James Iha

“Yeah, I'm sure there are stereotypes of Asian people.”

“I like the challenges of doing different things. It keeps things fresh for me.”

“Well, I'm pretty domestic actually. I walk my dog. I go grocery shopping. I hang out with friends. I'm pretty normal, whatever normal is, on my off time.”

“It's much easier to work on other people's music and play in other people's bands as a guitar player instead of being the main songwriter and singer. That's a really big job to do that.”

“It's hard enough to make a good song and a good recording of that song. But to try to tailor it to some outside force is just like - It's never been a factor in what I've done or what the band's done.”

“I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.”

“No, I've heard over the years that it's nice for them to see somebody who's like, you know, a well-known successful musician who's Asian. I've heard it from a few musicians, too.”

“I started a recording studio. I started producing people and doing remixes.”

“My first job in NYC was playing a gig in the early nineties at CBGBs.”

“If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.”

“The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.”

“You know, it's going to be a really long tour, and well, I guess I'll see what happens with A Perfect Circle, 'cause they do other projects too, and I don't know. I hope I can always do a lot of different things, do 'em well.”

“Well, we didn't have our original drummer on our last record. And most of that album was not played as a band in the studio. It was mostly the world of computers and overdubs. There was very few things played live or worked out as a band.”

“So there was something of a learning curve with doing your own thing and people seeing you outside of the band. I mean, people have never really heard my voice before - or heard a whole record of mine before. So it was a completely new experience.”

“I love a lot of the New York bands, but Patti Smith stands out. I just read 'Just Kids' and it's an inspirational, well-written account of an emerging New York artist in the late seventies.”

“I think if you're able to make the music you want and you can do it in the right kind of context, you don't have to be a circus ringleader to be successful.”

“It's not like that often, I mean, I suppose out of a ratio of 10 fans maybe like 1 or 2 of 'em might be Asian, and maybe every second or third time they might bring up something that they're Asian and I'm Asian.”

“There is a lot of work just in terms of traveling and logistics and people and gear and all that kind of stuff. But I never really have problems playing music. That never seems like work.”

“But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there's any barriers. I've never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.”

“At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player.”