As part of this year’s coverage of the San Diego Comic Con, I was lucky enough to secure an interview with Yumi Yoshimura, one half of the international pop sensation, PUFFY AMIYUMI. With four full length albums, multiple hit singles, DVDs, a popular television show, and even a line of shoes under their belts, one would assume that a mega star such as this would be unapproachable. That just was not the case.

After a lengthy autograph session, the ever gracious Yumi took some time out to give the low down on their new album and just what went into making it. Being the huge fan that I am, this was like a dream come true…

Enjoy the interview.

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[KFC Cinema]: First off, I wanted to know if you had anything to say about the new album, NICE.

[Yumi]: With this album we feel that it’s something that can be listened to at anywhere and at anytime. Usually for an album you’d say, “Oh, this is good to listen while driving or before you go to sleep.” For this album, it’s like any situation will fit with the album and I feel it’s been made out to be a good thing.

[KFC Cinema]: Absolutely, I agree. I had a chance to listen to the album last night and noticed the transitions from ballads to the more pop driven songs as well as the single for the TEEN TITANS series, and overall, it works really well.

[Yumi]: Thank you!

[KFCC]: You’re welcome.

[KFCC]: Do you have any thoughts on the song writing process? From inception, do you work with the actual song writers?

[Yumi]: Andy Sturmer is the producer. We’d request certain types of songs be made, but otherwise we like the JELLYFISH (Sturmer’s own band) and the types of songs that he makes. We pretty much left it up to him to do everything, but we’ve been involved in the process since the very beginning and we say what we feel. We’re in it, but we kind of leave it up to Andy also.

[KFCC]: It’s more of an input basis as opposed to a soul creation on your part? Is Andy Sturmer more so responsible for creating the music on NICE whereas you’re more on the performance end of things?

[Yumi]: When we would request a certain type of song to be made, Andy would make a couple of songs and with that we would be like, “Could you make it a little bit faster?” or “Could you make it a little more ‘up tempo’ or with a little bit more guitar?” We definitely had a lot of control with our opinions. You can’t just categorize Andy as a creator though, because he’s much more involved than that. He’s very respected because he’s had much more experience in the industry, probably listened to a lot more music. We respect him in that regards.

[KFCC]: Was the creation of the album, the actual production in the studio, performed in the United States or was it recorded in Japan?

[Yumi]: Four of the songs were taken in Japan but the rest was recorded in L.A.

[KFCC]: Andy was the head of production in both the U.S. as well as Japan?

[Yumi]: He was there the whole time. He was the head over the entire production. As for the differences between the two styles goes, in Japan we’re at home and people often say that “sleeping in your own bed…” it was that kind of situation, we were more comfortable in Japan. In the States nothing, no other interferences happened. We were here only for the recording, for that process. Since working in the U.S. was good, we were able to keep our minds only on the creation of the album.

[KFCC]: PUFFY sings the theme song for the new cartoon series “TEEN TITANS,” exactly how did that come about?

[Yumi]: Cartoon network offered us the opportunity to sing the theme song for TEEN TITANS. We were like “Oh yeah, sure!” We were really surprised but of course we took it.

[KFCC]: Would you mind answering a couple of questions about Ami?

[Yumi]: (laughing) Ok, I’ll try my best.

[KFCC]: How is she doing since she had her baby? What’s going on in her life right now? Is she involved in any way, either in the U.S. or Japan, with the marketing at all?

[Yumi]: In regards to how she’s doing, she’s quite well. Since the child is really small she couldn’t leave it to come and join us. Working on raising her child is the focus of her attention at the moment.

[KFCC]: So her she’s focused on the child right now but is she in anyway involved in the marketing of NICE in Japan?

[Yumi]: During the promotion time of NICE in Japan her stomach was still big but of course she would do as much as she could within her limits.

[KFCC]: What are the future plans for Puffy both immediate and future? Are there any plans for a U.S. tour, considering the birth of the child? How about plans of U.S. released music videos?

[Yumi]: As of right now we don’t have any exact plans but hopefully we’ll try to gradually schedule something in and fit some dates in over time, but basically both Ami and myself enjoy doing what we love. We just like to have fun so we’ll continue in that direction. As for music videos, there are no plans.

[KFCC]: Puffy has several dvds released in Japan, are there any plans on releasing a dvd here in America or Canada?

[Yumi]: As of now there are no plans, but since we’ve gone through the trouble to make and film the U.S. tour we hope to plan on releasing it here sometime in the future. A DVD was released in Japan for that tour though, so yeah, it would be great if we could get it out here.

PuffyAmiYumi Official Web Site: http://www.puffyamiyumi.com/

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Brandon Fincher
09/02/2003