Ikue Mori Quotations

Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around '84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn't make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York.

I got tired of different drum sounds so you buy different effects for more manipulation.

I'm interested in stories and the dark side of peoples' minds.

Improvising things is always changing. A lot of momentum.

Come to think of it, the way I play is like a drum machine- very mechanical.

With a rock band, you play the same things over and over and over.

Because it's dance music, you can't really have a lot of changing in there. It's really not for me because there's too much repetition. I like more diversity.

The most important thing is that it's much more fun to play in a band than to be in an audience in a club. That's the main thing I think, that you can do it.

The way I create music is maybe like a painting, to compose in a more visual way. Basically it's the music that I want to hear- that's my inspiration and bottom line. I just try to get ideas from books, movies, paintings.

I really didn't intend to be a musician when I left Japan.

I still think that I'm playing instruments, not just pushing buttons and there it goes. It's interactive and alive with the sound and the manipulation and it plays like instruments.

So now I don't have time to practice drums. It's been five years since I've touched the drums.

I always wanted to get out of Tokyo and in 1977, New York seemed like the most interesting place to visit. I didn't intend to live here- I just wanted to get out and see what was happening. I just happened to stay here then.

I was playing in other rock bands. Any of those bands didn't last long.

I've done some music for films and I really enjoy doing it.

Mars is really different, into art. Lydia Lunch is more energy. James Chance is more commercial in a different way, in funk and jazz. They were all doing original things, trying to create their own sound and music. I think they're all great.

Somebody gave me this drum machine and somebody else asked me to program something for a project. I really liked programming and I was really interested in using the drum machine.

That was the most I could pull out from these three drum machines with sound and texture and orchestrations- that's what I'm trying to do.

DNA wasn't as beat orientated as other bands. It's more like thrash metal music than rock music- it was very fast and the songs were very short.

It's a very primitive way of drumming like the way you play with big sticks: this is called taiko. That was a big influence on me.

I started listened to music in the late '60s- it was all rock music. Jimi Hendrix, the Doors. They didn't really influence me, I just listened to it.

I just got a grant from the artists space, Roulette. It's for chamber music, electronics and percussion. That's going to be my work for next year.

Blood and death. That moves me.