*Interview by Felicia Chin
Leehom’s boyish good looks may make your heart flip-flop and flutter, his melodic voice may render you a little helpless; but more resides behind that appealing exterior and extraordinary musical talent.
This 34-year-old Chinese pop-sensation goes beyond his call of duty as an artist and pushes everything to new levels. The interview gives you an insight to the inner workings and philosophical viewpoints of Leehom. You’ll be taking a peek into ‘All the Things You Never Knew’ about this multi-talented artist in order to appreciate his creative endeavours more than you have before.
Leehom sheds some light on his new album The 18 Martial Arts, directing Love In Disguise while starring in it, addressing the “gay” issue in the movie, collaborating with Usher, finding his soul-mate and having “arrived” in his career.
Q: How’s The 18 Martial Arts different from all your other albums?
A: The biggest difference is that I combined a movie with an album. I don’t think anybody has ever done that in
Q: How do you think acting and directing has influenced your music?
A: It has changed my music a lot, especially the inspiration for each song. When I get into a character or a story, I start finding myself writing from their perspective. It’s very different from writing in my own perspective. That happened in Lust Caution, when I got into that character of Kuang Yu Min, I started writing these very weird lyrics and old, old styled melodies that are very different from what I’d typically do. So, there was no hip hop in that album at all. It was very retro music from the 30s, 40s and 50s.
For this album, because I was playing the part of a pop star, even the beginning of the opening song was very hip hop and dance-not something that I do typically-but I was thinking to create that character, what kind of music would he do? Some of the songs in the album are definitely Du Ming Han’s songs.
Q: Which came first, the album or the movie?
A: They were both growing at the same time, these two halves of my brain.
Q: You played many roles in your new movie by acting and directing. What was your biggest challenge?
A: The biggest challenge was directing because it’s a very difficult job and something that I did not have much experience doing. Music is my neighbourhood; I drive around every corner I just know so well. But directing was a new area, so there were a lot of roads that I had to tread and trick. It took more time and I was less familiar with the territory. Now, that I have tread that path, I know how to accomplish a lot of things that I have never done before. In future projects I will definitely be more informed.
Q: Tell us some things about you that we never knew...
A: The movie reveals a lot of things that you never knew. Ah Duh the character is probably closer to the real me than the pop star Du Ming Han. You’ll see me being really goofy, silly, awkward...stupid [laughs]. I think that’s a lot more the guy that I am in real life. I didn’t mean to create some autobiographical parts of this movie but I think inevitably that happened.
Q: Would you fall for a school girl?
A: Well, [leans back to think about it for a second]...if she played the zheng like that, then, maybe...yeah.
Q: You addressed the “gay” issue in the movie and highlighted it in the trailer. Why did you do that?
A: I wanted to give people a taste of the kind of sarcasm and humour that might be in this film. I’ve been in the pop culture industry for so long and seen so many things that are really ridiculous. I deal with those things on a daily basis in a sarcastic and humorous way myself when these things happen to me. There is no other way to deal with that kind of thing than to make light of it and joke about it.
Q: What has happened in your life that has caused you to be so reflective and philosophical in this album at such a young age?
A: I started at such a young age. My first time to
Starting out to do a movie was like this abstract and almost untouchable mountain. Then you do it and once it’s done you realize that you’ve actually climbed the mountain. Sure there’re other mountains even higher and more fantastic. But then you gain a deeper understanding about what you really want in life. So that’s why I wrote in this album a bunch of songs that were much simpler, realistic and meaningful.
Q: You act, direct and play so many musical instruments. Are you concerned that people will see you as a jack of all trades but a master of none?
A: This is a very cool term [lights up]. I love, in language, when people come up with these idioms. In English, Jack of all trades but master of none is a very pessimistic way of looking at it. In Chinese, we say 18 Martial Arts and each one you can master. It’s the same idiom but with an optimistic twist to it. I like this idiom that’s why I made it the title of my album.
In our day and age people change professions so often. It’s not like you’re just a blacksmith for your whole life like people used to be. Now, people have to be more renaissance-like, open minded to different styles, different skills and not be afraid to take on things they don’t know. Like being a director, I did not know how to do that in the beginning but I just jumped into it. Sure, there were setbacks but I survived, grew and learnt a lot from the experience.
Q: You said it’s difficult being the director, why did you play the main lead instead of commissioning an actor?
A: Because of the nature of the script. I wrote it so I kind of had myself in mind from the beginning. I just wanted to take advantage of the fact that I can have this actor, [points to himself] working for free [laughs].
Q: You talk about finding your soul mate in the movie, what is your soul mate like in real life?
A: I think it’s a very abstract concept and that’s what makes it beautiful and so appealing. In reality, it might not be so concrete. But in the movie you can give people the illusion and the feeling of what it might feel like. I think that’s enough.
Q: For someone who does not like to talk about his love life, why did you decide to do something like Love in Disguise?
A: I am a romantic and sentimental person and this is what I wanted to say when I wrote the story. I did it with complete disregard to any kind of qualms I might have about my own personal life. In the beginning, I kept on telling myself that this is the story of this other guy...I kept telling myself that it’s not Wang Leehom. I really believed that.
Q: How would you define having arrived in your career?
A: I think I arrived a long time ago. There are different kinds of arrivals that I continue to make. I guess I arrived as a director this year...I’ve arrived as an actor; I’ve arrived as a musician. I don’t want to put a past tense to it.
I learnt a lot this year...When am I really done? When am I done editing? I mean there are so many different things in this movie that I could have just gone crazy about it for another half a year maybe. But there’s always a point where you’ve got to say, this is done, let’s move on to the next thing. So that applies to your career as well.
When have I arrived? I won such and such an award so... haha ‘pat yourself on the back’ ...I would never do that. I am always thinking, this is an experience, it’s a process and the process is a lot more important to me than the result.
Q: Do you plan to take your music West?
A: I think my music does go West and I think 10-years-ago we used to talk about like going into
The same as
Q: What about audiences? How do we get audiences from the West to look East in terms of music?
A: It’s harder than film and television because in film and TV you can have subtitles. I saw Love in Disguise yesterday and there were [subtitles] in Malay...I was like ‘Whoa!’ It’s much more accessible to somebody who’s not a native speaker to watch a foreign language film with subtitles than it is to listen to a foreign language song and get into it.
It happens very rarely and it’s always a particular type of song that can cross-over like -‘Sorry Sorry’ from Super Junior, ‘Nobody’ by the Wonder Girls or ‘Macarena’. It’s always a particular type of song that can go worldwide. Maybe the lyrics did not mean much anyway [laughs]. It’s like this whole specific vibe that everybody can just dig. I don’t really see myself doing that, but I see myself collaborating with international artists. Another way of attracting Western audiences to Chinese music is by working with Western artists.
Q: Do you have any names in mind?
A: Well, Usher. We had a great time together. I think he is very open-minded. So, that’ll be a great start. We’re good friends now. He sings in Chinese quite well actually. He had the whole song ‘Wi Yi’ memorized. It sounded pretty good to me; I was impressed.
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