New Insight Into Japanese Breakfast’s Coachella Set

Michelle Zauner, lead vocalist for the viral indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast, provides insight into their theatrical Coachella set in an interview with Variety. 

After releasing their newest album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), in March, Japanese Breakfast is set to embark on their international tour. But before traveling worldwide, the band will play Coachella on April 12 and April 19. 

Regarding their stage set-up, Zauner shares, “We really wanted to lean into theatrical set pieces because I was inspired by operas, plays and theater work because a lot of the record feels almost very narrative and has an older feeling.”

“I’ve been working with Kat Borderud, who is our lighting designer and also creative director in a lot of ways, on the stage production,” she adds. “We are gonna have some really exciting set pieces, and then I’ve also been working with a few animators, one of which is Greg Kythreotis, who I did the score for Sable, for his video game, and I really love his art and have negotiated a deal where he is doing a lot of the animations for us, because I really like his style, for the video wall.”

Zauner also comments on the songs the band will play, noting that they now have four albums worth of songs to choose from. She expresses, “It’s really fun because Coachella is a shorter set, and we have four albums now where we can really cherry-pick what’s gonna work well in that setting.”

The singer-songwriter continues, “I feel like this album [For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)] gets painted as a quieter record, but there are also a lot of bangers. I know that there are a lot of songs that are gonna work super well in that setting, and I have had this set list in mind for quite some time that I think is going to work really well.”

This year marks Japanese Breakfast’s third time playing at Coachella, with their first performance in 2019 and their second in 2022.

Three-peats: The Marías, Still Woozy, Japanese Breakfast, and Damian Lazarus. pic.twitter.com/T533isL8Ez

— Coachella (@coachella) February 7, 2025

It will be interesting to see how Zauner visually portrays her new songs as she shares, “I feel like these are the best songs that I’ve ever written. I felt really confident, especially in the stories I was telling through the lyrics.”