The Rogers Sisters

Cheese On Toast - Interview w/ Miyuki - 09/26/06

MIYUKI FURTADO of THE ROGERS SISTERS talks to Andrew Tidball about Koala Bears, Pro-Wrestling, Die! Die! Die! and calls Matthew Crawley a mutha-fucker.

Last week I had a nice chat with Miyuki Furtado who plays bass and sings in the Rogers Sisters who are playing in Auckland on Oct 9th and Wellington Oct 10th. Invariably Miyuki gets described as the “honorary” Rogers Sister, being neither a sister nor even a sibling “It’s ok – they have to say something, I guess.” Miyuki dead-pans – “Really, I see myself more as the David Lee Roth in their Van Halen.”

I wonder of Jen and Laura, being siblings, you know blood is thicker than water, gang up on Miyuki in the band.

For a moment Miyuki answers seriously, “In any three piece there will be that dynamic when two people will argue with the third.” then he giggles – “We take turns..”

Like a tag-team?

“It’s exactly like professional wrestling. I do a really mean clothes-line.
Laura has got some spunk in her – that girl can fight! And, y’know Jen has probably got some secret moves.. I wouldn’t put it past her to try something sneaky one day.”

I told him about how at the Mint Chicks album release party there were professional wrestlers as the support act. I could tell he was impressed – there was a pregnant pause for a moment,

“Thats so fucking cool”

“Actually my grandmother…”

Was a pro-wrestler – I couldn’t help interject…

“Yes, exactly, my grandmother was a pro-wrestler” Miyuki deadpans again before giggling.
“Her favorite was Japanese wrestler was Tiger Mask – my favorite was Giant Ba Ba – who was kinda a Japanese version of Andre the Giant – he’d hit adversaries in slow motion. Really, really cool”

Of course it wasn’t that long ago that The Rogers Sisters were in New Zealand. Miyuki recalls meeting me at Wellington airport (we were on the same flight to Auckland) which kinda impressed me that he actually remembered given it was ridiculously early in the morning and they were about the play their lst show of a world-wide tour and looked suitably shattered. Did he have a good time here?

“I really did – NZ was definitely one of the places on my check list to go to – and it really met all my expectations.”

I wondered what those expectations were.

“That the coast would be really spectacular and that kiwi’s were really nice.” Such a diplomat!

He held a Koala in Australia. “They’re really soft, but apparently really bad-tempered” he told me with some authority. The conversation turned briefly to Steve Irwin’s recent tragic death – I’m not really sure how or why…

“Yeah it’s really big news here – I guess Steve Irwin is one of the most recognizable Australians in the US. There’s talk of the tape of his death being released – but I think that’d be in real poor taste if that happened.”

I asked Miyuki what NZ bands he had heard of – he rattled of the obligatory The Clean and The Dead C – he knew The Mint Chicks and he’d just seen Die! Die! Die! play at “a trendy dance club in New York – which was really weird – there were all these trendy dance kids in the audience not really knowing what was going on – but they were awesome!”

Miyuki’s dad was in the US State Department and as a result, Miyuki got to travel a lot as a youngster – he lived in Liberia, Japan, and Switzerland before Baltimore and now New York. I wondered if traveling so much as a young person has influenced him musically.

“Yeah totally – you hear so much music as you travel – it’s hard for that not to influence you.”

I wonder if there’s a musical influence that people may be surprised by.

“I’m influenced a lot be reggae”

Miyuki was surprised to find out that New Zealand has a huge reggae movement – possibly one to rival Jamaica – I joked that it was a ‘coincidence’ that our national day – Waitangi Day just happend to also be Bob Marley’s birthday. Miyuki agreed – he smells the pungent stench of a conspiracy too.

I had read that Miyuki’s ‘audition’ to join the Rogers Sisters was a karaoke bar where he did a rendition of Purple Rain. Miyuki corrects this – “Actually I had already joined the band the night before – but they didn’t knwo I could sing until we went to this dive bar in Chinatown and I was on my knees screaming my lungs out to Purple Rain.”

I had been speaking to Matthew – the lead singer of The Cosbys who are supporting The Rogers Sisters this time around, moments before the interview and he suggested I asked Miyuki if he knew “That The Cosbys were going to blow you away”

Miyuki laughed “Bring it on muthafucker!”

Cheese On Toast