From Hiroshima to Hackney

Looking back, I had almost forgotten why I had a guitar initially. I was spending a lot of time practicing scales and chords then. Soon I started forming a band with local kids. My teen band had a little poke in the music industry but I decided not to stay in Japan. I just wanted to see where all this music came from.

It was a beautiful cherry blossoming time in Hiroshima when I first left home for London. Although it was unexpectedly cold and wet, everything looked glowing and fine. The migration was a symbol of liberty for a girl that had just come from a sleepy coastal village in Japan, but it was also a great pressure that I had to overcome. The language barrier was a lot higher than I could cope. Urban wind was extremely harsh. Everyday living was a struggle, let along forming a band. But something kept me going. Ever since then, I've seen so many great bands, played too many gigs in toilet venues, been up and down emotionally and it seems almost time to get what I really want.

I had other offers to join bands but I kept turning them down until I met these young guys from London and this Chow Chow-like American. It was the young Yuck everyone fell in love with. And it was the start of living in my dream. It was so easy to play a gig every night but not so easy in other aspects. The intense schedule of touring and having no space for ourselves more or less affected all of us, but it hit Daniel worst. He ended up quitting the band and we had to get over the fact that we lost our face and our initial hype. I have no grudge towards Daniel or regret in our decisions. People gossiped; who knows how our future will turn out to be. People change their minds so often and quickly like a clear sky. That's the beauty of it. It seems like we have done it all. Everything from the textbook of 'Being in a Band'.

Now we are on our third album. That is an amazing achievement to me. I have always had a vision of myself being in a band and playing music on stage with a room full of people going mental. The lights are hot so every time I shake my head the sweat drips and reflects the multiple colours. My hearing is almost gone...

My dad doesn't say much but I can see he's proud because he gave me a dream to live in.

Yuck's latest album, Stranger Things, is out today on Mamé Records. They launch it with two shows at Hackney's Moth Club, tonight and tomorrow, before touring.