posted August 2005
Sondra: Name of your band?
Elizabeth: Buttersprites.
Sondra: Who else is in your band?
Elizabeth: Our singer is Haruko Nishimura(Haruko other project is Degenerate Art Ensemble, Our drummer is Jen Gay, Our bass player is Lunarre Omura( Lunarre is also in the band LUSHY ). and our keyboard player is Julie Grant.Everyone is Asian except for Jen Gay.
Sondra: Is everyone American or are you from an international pool?
Elizabeth: Our singer(Haruko Nishimura) is from Japan. she's lived in Seattle(Washington) for quite a few years. She is an artist and a Butoh dancer. Accomplished Butoh dancer in Seattle, as well as she has another band called Art Ensemble that she has toured with. They just got back from a tour in Europe. She's been living in Seattle for quite a few years. Lunarre, our bass player is from Hawaii. Jen our drummer is from Rhode Island. Julie Grant is pretty much from Washington State.
Sondra: What about Elizabeth Jameson?
Elizabeth: And Elizabeth Jameson is from - I pretty much grew up on a little island off of Seattle... But before that when I was little, I lived in California, and also have lived in Japan. I went to kindergarten in Japan.
Sondra: Wow. So you survived Kindergarten in Japan, and then you came to America? LOL
Elizabeth:
Yeh. I came to America and not knowing any English. I had to start 1st grade not knowing any English. So I still remember being terrified about that. But I quickly learned and adapted quite well.
Sondra: Do you think English is easier or more difficult than Japanese?
Elizabeth:
Oh boy that's a tough one. I tried to learn Japanese. I went back and lived there for a year. I tried to learn it and it was really hard. Even though I had known it in the past. But I couldn't -
Sondra: You're too American! You became "Unilingual".
Elizabeth:LOL Yeh! And everyone over there speaks english. So there wasn't a motivation - there wasn't a desperation that makes you learn something. So I never did learn it.
Sondra: How did the Buttersprites actually get together since everybody is from different islands, different cultures?
Elizabeth:
Yeh. It's kind of a funny story. Because, The story goes I was going to a cabaret style party. Because a lot of our friends are in dance or artists and performers. I asked everyone to come up with some kind of an act to perform at a cabaret party. There was performance artists and a dancing girl troupe called the hot toddy's. there was a dancing girl group called "Hot Toddy's" I had always wanted to start a Japanese Girl Band. So I thought well this was a perfect thing. Let's just get together play for one show and that ll be that. I just got together with my Japanese girlfriends. We either bought our instruments or borrowed. So, I decided I wanted to play guitar, went and got a cheap guitar. We just started having a rehearsal. None of us were musicians. We just started jamming all together. We were jamming all the time. Started practicing by ourselves. And said Oh my God, that sounded like a song.
Sondra: Who is writing the songs?
Elizabeth: We all created our own parts.
Sondra: So Buttersprites is a collective?
Elizabeth: We really didn't know what we were doing, we all just did what we could. The more we got together and started jamming and stuff, we found our own way of making our songs...
Sondra: i noticed
In the photographs on your website, you all wear similar costumes. Is that a consistent thing?
Elizabeth: My day job, if you will, is a Visual Artist. So the visual component of the band is really important to me. Our visual presentation. For every show I wanted the band to have a cohesive look. Another fun part of the band is coming up with ideas. Jen our drummer also owns a dress shop in Seattle. she's an amazing sewer. She sews most of our costumes
Sondra: What girl bands influenced you?
Elizabeth: Of course theres the Go-Gos's bands like that back in the day kind of more punk kind of bands. Mostly we're not thinking about bands that have been before us. We're not that technically proficient.
Sondra: So this is kind of like ZEN punk?
Elizabeth:It kind of is. Oblivious punk. we make it up as we go along.
Sondra: Camp Betty, you guys are going to be playing there, do you know what's that's about?
Elizabeth: we've never done something like that. we've never played outside of Seattle. A lot of great bands, beautiful setting. ... We're flying down, playing a gig in San Francisco, then we're heading up to Camp Betty (unfortunately Camp Betty was postponed) ...
Sondra: I couldn't talk to you on Saturday, because you were still recovering from the CD Release party from the night before.
Elizabeth: They were turning people away , because the room was so full. We had Go GO Dancers. Boys. Hula Hoops. We had birthday cake. It was really fun.
Sondra: What is this latest CD. Where did you guys record it?
Elizabeth: We recorded it where we practice. My husband has a recording studio in the basement. He has Pro tools.
Sondra: Now, does everyone record together? Is it typical Pro Tools, does everyone have their own Wav file?
Elizabeth: Most of the time the bass and the drums are recorded, then guitar, vocals. Actually a couple of the songs were recorded on 4 Track. So there's kind of a mix on both. We were always together. It wasn't like one person recording.
Sondra: When you guys make out that you're going to have a CD release party, does everyone get together and say ok we're going to do this is and this? Or is it one person?
Elizabeth:We're pretty together as a group. I'm pretty uptight about the visual aspects of the band so I'm a little bit of a N*zi about that. As far as everything goes we get together, pull together - get it done as a group.
Sondra: Are you going to be touring america?
Elizabeth: We just released a CD. We're kind of lame. We'd love to. ... We're playing 2 shows in Vancouver, Canada...
Sondra: You're also a visual artist and you have your own web site; what is that?
Elizabeth: Yes, it's
EJAMISON.COM ...
Elizabeth Jameson-guitar
Jen Gay-drums
Julie Grant-keyboards
Haruko Nishimura-vocals, accordion,
Lunarre Omura-bass
BIG THANKXU TO ELIZABETH JAMESON ! Buttersprites on Dionysus Records
Link to Elizabeth Jameson from the Buttersprites on rockazine.com just cut and paste into your HTML
Copyright © 1997-2006 rockazine.com All Rights Reserved.