1)Would you like to introduce yourself?
Ok. I’m Jessica Stuart. I write music and lyrics and play the Japanese traditional 13-stringed koto, guitar and sing. I’ve been releasing my music under the name The Jessica Stuart Few for a decade, but I’m making the switch to just Jessica Stuart now.

2)When and why did you start playing?
Started singing earlier than i have a memory of – my mother is an incredibly accomplished professional musician and my household was filled with music growing up. I started played koto at age 9 when my family lived in Japan for a year. My mother already played koto and shamisen from several years living in Japan before i was born, and I expressed interest in learning when we got there, so her and I took lessons together with her koto teacher in Nagano prefecture. I started playing guitar as a teenager after I heard Led Zeppelin for the first time, and it’s been my main instrument ever since. Outside of my original music (which is half koto, half guitar with bass, drums, vox), I am a professional guitarist for hire, and play in lots of other people’s projects and do studio stuff.

3)What is your favourite part about this line of work?Your least favourite?Why?I love the variety of freelance musician life. I’m into so many types of music and love playing and performing in all sorts of wonderful and wacky circumstances. I also love traveling and have been able to tour all over the world with music. The thing I hate the most is the administrative underbelly of doing music as a living – so much time in front of the computer, it’s so annoying, but necessary unless you can afford to hire someone to do it for you.

4)Is there a hidden meanings in your work that you are surprised that nobody spotted (or that was noticed quicker than you expected)?
Sometimes I make a musical joke here and there, for instance two albums ago, on Two Sides To Every Story (2013) I included an arrangement of a cover song for the first time – it was Here Comes The Rain by Eurythmics, and as I was working on the arrangement, I kept mistakenly playing parts of Shades Of Love (I wear my sunglasses at night) by Corey Hart. So I thought I’d musically quote Shades Of Love in the arrangement as a little secret fun for those who notice it. Otherwise, I think the meaning in my music is fairly transparent.

5)How do you handle mistakes during a performance?
Usually a smile is my tell. 😊 I’ve understood from a long time ago that you just need to keep playing without dropping a beat, since I’ve always played with bands, and there’s no other way to do it unless your group’s ESP is exceptional. If I’m playing solo, then I can stop if I’d like, although I don’t usually, but sometimes it can make a cool moment if I forget the lyrics and ask the audience to remind of the lyrics to my own song. heheh. Doesn’t happen often but best to just embrace it when it does. When I was a less experienced performer, I used to get really upset at myself when I’d make mistakes on stage, but I realized the more I played that that kind of energy is not helpful to myself or the enjoyment of the listener, and in fact is totally ego-based. I can only be as good as I am on any given day, so it’s best to accept however I might sound and move on.

6)Which of your tracks would you recommend for any new listeners?
Well I’m most excited about my brand new tune “Fukue’s Theme Part I” from the “Finding Fukue” film soundtrack (yah, so CBC/Loud Road Productions made a documentary about me searching for my long lost friend in Japan this year, and it happened to go unexpectedly viral..). For those who don’t know what the koto sounds like, this is a good intro to it, and it kinda sums up my not-in-a-box songwriting style, where I just wanna take the listener with me on a trip away from the mundane and this world, into another time and space. The next listening recommendation would be “Same Girl” off my last full-length The Passage (The Jessica Stuart Few) which has a super rad music video I made with animators KAJART that took literally 150 hours to shoot through grafitti-ed areas of Toronto. It also has some of my guitar students singing on it which is super cool.

7)If you were given the power to do so, which overused interview question would you have banned?
I generally hate the question about band name origin, but I guess now that I’m using Jessica Stuart instead of The Jessica Stuart Few, I might have just averted that question forever! muahahhahah. (heeeheeeee)

8)And, most importantly, what is your favourite type of cookie?
Peanut Butter. Crumbly type. Numm.