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Home
Authors
James Iha
American
Musician
About the author
It's not like that often, I mean, I suppose out of a ratio of 10 fans maybe like 1 or 2 of 'em might be Asian, and maybe every second or third time they might bring up something that they're Asian and I'm Asian.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Time
#Fans
And they kind of left to find a guitar player at the very end, so you know, I don't really take it as any slight that I wasn't able to play on the record. It's flattering just to play with them period.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Play
#End
#Guitar
But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there's any barriers. I've never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Hope
#Being
#Americans
#Music
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Chicago
I mean I like pop music, and I like heavy music and, stuff that I like... the band I've signed on to our label right now; they're called The Sounds. They're kind of like a new-wave pop band.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Right
#Now
#Music
It's hard enough to make a good song and a good recording of that song. But to try to tailor it to some outside force is just like - It's never been a factor in what I've done or what the band's done.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Song
#Force
Even from a listening end now, I'm still completely a fan of music.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Now
#End
#Music
#Listening
Musicians always come off sounding a little bit pretentious, and a little bit... I don't know, hypocritical, from what they do, talking about strong issues.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Musicians
#Talking
No, I've heard over the years that it's nice for them to see somebody who's like, you know, a well-known successful musician who's Asian. I've heard it from a few musicians, too.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Successful
#Years
#Musicians
So there was something of a learning curve with doing your own thing and people seeing you outside of the band. I mean, people have never really heard my voice before - or heard a whole record of mine before. So it was a completely new experience.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#People
#Experience
#Voice
#Learning
The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Song
There is a lot of work just in terms of traveling and logistics and people and gear and all that kind of stuff. But I never really have problems playing music. That never seems like work.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#People
#Work
#Problems
#Music
#Traveling
We have a partnership deal with New Line Records, which is part of New Line Cinema, and... I worked on that.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Cinema
#Partnership
Well, I always hope that I'm a role model.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Hope
If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Songs
I live most of the time in New York now. I have an apartment there.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Time
#Now
You know, it's going to be a really long tour, and well, I guess I'll see what happens with A Perfect Circle, 'cause they do other projects too, and I don't know. I hope I can always do a lot of different things, do 'em well.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Hope
#Projects
Well, I'm pretty domestic actually. I walk my dog. I go grocery shopping. I hang out with friends. I'm pretty normal, whatever normal is, on my off time.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#Time
#Friends
#Pretty
Yeah, I'm sure there are stereotypes of Asian people.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#People
Well, we didn't have our original drummer on our last record. And most of that album was not played as a band in the studio. It was mostly the world of computers and overdubs. There was very few things played live or worked out as a band.
James Iha,
American
Musician
#World
#Computers