1. Hi Jamie, how are you?
Jamie Stewart: - Pretty good who are you?

2. When have you started to play music? Would you like to tell us about your first musical experiences?
Jamie: - My dad was a record producer so there were always guitars and keyboards around the house but i did not do much more than make noises on them until I was about 13 and started my first band. It was called the lime green leisure suits and we did Wierd Al Yankovich joke covers of songs and we made up mean songs about other kid in our school and then would sell them the tapes. Needless to say we became very very unpopular.

3. How did you come up with the name Xiu Xiu?
Jamie: - It is from a movie by Joan Chen called "Xiu xiu the sent down girl." xiu xiu is the main character. Her life in the movie falls into deeper and deeper pits and she is unable to get herself out until she dies. When we were first writing songs for the band alot of the songs were about hard and unresloved events in our lives so it seemed appropriate.

4. Which emotions or messages do you like to spread to your public with your music?
Jamie: - All of the songs are documents of things that are happening or have happened to us or people close to us. So there is no real message except for that we are tyring to be as honest and open as we can. Sometimes, often, those events have been horrible and depressing. But they can, hopfully be wonderful as well.

5. What does it mean to you to compose this kind of music? And what do you hope to achieve through your project?
Jamie: - I am not sure what we are trying to achieve. i have been thinking about it alot as we have been getting asked alot lately. Nearly all of the composers and bands that have touched us have made intensely personal music and that has meant everything to us. I think we want to try and keep that level of heart and risk up in our attempt to make music. We are trying to mean everything we are playing and perhaps it will become part of someone elses life. To us any art that is just for style or cool or party but does not give something true of and from the person making it is totally lame.

6. We've read your project being described as 'post-punk', 'post-rock', 'experimental/rock', ... how do you see it, and what do you think of all these genre & subgenre labels?
Jamie: - Oh i don't know that it really matters that much. whatever is ok with me.
I do not really think about how we see it. I am too spazzed out most of the time.

7. To what is "Fabulous Muscles" inspired? Which are the motivations, which have lead you to realise such album? Which are its musical contents? Which kind of atmosphere have you underlined most?
Jamie: - That record is about things that happened between september 2002 and septemeber 2003. All of the songs are about very specific events and/or people. My family, my father's recent suicide, the american soldiers in the war in Iraq, falling in love, what my baby niece's new life might be like, a student in my class getting repeatedly raped by his brother. Over all of this is the idea of power, how it is thrust onto people to such a degree that they begin to, beyond thier will, love and accept the people abusing or killing.

8. Which are the substantial differences into your CDs from the first release to "Fabulous Muscles"?
Jamie: - That is hard for me to answer from the inside of the band. it is hard to be objective and say. there are of course lots of things that have changed but it is hard to understand how they have effected things as we are the people making those changes. One most fundamental thing has been that it started as a band with a regular line up that practiced twice a week to more of a collaborative that records together a few times a year and tours all the time.

9. Can you describe the process you take in writing your music?
Jamie: - Ugh, it is very slow and painstaking. There is never any regular way of doing things. More often than other ways i will record a bunch of scetches into the computer and try to arrange them into something either alone or with other people. Usually the subject of the song is decided ahead of time and the music is worked out with that person's history or event in mind. It takes along time to finished things. This answer is boring sorry.

10. What is the inspiration for your lyrics?
Jamie: - People who i know and how we work into each others lives, what has happened to them or myslef, what is happening to them or myself, how they and that feels. All of the songs are about facts and what those facts might mean.

11. Who are the past artists who have formed your musical culture? While who are the modern ones you listen and prefer more?
Jamie: - I grew up listening, thanks to my mom and dad, alot of motown, stax, and sun records artists and The Beatles. The first genre i got into myself was reggae. There was a public station that played it on sundays and i was trying as hard as I could to find something new. Most of what my friends listened to was terrible heavy metal that i was too freaked out by. Some of the first records I bought myself were The Cure, Prince and Kenyan Funeral chants. Those still hold up and the funeral chants go me interested in non-western traditional musics. Today mostly l isten to alot of things i liked growing up, like The Smiths etc. But beyond that lots of modern and canon classical music and experimental music. There is a great dance station in Seattle, so that goes on in the car alot during errands.

12. What are you listening to these days?
Jamie: - A lot of recorded books. I have to drive alot so that helps. right now "black boy / american hunger" by Richard Wright and "6 days" about the 1967 arab/israel war.
Music would be arvo part choral works, this song is a mess..., pendereki and cassiotone for the painfully alone. (we are doing a remix of one of his songs so i have been getting into his stuff again.)

13. What's in the future for Xiu Xiu?
Jamie: - The ususal stuff touring and more recording. I wish had something cooler to say like that we are using microphones to contruct a jet that will make you impervious to gun shots or something.

14. Is there anything else you would like to mention about your project?
Jamie: - I think Caralee and I are going to record the cat today and see if we can write a song about her. We are obsessed and can't stop talking about her. MEOW!!!!!!!!!!