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May 01, 2004
Premed to Pop Charts
By Victoria Kung
Date: Spring 2004
Source: Issue No. 10, SHEI Magazine shei@umich.edu/~sheimaga
• Golden Melody Awards (Taiwanese/Malaysian Grammy) for “Best Male Vocalist” – 4
• Golden Melody’s “Best Singer-Songwriter” – only 3.
• Golden Melody’s “Best Producer” – 2…for now.
Need I go on? Even for those who don’t follow the Taiwanese music scene, you don’t have to be the president of the United States to figure out Wang Lee Hom is nothing short of a bona fide superstar on that other big continent known as Asia. With nine successful albums and counting and four movies under his belt, it’s no surprise he’s a favorite among the paparazzi as well. But Wang is no flaky “zhi shang ming xing,” which literally means “celebrity on paper.” In addition to writing, producing, and performing all of his own music since his debut in 1998, he is also proficient in over ten musical instruments, a résumé few pop stars can lay claim to. Not to worry, though, from what I can tell, he’s still the well brought up kid from the suburbs at heart with big talent, big dreams, and a killer haircut. With the froth of celebrity scooped aside, music remains his top priority.
Around 10:55 AM on a fantastically freezing Michigan morning, I find myself obsessively checking my cell phone every twenty seconds while waiting for a much anticipated call from Wang Lee Hom. Fifteen minutes later, my cell phone bursts into polyphonic Mozart and reads: Unknown caller. Sh*t! “Hello?”
He is well-spoken, friendly, and sincere—I completely forget that I’m freezing my shorts off. We chirp greetings to each other, talk about the weather, and swap a few words on being good ol’ Rochester, New York natives. Although I would have loved to continue chatting, with the thirteen-hour time difference, it is around midnight in Taiwan. Knowing that he has a long day of concert rehearsals ahead of him, I immediately dive into the interview.
Having just returned from Japan after recording his first Japanese album, Wang is no stranger to the airport. As the artist explains, “With my Japanese album, I literally finished the album and walked out of the studio to catch my plane back to Taiwan.” So, we know he hops around on a plane a lot and is often under the hot pressure of a mind-boggling schedule. Where does the guy find time to search for new material? Surprisingly, Wang says that his most creative hour is, well, crunch time: “I feel that I’m most creative when there’s a lot of pressure on me…like, if it’s 5 AM and I have to have something done by 10.” Plus, no matter where his job takes him, Wang always has a cell phone or something gadgety handy to catch those elusive moments of illumination. “It’s just a habit I have,” he explains, “I don’t want to lose the moment, so the idea is to hoard as many inspirational moments as I can”
The lyrical inception of “Frozen Dreams,” one of his earlier songs, for example, was literally penned via the Internet by the fans, for the fans. He asked devotees from around the globe to write him one line on what came to mind when they heard the phrase “frozen dreams.” Hundreds of emails later, Wang was able to cut, paste, and integrate these lines into a seamless, musical gem. Imagine a younger Lee Hom, fresh out of Williams College, beaming with optimism, and set on improving the world through music. “I was aware of how fortunate I was for having found a career that allowed me to do something that I loved. So knowing that a lot of young people were constantly struggling with that aspect of their lives, I wanted to reflect that feeling of having one's dreams put on hold,” he graciously explains.
Although the experienced musician has been in movies, commercials, and concerts across Asia, Wang has never lost his optimistic enthusiasm about the potential of Chinese pop music. Currently working on his tenth Mandarin album, the excitement he feels is delightfully evident in his voice as he describes his work as “breaking new ground.” According to Wang, “The Chinese music scene is exploding right now. It’s finally opening up and the government is starting to do something about piracy. Everyone in China and Taiwan is looking forward to the future…with the Olympics coming up in 2008 they’re more than ready. All this optimism, in turn, reflects onto the Chinese music scene. What’s most important to me is for Chinese music to have its own distinct sound and identity, but also international—so people can appreciate the music regardless of language and be able to say, ‘I totally dig that’ even though they don’t understand what the song is saying. That’s my ultimate goal.” Spoken like a true reformer.
For his upcoming record, Wang plans on going places few have thought to venture. “I’ve been traveling around China and recording a lot of [Chinese] ethnic minorities, or what they call ‘shao shu ming zhu.’ I want to integrate a lot of those elements into hip hop and R&B. Most young folks are not learning these languages or carrying on the traditions, so I wanted to capture that [in this album].” As far as an English release is concerned, he says, “I’ve been working on it for some time now…with Joshua Thompson who produced Alicia Keys and Joe. There’s one song that I did with him on my last album called ‘Not Your Average Thug.’” It might not be too much longer before we’ll have the pleasure of hearing the album in its entirety.
His professional life is everybody’s business, but how this small-town talent leaped to international fame is a little more mysterious. What was he doing after graduation? Deciding to pursue music is a big deal to a predominantly academic lot like us, and not exactly a widely parent-approved major. Simply put, “how’d it all happen?”
“I went into college to study premed,” he responds. “Both my dad and my brother are doctors. I had no idea what I wanted to do…but I knew it just wasn’t for me…It was very drawn out, and there was a lot of doubt and hesitation.” Sound familiar? However, because he started playing violin when he was six years old at the Eastman School of Music, Wang was “surrounded by musicians and professors” throughout his life. “I knew that music was a tough road and that it could be bitter and reject you. It was a reality I always expected,” he says. When he asked his teacher if he was good enough to be a professional violinist, she responded quite simply: “If you need to ask, you shouldn’t.”
A veil was lifted, and “I started to realize that ‘who’s the most talented’ is not the whole story. You also have to know without question that ‘this is what I want to do.’ After my second album, which did well in Asia, I began to realize this may be a viable route. Before I had just thought of it as a summer job…but now, I really feel like a fish in water because I’m willing to spend sleepless nights doing this. I think it’s so important to find out what it is you want to do, and then to do everything in your power to make it happen—that’s sort of my message to young people.”
Poignant, no? And I didn’t have a recording device! While I scramble to get his words all down on paper, covered edge to edge by my abominable handwriting, he asks me, “Is this what you want to do? Write? Journalism?” Unprepared and slightly flustered from swallowing a bit of my own inquisitive medicine, I mumble out a quasi-coherent response: “Um. I don’t know. Maybe, I guess. ” I quickly pinch myself—hard—and try redeeming myself by adding, “We’ll see if I still have a job after this.” Whatever happens in the future, whether or not I’ll be employed, period, Wang gets a gold star from me for his stellar definition of creativity. “How would you define ‘creativity?’ What does that mean to you?” I asked him.
“Making something into nothing…that, to me, is such a thrill.”
Posted by staff at May 1, 2004 03:01 PM