Japanese Breakfast is the musical project of Michelle Zauner, who was born in Seoul, South Korea but moved with her parents to Eugene, Oregon when she was nine months old. Her songs often feature dreamy synths and textured instrumentals paired with thought-provoking lyrics based on her experiences. It's a mix of experimental and accessible - she cites both The Flaming Lips and Fleetwood Mac as inspirations.
Zauner moved to the Philadelphia area to attend Bryn Mawr College, where she became immersed in the city's vibrant music scene. In 2013, while part of the Philly-based punk band Little Big League, she started Japanese Breakfast as a side project, but that became her main gig in 2016 when she released her debut album, Psychopomp, titled after a mythological creature that guides souls to the afterlife.
At Bryn Mawr College, Zauner created an independent major in creative production and studied the works of authors like Philip Roth, Richard Ford, and John Updike. Part of the class of 2011, she speaks highly of her time there, saying it's where she learned to write and develop into a multifaceted artist.
In 2014 Zauner's mother Chongmi was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and passed away just four months later. That profound loss influenced much of the first Japanese Breakfast album, Psychopomp, which is filled with shoegaze-inspired music centered on grief. Her next album, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, released a year later, also explores themes of loss and the complex relationship she shared with her mom.
In 2021 Zauner published a book called Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, which deals with her experiences growing up as a Korean American, her complex relationship with her mother, and her journey through grief after her mother's death from cancer. The title refers to H Mart, a Korean American supermarket chain where Zauner often found herself overwhelmed with memories of her mother. The project started as an essay published in The New Yorker in 2018, which Zauner later expanded into a full-length memoir.
Zauner loves video production and directs most of her own videos. Her video for "
Be Sweet" is an homage to one of her favorite shows,
The X-Files, which aired from 1993-2002 and follows two FBI special agents who investigate paranormal activity.
Her primary instrument is guitar but she also plays bass, piano and various synthesizers. Most of her songwriting is done on either guitar or piano.
The name Japanese Breakfast is a little confusing because Michelle Zauner isn't Japanese - she's Korean (actually, half Korean - her father is Jewish). Of course, she isn't breakfast either.
She chose the name after seeing an image of a Japanese breakfast online and deciding it was an interesting contrast of cultures, since Americans consider breakfast its own category with specific foods that are eaten only at that time. The name lets her parse out people who aren't fans or didn't do their research - if someone thinks she's Japanese because of the name, she knows what she's dealing with.
She was one of 10 nominees for the Best New Artist Grammy of 2021 but lost to Olivia Rodrigo. That award had been going to the most popular nominee, with Megan Thee Stallion winning the previous year and Billie Eilish the year before. After Rodrigo's win, the next two were more obscure: Samara Joy and Victoria Monét.
Her first releases as Japanese Breakfast were "bedroom cassettes" she distributed, including one in 2013 called June with 30 tracks each recorded a different day that month.
Zauner worked in sales and marketing from 2013-2016 (with time off to care for her ailing mother) and even set up a
LinkedIn page. Japanese Breakfast was a side project when she issued her debut album,
Psychopomp, on a tiny Maryland label called Yellow K Records. She expected to stay in the corporate world but got a big break when she played the South By Southwest festival in 2016 and landed a deal with Dead Oceans Records, home to Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers and other acclaimed singer-songwriters. Her last corporate job was in New York City with Colossal Media, a company that sets up murals as advertising for clients.
Japanese Breakfast released a song in 2017 called "
Jimmy Fallon Big!" that they got to play on Jimmy Fallon's show in 2021. Fallon later asked about the song, which is when we learned that Zauner wrote it after the bass player in her band Little Big League told her he was leaving to join another group that was going to be really popular, like, "Jimmy Fallon Big."
Michelle Zauner made a cameo appearance in the cult sitcom
Search Party, appearing as the guitarist in the 2020 episode "A Dangerous Union." You can spot her during Elliot's wedding scene, accompanying Portia as she sings Boyz II Men's "
I'll Make Love To You."
