Source: globaltimes.cn By Jiang Wanjuan
Chinese rock band Queen Sea Big Shark recently released their second album “Wave”, and is preparing for a national tour of new songs that they hope will still be playing 50 years later.
Formed five years ago among the booming of China’s rock music scene, Beijing girl Fu Han and her three male friends soon stood apart and became one of the most-watched bands in the capital with their bold imagination, eye-catching outfits and female vocals.
Future Sound of Beijing
With a cool, vibrant and heavy electronic sound, “Wave” uses 10 different songs to portray a future world in their dance rock. “Future”, “human”, “machine” and “computer” are frequently used words in their lyrics.
“The album was born amid changes in our life and surroundings. Within just a few years, we suddenly felt like [we were] living in a future world, which came along with the development of the Internet and technology,” Fu Han told the Global Times. “Connecting the imaginary future world with the reality and presenting it in the music, is the fun of creation.”
The lead song “Wave”, according to Fu, is actually a story told in abstract conceptions. It is about young people at different times and their unfulfilled love, their courage and dreams that got swallowed in the waves of time.
Different from their first self-titled album, which was released in 2007 and only had English songs, “Wave” has seen Fu and her members trying Chinese for size.
“When making the first album, I felt our music style was better expressed in English,” she said. “But once the word ‘wave’ (langchao) came to my mind, I knew I must sing it in Chinese. There are things you can only express in certain languages. Different sounds can project a totally different image.”
To look for the right sound, Fu and her members conducted “sound experiments” at home. Sometimes they would stay up all night with a musical synthesizer and dozens of objects trying to produce sounds that couldn’t be replicated by a computer.
“It could be something hard for you to notice at first but could suddenly give you a hint,” she said.
Sign Language
Fu still remembered the day five years ago when she was having a walk around the Queensea Lake (Houhai) in Beijing and saw a sign saying “This is mine, don’t even touch it, I’m queen sea big shark.” She thought it was so cool she took it as the band’s name.
Unlike other bands, Queen Sea Big Shark members do not stick together all the time to rehearse, as the members all have their own jobs.
With Fu a graphic designer, guitarist Cao Pu an architect, drummer Xiao Wu a sound recordist, and bassist Wang Jinghan an editor, the band believes together they can do something great in music, although none of them have had any professional music training before.
Considering time, they usually finish work on music at home and send to each other via the Internet. Each member works on their own part and after rehearsal to make the sound smooth and complete. Besides music, the band is also taking the lead in fashion with a strong visual effect to their performances and costumes.
“When you listen to ‘Wave’, you may feel a lot of images in your head,” she said. “I like all the creative things, and sometimes, fashion equals creation.”
As opposed to rebellion, Fu said her rock band is more willing to go after creativeness.
“While rock started out being rebellious and destructive, there should also be someone to recreate. It is very important and using imagination is part of the joy of creation,” she explained.
“Our music has both destruction and creation. It is a balance, like between man and woman, human and machine, pain and happiness, past and future.”
