It takes guts to perform in front of thousands of people on tour every night, but it can be even more nerve-wracking to play to an empty room, when it's just you and your thoughts (and a camera). Free People Sessions, a new video series from Free People's We the Free brand, aims to take artists out of their usual spaces (the stage, the studio) and into more intimate and unexpected settings. The first guest, The Japanese House aka Amber Bain, took to a mid-century house overlooking the Los Angeles skyline with just an acoustic guitar for a sunset rendition of her song “Boyhood”. The experience was different in the best way, Bain told NYLON: “Normally, when I'm recording, I have headphones on and I'm allowed to have microphones in my ears. But this time, it was just me and the guitar, and it felt very natural. I could connect more with the song in some way.”
Bain released his second album, In the end, it always does, received critical acclaim last year and is taking it on the road this year, with a Coachella performance already on the horizon. She's currently opening for Maggie Rogers on her arena tour, and later this summer she'll be heading out on a North American headlining tour with stops at festivals like Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Outside Lands. The Rogers tour has become a cleansing experience for Bain: “I'm doing this tour sober. I'm taking a break from alcohol. I have to take little breaks often, and it's been interesting to notice how much I use alcohol as medicine for my anxiety.”
In his Free People Sessions interview, he talks about the anxieties that come with the hectic lifestyle of a musician, and continues, “The type of brain that writes songs is constantly thinking and anxious.” He's riding the wave of anxiety, literally and figuratively, mentioning how the chaos of the surf forces him to give up in the moment. As well as finding solace in extreme sports, he's also found that just going to bed is also a good remedy: “If you can keep things quite boring or quite central, it feels more sustainable. It's the extreme extremes that create the extreme minimums”.
In addition to thrill-seeking activities and sleep, Bain remains calm and at the time with the book club started with his band. They just finished the James Baldwin one Giovanni's room and now they are starting Jacqueline Harpman's I have never met menwhich Bain says “is going to be very depressing.”
The band will be playing songs from their new album and their favorites throughout the summer, but the song she's most excited to play is the unreleased 'Smiley Face', which will be released at the end of June, as she tells us: ” I've never played a song that I haven't released before. It brings me joy and it seems to bring joy to the crowd, which is a nice feeling because they've never heard it before.” It's clear that Bain doesn't need much to make an impact, and her stripped-down performance for the Free People Sessions shows that she can bring joy anywhere, even if it's just her voice and guitar.
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