Frank’s Corner #1: In Conversation With Fuubutsushi.
Pent-up energy, evangelical berber carpets, and the eventual pursuit of tour.
In 2020, one of the world’s only certainties was absence.
For creatives, visual, audio, and beyond, a wrench would plunge deep into the gears of countless projects, some emerging just months prior, only to be subdued by the inevitable. To draw inspiration from absence is, perhaps, art in and of itself. Material drawn from thin air, percussion, and paint smeared across a canvas built by the framework of a normalcy that had since gone to die.
For Fuubutsushi, it was this very absence that compressed creative energy into a pressure cooker until the top blew loose.
It’s a multi-instrumentalist's wet dream—a quartet with expertise in nearly twice the number of instruments that there are band members, ripping oblong, convoluted, oddly cohesive progressions from deep left field. Their most recent ask? A live album packed with original tracks, many of which had already been released in a studio version, played in front of their first live crowd—a full 360 turn for the band that started from a time when a live audience was a nostalgic memory of a distant past.
The masterminds of it all, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage, and Patrick Shiroishi, persist as Fuubutsushi, all with the understanding that their talents shine as brilliantly together as they do in their solo work—a wonderful synergy that I hardly see with other bands at this level.
I had the privilege to sit down and chat with Matthew and Chaz about the band’s conception, the new live record, music that makes them cry, and what’s yet to come. Hope you take a read, this is a good one.
25Frank: I was reading a little bit about you guys, and I saw in a Pitchfork review that they described your music as "vital for the time" when you guys started back in COVID. When you guys first came together, did you kind of feel like you were creating this out of necessity, and did it feel vital to start it?
Chaz: That's a good question. At the time, it didn't feel vital, but it felt personally important. It felt like the world around us was shifting in new and kind of scary ways because it was. The very first record felt like an anchor of friendship and felt like something that I could turn towards and find solace in.
Matt: I also feel like if you say something is vital, that means you have something big on the line for it. For the first record, there was nothing on the line - we were just trying something out and seeing what would happen. It was more of an experiment. What we discovered from that experiment is that there's some vitality in this project for us, but also for those listening. But for me, it was just trying to make music with people I love.
Did it feel like it was a release of pent-up energy during the pandemic, or was it just something that was coming together naturally?
Matt: Oh, it was. The music was how I measured time during the pandemic. I was like, "Okay, cool, we finished one in October, and now let's get ready to do one in January." We thought maybe COVID would just last a year, so I was like, "Cool, we'll document this year while we make these records."
Chaz: Pretty similar but I had a bit of a different situation. I actually ended up working more than I ever had during that time. Going back to this idea of “vital” though, the work was a big release for us but never felt like it needed to be released for the sake of other people. Just us.
Do you feel like when this sort of release of energy started to come about, when you're making music now, like with the live record, is that the same energy that you're releasing, or is it something new with a new motivation?
Chaz: I feel like it's really just something new. Our music and all of our collaborations we do with each other grow with us and shift with us and shift with what's happening in the world. Everything, every step of the way, is kind of new, and it all captures the energy that we have at that moment.
Matt: The live record is such a... in Fuubutsushi terms, canon, but it's also so different than our studio records. We've done so many studio records, but doing this thing live was sort of a one-off, random surprise thing. The live record was a sort of discovery for me because I got so used to the system of making the remote records and the studio records. It feels like a tangent, almost, but those tangents are sort of part of what makes the band the band.
Did it feel like when you were recording the live album, it was more pressure because it was live, or less pressure because you could just do whatever to make it sound more organic?
Matt: It was a nightmare. We had maybe four hours of rehearsal total. The first two hours were really bad. It wasn’t anyone’s fault I was driving the songs on this out-of-tune piano, and everyone else was like, "Oh no, this sounds bad." Those first two hours were really scary. When we finally got to the venue and sound checked with the real piano we were going to use on stage, that's when it locked in. The pressure wasn't that we were recording - it was that I knew this was the first Fuubutsushi show and still the only one. There was pressure because it was precious.
Chaz: I second that.
With all of the EPs and other projects that you guys have strung together, it feels like a flowing narrative. Do you see it as something where the energy that started Fuubutsushi will run out and hit a period at the end of a sentence? Or is it something that you're going to see if it grows?
Chaz: With this collective of folks - Matt, Patrick, and Chris - I feel like we'll be able to grow with the music and shift and change. There's not really an "of the moment" sound that we've captured. It's kind of just what we were doing, and it sounds like that. We live very creatively generative lives, and I think that'll just go on until if we ever decide to stop. We'll all just be making music together and individually for as long as we can.
People are throwing around "minimalism" and "maximalism" - it's entirely nothing, and then suddenly it's everything. Is this a maximalist project? Where does it fall on that spectrum?
Matt: We don't talk concepts much. Usually, when a Fuubutsushi song is written, it's either Chaz or me who starts it, either on piano or guitar. We don't know if it's going to be maximal or minimal. It's almost like playing a game at this point - one of us starts and puts this thing out, then another one adds something, then someone else adds something else, and it changes the piece. I always end up being surprised. That's part of our group's formula - we don't know what we're making while we're making it. We don't stumble on our blocks trying to explain to each other what we're trying to do. People can say whatever they want about Fuubutsushi.
I love to hear that.
Chaz: I think Matt pretty much nailed it there.
When I’m listening to you guys, it sounds like everybody’s playing something with their fingers and toes at the same time. Can you give me a breakdown of who plays what?
Matt: Ha! Between the four of us, we have go-to instruments: I'm on piano, Chris is on violin, Patrick's on saxophone, Chaz is on guitar. That's the core, but we all take shifts and do other things. I do a lot of the percussion, Chris plays incredible vibraphone on several songs, and marimba. Chaz makes us a real jazz band because he uses a stand-up bass on some songs. Patrick does everything everywhere except maybe bass and violin. It's hard to say who does what, but I don't think a song is really a Fuubutsushi song until Chris plays violin on it. The violin is like the through line in everything. We're a band where we have two singers - the saxophone and the violin. The violin is the consistent voice of the band.
Chaz: I write songs thinking about how Chris can play violin on top of this. Chris does this thing where a lot of it is Chaz and me going back and forth, then Patrick comes in, and it becomes a whole new whirlwind of sound and music. The album will feel like it's 90% done, and it'll sit on Chris's desk for a long time. Then, all of a sudden, Chris will have a day and say, "Hey guys, I'm recording," and the whole album has shifted and become a whole new thing. We have to readjust what we thought it was. It's an incredible gift Chris has.
It’s always a see-saw of who does what until it’s right?
Chaz: Exactly.
Do you find that being multi-instrumentalists to this extent allows you to let go of any sort of ego and abandon the temptation to compare or sound like other people?
Chaz: We're four players who can't help but play like ourselves, whether that's because three of the four of us are extremely talented or we're just uneducated enough that we can't help it.
Matt: We've all been playing music since we were kids, so how we play is sort of an expression of our identity. When we first started making Fuubutsushi music, we threw ideas around about making something that feels sort of like jazz music, maybe ECM-oriented. But those were loose suggestions. In a lot of cases, we don't try to sound like anybody, but when we start piling on files, I go into a thing where it's like, "How can I make this feel more like Fuubutsushi?" That's a really cool feeling. We have our own distinctive style, and it's fun in the process to work out a song. I might think, "I could do this if this were an M. Sage song," but because it's Fuubutsushi, I'm like, "How am I going to make this sound like a Fuubutsushi song?" It's fun to try to make a band sound more like itself.
Can you break down the name of the band?
Chaz: The first four albums we did were called by all of our last names because we weren't expecting much. At the beginning, it was just "we're going to make this record together." Then we started seeing ourselves referred to as "Fuubutsushi."
Matt: I think Lars Gotrich, the NPR reporter, was like, "This is the most annoying band to talk about because it's four people's last names and it's really long and no one's going to remember that. We should just call this band Fuubutsushi" and I was like “maybe Lars is right.” So Lars Gotrich named our band, I guess.
Chaz: The meaning itself as I understand it is the first sense of the upcoming season that makes you nostalgic for that season to come. Like in the summer, it's the first chill in the air that makes you remember all the falls you've had. Or in the winter, it's the first time the sun comes out, and it's 80 degrees, and you remember spring and summer.
Matt: It's a sort of nostalgia attached to seasons. It's a Japanese word and doesn't really have an exact English translation.
What would the live record smell or taste like if it were a tangible thing?
Chaz: The first thing that comes up is an ice cream cone - it's like a cup with blueberry vanilla and maybe a little bit of ube ice cream.
Matt: Those are the colors I think about when I think about the band - creamy purple and white. The band is always orange in my imagination, too, because the first record is so orange.
It’s funny I was actually just thinking about this yesterday. I have a really deep sense memory of the smell of a church in the Midwest at night, because that's where we played. I grew up in an evangelical setting and would go to church at night often. There's that weird smell of church where there's still coffee in the air, and it smells weirdly clean, but also a lot of people have passed through these halls. There's a white people's church smell caught in that thin berber carpet. It was November, so it was very autumnal, and there was smoke in the air in Missouri. Church smell and smoke smell - that's the vivid feeling of the record to me.
Ube ice cream, evangelical white churches, and Missouri smoke. Fuck yeah.
Chaz: Exactly!
Matt: Chris has the most elevated and refined palate out of any of us. He's definitely the smartest person in Fuubutsushi, I think.
Are there any artists that Fuubutsushi's excited about right now?
Chaz: Matt and I both run concert series in our cities, and I'm a DJ at the local radio station, KUAA 99.9 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tuesdays. We're constantly digging and finding people that we love. We're all just in love with music. I'm so excited about what's happening around us and blown away to get to be peers with so many of these people we listen to.
Matt: That is always tripping me out most lately, you know, suddenly realizing people I looked up to were peers. For me, though, it's hard because Chaz listens to more music than anybody I know. It depends on the day.
Chaz: Last night, for example, I listened to tons of Sam Amidon and John Prine. Those John Prine songs cut to the heart - it was my brother's birthday, he passed eight years ago, and John Prine would just rip your heart out if you're feeling grief and nostalgia. I've been listening to Jeff Parker. Honestly, not even being sweet or anything, the people I listen to the most are Matt Sage and Patrick Shiroishi.
Matt: Patrick's new record is exceptional - it comes out in a couple of months.
Chaz: Matt’s new record is also absolutely incredible.
Matt: Here's the honest answer: I have a four-year-old, and he's gotten really into Raffi. We've been spending a lot of time in the Raffi discography. There are really incredible songs there. My kid loves the annoying Raffi songs like "Bananaphone," but then there are songs like "Riding in an Airplane" where the melody and changes sound almost like outlaw country. There's this deep melancholy that runs through Raffi's music that I feel like, as an adult, I get to access, but the kids don't notice. The album "Bananaphone" has a song called "The Changing Garden of Mr. Bell" about an immigrant who comes to America and plants this garden, putting hope in a future where people are helping feed each other. I was listening to it driving my kid home from school and just cried.
Wow. The last answer I expected. Maybe time I hop on the Raffi train.
Chaz: I also started watching Bluey when I would babysit my old roommate's kids. We'd watch these seven-minute episodes, and an hour would go by, and I'd be crying. For kids, Bluey is great - it teaches lessons. For adults, it's like healing whatever parental trauma you have. It's giving you the parents that you wish you'd had. But the music is crazy - it's in 7/16 and there are all these wild time signature changes. The music is part of how I cry. There's a whole episode that's just music about Bluey playing in the rain, and then his mom comes out and plays with him at the end. That's it. That's the whole episode. Every time I hear that theme, game over.
I always see TikToks about Bluey giving toddlers their first taste of empathy. The connection to the music just elevates the emotion and always makes me kinda tear up, too.
Chaz: Go back and take a close listen—it’s really devastating sometimes.
What's next for you guys?
Matt: We always want to play shows, but we are four people with four very complicated lives that pull in different directions. I want nothing more than to do a tour, but we don't know quite how to make it happen. We're also tinkering around with new music. "Meridians," the studio album before the live record, took us a really long time. I got very perfectionistic with it, and I'm happy with how it came out, but I think we're ready to be a little bit looser next time and make more music.
Chaz: We have a lot of stuff floating around that we're all slowly picking at.
Matt: Patrick and I are driving towards new records, and Chaz and I are always putting new stuff out with solo ventures or collaborative work. Chris got this great orchestra job that's demanding, and he's doing incredibly well at it. We're all sort of doing solo things, but thinking about how we can put it into new Fuubutsushi work.
Sweet