Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino on the Music That Made Her

Kazu Makino will always look chic. Through the hazy lens of Zoom on her phone, the Blonde Redhead singer-guitarist waves from inside her mint green apartment in New York City. A few plants hang in the window where natural light floods in, illuminating a paper lantern, a spotless desk, and her trusty Gibson. She’s pulled a chair up to her kitchen countertop where the camera appears to be placed, and occasionally slumps her elbow on the top of the old-school stove as she talks, often looking to the ceiling to find the right words as she conjures decades-old memories. Her hair, amber blonde fading into dark brown, spills over a knit sweater with maroon stars.

When you’ve lived a life as cool as Makino’s, interest in her stories comes naturally. Born in Kyoto, Japan in 1969, she obsessed over records from France and England as a kid despite her strict upbringing on traditional Japanese values and classical music. By the early ’90s, she relocated to New York City as a twenty-something in search of change. She found it when she stumbled into twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, her future bandmates in Blonde Redhead, along with the music of Lush, Dionne Warwick, and Marvin Gaye in the city’s legendary venues.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Makino forming Blonde Redhead with the Pace brothers. What started as a noise-rock band became an experimental project tapped into and influencing the spheres of dream pop, shoegaze, and indie rock. Her deep friendship with Unwound and Fugazi—spawned from their 1995 tour together—left a mark on Blonde Redhead’s most famous run of albums, the former’s Vern Rumsey playing bass on their 1997 LP Fake Can Be Just as Good and the latter’s Guy Picciotto producing 1998’s In an Expression of the Inexpressible, 2000’s Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, and 2004’s Misery Is a Butterfly. The band’s seventh album, 2007’s 23, was a mysterious slice of chamber pop, and the closest they’ve ever come to mainstream success.

Blonde Redhead just released Sit Down for Dinner, their first new album in nine years, and a revitalized comeback at that. Makino lights up with eagerness while discussing the songwriting process and their upcoming tour. “I’ve been quite aggressively chasing some kind of independence. I could see the twins were a little intimidated, so I took advantage of that,” she laughs. “My approach is a weird combination of naiveness and experience.”

A wistful type of gratitude paints her face as she recounts Blonde Redhead’s adventures, like the time Steve Albini gifted her a gold Beyer ribbon microphone, or watching fireworks in upstate New York with Sufjan Stevens. Even while exploring a solo career with 2019’s Adult Baby, Makino found herself sharing secrets with some of her lifelong idols. “I’m still stunned,” she says, struggling to find the words.