claim to be producers. And some producers don’t play instruments, but most of us – the hip hop guys – play instruments. So we are musicians in our own right, but we also record and know how to structure a song. Rick Rubin would have session musicians, the same with Mark Ronson, but I’m sure he can play one or two instruments…

What’s the process of remixing for bands?

If you do it without permission, it’s a bit of a rogue thing – I still do that if I like a song – but for the most part now, I do official remixes where they contact me. Now I’m actively getting requests each week and it’s quite cool. I don’t say yes to everything and obviously we work out fees, but sometimes I do favours so it’s quite an open thing. I just do what I want and sometimes remix for money.

So, how did the Childish Gambino remix come about?

CHILDISH GAMBINO followed me on Twitter and posted something on his blog about one of my tunes – he said something like “It’s so dope, I wanna kiss it.” I thought it was cool because this dude was a big hipster at the time and wrote for “30 Rock” so it was a big deal for me. I even met the guy recently in Chicago and warmed up for him – I got to meet him and say thank you… he’s so cool.

What stands out as your favourite show to have played?

In terms of crazy and silly good, it was Music Hall of Williamsburg in New York. I think 800 people turned up which isn’t that many, but it looked really big and a hundred people got up from the crowd and got on the stage – it was insane. There’s a video on YouTube of everyone on stage dancing, some of them pretty badly. They were dancing around me, and this is when I used to use an MPD for live performances so I’m just there hoping nobody knocks my equipment over. It went really well, I’ll always remember that show.

Last year you toured the US with Shlohmo – how do you know him?

I know SHLOHMO just because I was a fan and I asked him to come on tour with me, and he said yes! We met him at the airport… we hadn’t even met before that point. This is the great thing about music – when you’re a fan of someone, you can curate your own tour. If you’re headlining, it’s like a dream because you can take who you want on tour with you. You spend a lot of time in the van together and get to know each other.

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How do you feel about the Manchester music scene?

The Manchester scene is not so much a scene as a few cliques – a few club nights that are doing their own thing. Like HOYA:HOYA has two great DJs working for them: Krystal Klear and Illum Sphere. Also, we have a lot of people rolling through from everywhere, because from September until New Year we have the huge warehouse event THE WAREHOUSE PROJECT. The lineup seems to change every year so it’s a different vibe each time, and the artists are always A-listers so you do see quite a lot of big names rolling through.

Who played the last Warehouse Project you went to?

The last one I went to had a lot of older people like Basement Jaxx and Todd Edwards in the smaller rooms, then Madeon in the big room, and lots of big EDM stuff. That’s a good thing I think. There are three different rooms so you can see whoever you want, but I spent my time in the small room.

So, tell me about Jet Jam, the club night that you organise…

JET JAM is something I kind of started by accident. I met some people in Slovenia, at my second ever show in Europe – they were both visual artists and booked me to play a party they were throwing and playing visuals at. I made friends with them and came back to meet them just for a mini-holiday. We all love travelling so we wanted a party we could throw anywhere we go. So far we’ve done five Jet Jams so far in Lubiana, Seattle, New York, LA and London, but we plan on doing more this summer. And I’ve released two mix tapes to promote Jet Jam parties.

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What is the best thing about what you do?

It’s quite simple and obvious, but the best thing is you make a living doing what you enjoy. But because I can be grumpy just like anybody else, I have to stop a minute and think about how good my life is, how amazing it is that I can travel and it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore – coming to Japan for work didn’t seem like a big deal and I’m just really thankful.

How do you think the music industry is doing, with the collapse of major labels and saturation of Internet artists?

I think it’s definitely suffering a little bit, but it’s just changing. There’s so much new stuff that people are obsessed with, like iTunes and Spotify, and I’m no different – I’m obsessed with technology so I listen to it – but it’s pretty sad for physical sales. But the truth of the matter is people still want to see live music.

For a few years, your music was available online for free – is that still the case?

There was a link to it on my website but not anymore, because people have been buying it and I’ve been making a decent income just from being on iTunes. But, you can still get it for free and I’m not taking that down. I put some of the later stuff on labels, but you don’t get as much money from that because they have to cover costs. So before you get signed to a label, I think it’s good as a producer to put out your own music, put it on iTunes via a distribution service like Tunecore. You don’t need a label to be on iTunes now, so you should do that. I think you get the majority of the royalties – you get like 70% of each track. I think I sold 200,000 on iTunes, which is good.

So what other advice do you have for budding DJs and producers?

Just put out as much music as you can to gain attention, because essentially you’d be lying if you said you didn’t want attention – you want to seek it. I watched a documentary on a guy, a photographer, who’s only just becoming popular and he’s now 80 or so. He doesn’t regret it, but I would totally regret it. He let his flat become cluttered with paintings and someone discovered it. I think he was also the first colour photographer, so he had photos and negatives up to the ceiling. I would totally go mental with that lifestyle. Don’t become old and jaded and forget what you wanted – I think you should definitely go for everything while you can.

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SHATTERJAPAN catches up with Derwin of GOLD PANDA in Shinjuku at the Tokyo offices of major entertainment company YOSHIMOTO KOGYO. Our interview is held in a small conference room, and upon entering I’m met by a table littered with empty packets of (fittingly) Panda Pocky and Calbee snacks. Derwin is seated behind, unassuming and smiling, and apologizing for having his laptop on the table to keep in touch with his girlfriend. After a quick chat about shopping in Harajuku, we get down to the business of life in Japan, anime and electronic music.

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Welcome back to Tokyo! How does it feel to be here again?

It’s always good to be back! I just feel like I don’t see enough of Japan when I’m here though. I always just see Shibuya – it’s good, but I end up just drinking.

You used to live here – when was that?

I don’t even remember the exact date now, but it was maybe 2004. I came here on a working holiday, but couldn’t really find anything that I wanted to do so ended up teaching English – I did “eikaiwa” companies and stuff… I don’t know anything about English, I was just teaching to fund my travels, but then I didn’t travel so it just went towards funding “izakayas” (traditional Japanese pubs) and that was it really. When I went back to the UK, I went to university in London and studied Japanese – I did it completely the wrong way around.

I live in Berlin now, so I’ve been trying to learn German. I made an effort for a while taking classes, because I thought it’d be really easy after Japanese, that I’d just pick it up, but I think as you get older you have to really sit down and study. Because I had such an interest in Japan, I had a desire to learn the language, but with German I don’t have any, other than to help me with my daily life.

What spurred your love of Japan in the first place?

Ah, that was manga, well anime – “AKIRA” mainly. That was the main thing for a lot of people I think, especially in the UK, because we only had about four films for ages, like “AKIRA” and “FIST OF THE NORTH STAR.” I can’t remember what the other ones were. That was all there was, and I wanted to find out more. I must’ve been 12 when I saw “Akira” – I was like, “Why aren’t all cartoons like this?!” I was watching “Dogtanion.”

Has your time in Japan influenced you?

Yeah, it’s definitely influenced me musically – the atmosphere and certain sounds have definitely come out in my music as a result of being in Japan.

I don’t know about personality-wise. It’s probably harder to see that now. I think when I was here for a year, I got annoyed that people sometimes weren’t straight with me, that they didn’t say what they were really thinking – whether they actually wanted to have a beer with me or if they were just being polite. But, I eventually found out who my friends were. It was difficult. Especially let’s say 10 years ago, it was – and it still is maybe – a novelty to be a foreigner or to have a gaijin friend. It can be quite weird for some people.

Would you ever consider coming back to Japan to live and operate from here?

Yeah! I wouldn’t mind. I’ve never been to Kyushu – I should really go. I’d like to do maybe 6 months or something – that would be cool – and not do shows, just come here to do something else, travel around and see places that I’ve wanted to see but have never seen.

But for touring, it would be so difficult… I don’t think I could live here for a long period of time, because there are so many shows and opportunities to do shows in Europe. Here, no-one’s going to pay for a flight for me from Tokyo or Osaka. Whereas if I’m based in Berlin, it’s easier for me to just go and do Italy or Switzerland on a Friday or Saturday night and be home by Sunday morning.

Touring is a priority because it’s the only way for me to make money. I’m not forced to do it, I could get a job I guess, but you do expose new people to your music all the time by doing it, and yeah that’s my main source of income. I do make money from selling music and it being played on radio stations around the world or whatever, but it’s not enough to live on. Maybe like 20 years ago, I would’ve made a lot more, but not now.

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How did you get into music in the first place?

My uncle was making music – he was a producer – and when I was 15, he gave me an Atari and a sampler that had 10 seconds of sample time. I was really into hip hop, so I started sampling my dad’s records with no idea what I was doing. Then I got more and more into it. I had friends who were really into hip hop, and they’d buy all the rare funk records that were basically responsible for a lot of hip hop in the 90s. I couldn’t afford any of those records, so I just went to thrift stores and charity shops and bought used records, really bad stuff. But in turn, I found my own way of making music, using samples that were less obvious and more treated, I guess, with equipment.

Yeah it just went on from there, really. I never had the confidence to send music to anyone or send demos out, and then I was saved by Myspace. You could just upload your music to the Internet, and you could kind of create your own page for people to see. I don’t know what would’ve happened otherwise. I can definitely thank my Myspace page for my current state, because that’s how I was contacted by management and labels.

There was definitely a Myspace golden age where labels were like, “We don’t have to go through demos anymore, we’ll just go online! If they’ve got loads of views, it’s like guaranteed success.” I think Myspace had its time but now it’s gone. I mean there’s SoundCloud and Bandcamp, but I think labels are less interested because people can generate money now themselves. Labels want to generate money for you and take a percentage.

How do you feel about the state of the music industry now, particularly with the dominance of the Internet?

The Internet is like its own worst enemy in a way. Everyone loves it until they want to make some money from it and find out they can’t. It doesn’t devalue music, but there’s so much out there, it’s hard to know where you should be listening or putting your money if you need to. I don’t know, I don’t buy digital music, and I don’t download it for free either, so I guess I’m not really in the argument.

I buy vinyl, like old records, to sample and make music, but I also enjoy records – I’ve always loved buying vinyl, so now I’ve got an excuse to buy more vinyl, to make more music, and at the same time I can buy new records by people I like. I’m just terrible with digital music because I was into physical copies so much. Maybe if I was 10 years younger, I’d just have everything on a hard drive but I like to have something physical – I still buy VHS.

How has the UK industry changed since you were getting established?

There are definitely more people in hoodies pressing buttons on stage and not doing much, which I’m partly responsible for. I think I got lucky because it was at a point where electronic music became popular again, because rock music and bands got boring in the UK, so I was definitely lucky there. I think UK dance music is super interesting and has really good stuff, but unfortunately with the Internet, there’s another 200 versions of Burial every week which you have to sift through, so that’s not so good. But there’s always someone doing something interesting that attempts to push dance music as a whole in a certain direction – I think we can be proud of that.

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You’ve been touring pretty extensively recently, how’s that been going?

Good, I’ve just done New Zealand and Australia, Singapore on the way here. I guess you can’t really call it one big tour, because I’ve not been going from one place to another – I get to go home in the middle for a week or so. But it does end up pretty much feeling like you’re doing it all the time because there are so many weekend shows. So if you fly out on a Thursday morning, then you play Friday, Saturday and you’re back on Sunday, every week. If you tour a country like America you have to stay there a whole month… it gets pretty knackering.

Any specific challenges or highlights?

Melbourne was good. There are highlights and low points all the time, and they happen so often that you tend to forget or it just gets mashed into one memory. Mexico was pretty bad, the show was great but it was my first show with a new setup, and everyone’s like, “Oh, we’ve got this show for you in Mexico, so just go there and practise.” I get there, and it’s like 4000 people in a field, and it was just a mess because I hadn’t practiced properly. But also at the same time, I was able to find out what the problems were and go on with it. My live set’s forever changing, so I’m never set with just one setup – there are always new machines.

A particular high point? Playing on a beach to 50 people in the Philippines in an electrical storm with water coming down… and then playing in Detroit on a massive stage in front of like 7000 people at a festival called Movement, and you can see Canada across the water from the stage.

I prefer smaller gigs, like 200-500 capacity. Anything more, especially anything over 1000 gets lost, I think, because I’m not an artist that has a huge visual element, so I can’t rely on that to entertain people, and if the venue’s too big, people can’t see what you’re doing and in turn they think that the music should be almost like a DJ set, like really solid and danceable – it’s hard to show people that you’re playing live and not DJing. There are all these factors that affect it, so I prefer smaller gigs where it’s a bit more intimate, where people can see me and I’m at a similar level. I don’t like being on a big stage above people.

“Quitters Raga” is one of your most popular tracks. Did you have any idea that it was going to be so big? And did you produce it any differently from the others?

I solely used a laptop to make that track, which I never did before and haven’t done since, and so it’s made in a certain way that it’s just impossible to play live. The only way I do that track is just playing off the laptop. I’ve kind of given up on trying to make it live. But yeah, I had no idea it was going to be on every blog ever. Actually, in terms of success, “You” from the album afterwards was a hundred times bigger for me than “Quitter’s Raga,” which is lucky because I don’t own the sample in “Quitter’s Raga.” That’s why it’s kind of an underground thing. I never want to do the same track twice – I’ve never made a similar track and I don’t think I ever will. There are elements of it I actually do want to repeat, but I don’t want to do the same track again.

You’ve got new album “Half of Where you Live” coming out, when can we expect that?

I think it’s 5 June in Japan and 10 June in England. It’s being announced on 15 April with a lead track called Brazil. There’s another album I’m releasing here which is a collection of tracks “In Sequence” which basically all came out in America and the UK, but it’s hard to get in Japan because it’s vinyl, so we compiled it and released it here on CD, because they’re keen on CDs here.

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Do you have any message of advice for upcoming producers and DJs?

Yes. Spend time perfecting what you’re doing before you go out and start doing it. Definitely! And think about what you’re doing, think about the music you’re making in terms of whether that’s the music you really want to do or if it’s just the music that’s popular at the moment. I think a lot of people make the mistake of putting their foot in something that they’re not really that much into, or they won’t be into in a few years. Especially with the whole post-dubstep future garage thing, I think people are so excited that they can make music at home on a computer, they’re not sure if they’re really into it or they really want to do it.

Oh and pick a good name – not a shit one like Gold Panda! I just put an animal and a colour together, and Gold Panda was the one that stuck. It worked out though, people like it more than I do, and I can’t change it now.

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