Metal in the Middle Kingdom: Report on the Chinese Metal Scene (Part I)

By Michael De Los Muertos

Where, geographically, does metal come from?

Any reasonably well-educated metalhead would be able to rattle off a list of nations that have dominated the heavy metal scene for decades.  Try this experiment: make a quick list of your favorite bands.  Whatever they are, whatever genres or styles or even eras they hail from, I’ll bet your list contains at least one German band, at least one band from Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland), at least one band from the U.S. or Canada, and probably a British band.  In terms of popularity, album sales and general name recognition, these countries pretty much are the world when it comes to metal.

But at the same time, we’re all aware that metal is a truly worldwide phenomenon.  Just off the top of your head, can you name a band from Japan?  (Sigh comes immediately to mind).  Excluding Sepultura, which came to prominence mostly through the American and European scenes, how many bands from Latin America can you name?  (Angra, Krisiun, Cenotaph, Makina…).  How about the Middle East?  (Orphaned Land, from Israel, tends to be the number one answer in this category).  Perhaps those of you who seek out obscure bands from traditionally metal-less lands can name metal bands from even farther afield, such as Singapore (Rudra), Kyrgyzstan (Darkestrah) or the world’s only known metal band from Libya (Rex Mortifier).

How about China?

  In the worldwide metal scene, China is woefully under-represented.  Why?  Statistically, more human beings on this planet live in the People’s Republic of China than any other single nation.  China commands a significant proportion of the world’s natural resources, is the largest economy in Asia (and will soon be the largest economy on planet Earth), and has the largest armed forces of any country including the United States.  It would seem that China, global colossus and superpower that it is, would be able to field at least one metal band that would be well-known enough to spring immediately to mind when asked if you’ve ever heard of a band from that country.  But, when I began working on this article, the reaction of most people I told about it was, “I didn’t even know there was a metal scene in China!”

Well, there is.  And it’s actually pretty extensive.  If you’re one of those curmudgeonly folks who laments that there’s no new blood in the metal scene and everybody is just doing the same stuff over and over again, you might want to turn your attention to the east instead of the west.

This is the first article in a projected series of features on the metal scene in the world’s largest nation.  Why do I believe Western metal fans should become educated about the metal scenes in other countries?  Because not only is heavy metal a truly international language, but I believe metal fans should help each other out and spread the word as much as possible.  Besides, to be honest, if you’re into metal for the long haul, I don’t think you’re going to have a choice, eventually.  In 20 years when you go to an international metal festival, I think the chances are pretty good that the fans standing next to you are as likely to be Chinese are they are to be Germans, Swedes, Canadians or Americans.  And you’ve got to have something to say to them, right?

The Truth About China.

“What’s really going on in China?” is a question being asked today by a lot of people—business leaders and politicians, especially.  I have had a long-term interest in China, having studied Chinese history, language and philosophy in college, which was one of the reasons I became interested in the Chinese metal scene.  Before we get to the basic facts about Chinese metal, there are some basic facts you need to know about China, period.

First of all, put away your preconceptions that China is a grimy totalitarian hell full of drab people in padded suits chanting in unison slogans from Quotations of Chairman Mao.  That characterization may have had some superficial resemblance to the way China was in 1965, but forty years have gone by, and the country is a lot different now.  China is still ruled by a Communist government, but what Westerners tend to forget is that Chinese communism evolved along a totally different path than Soviet-based communism, and the revolution that brought Mao to power in 1949 (considerably later than the Russian Revolution) had very little to do with the revolutions that established the Soviet order and eventually led to the Cold War.  Politics is less a force in China’s dealings with the West (including western culture) today than it was in decades past.

For most Westerners under 35, their perceptions of China are shaped by one tragic event: the occurrences in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989, where the Chinese government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators.  While the Tiananmen “Incident” (the Chinese themselves are reluctant to use the word “massacre”) is an important event in modern Chinese history, including the history of their metal scene, it’s important not to let our perceptions of that event—which was considerably more complicated in real life than it appeared to us on our TV screens in the Western world—cloud our understanding of China today.

Secondly, it’s crucial to understand that China is going through a tremendous change at this point in time.  Its economy and popular culture have been undergoing an increasing modernization and openness to the West in the past 15 years.  I believe you’re likely to see increasing numbers of Chinese metal fans around in the coming years not just because their metal scene is on the rise, but because the things that in the West we’ve taken for granted as our “connections” to the world metal scene—disposable income to spend on albums, leisure time and entertainment funds to spend going to shows, Internet access, CD players, etc.—are becoming far more widespread in Chinese society.  If you were a teenager in Beijing in 1966, you might have joined the Red Guards.  If you’re a teenager in Beijing today, chances are you listen to music, watch TV and surf the web.  And if you find that you have a liking for heavy music, eventually you may be motivated to pick up an electric guitar, get some friends together and form a metal band.  In recent years, many young Chinese have done exactly that.

The History of China’s Metal Scene.

The most fascinating thing about the Chinese metal scene is that it developed concurrently with the expansion of rock and roll and “modern music” in China as a whole.  In the West, particularly in the United States and Great Britain, metal is but one sturdy branch of a musical and cultural family tree that descends from African and ethnic traditional music prior to the 20th century, to the development of jazz in the 1910s and 1920s, through swing and Big Band of the ‘40s, to embryonic rock and roll in the ‘50s, to surf rock and the Beatles in the early ‘60s, and finally to the development of metal in the late 1960s with bands such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.  In China, it’s as if you took an acorn that fell off that tree, planted it, and grew all of those styles at once, very quickly.  In China you didn’t have to wait 18 years to get from Buddy Holly to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin.  The styles already existed: it just took someone to pick up instruments and begin to play them.

The development of “modern music” in China began in 1980 with a band called Wan Li Ma Wang, which played classic rock covers, and then truly took off four years later when a musician called Cui Jian suddenly became popular with his song “I Have Nothing.”  Cui Jian’s socially-charged lyrics—which were evidently troublesome to the government in the pre-Tiananmen era—seems to have appealed to Chinese youth on a topical basis as well as introducing them to the sounds of rock and roll which they were previously denied by the earlier hard-line versions of Communist rulers.  The events of Tiananmen Square, however, changed the landscape.  The Chinese youth culture that was interested in “yao gun” (rock and roll) began to focus more on their own personal living and economic situations—“Women Ziji,” ourselves—as opposed to the social or political condition of the country as a whole—“Women Guojia,” our country.  It seems that, for whatever reason—a cultural change, political repression, or some other factor—collective social activism became a less potent force in the modern music scene.

This is a subtle change, but in my opinion, the prerequisite for the creation of a viable metal scene.  On a philosophical basis, this shift appears to echo something that happened in the Western metal scene when heavy metal became identified with Satanic imagery and in some cases ideology, first as pure rebellion, and then later on a more intellectual basis.  Satanists will claim that their philosophy is based upon the supremacy and betterment of the individual (as opposed to the collective-minded aims of organized religion), and fierce individualism has always been a strong element in Western metal.  Aside from the anti-nuclear rantings of Megadeth in the mid-1980s or the splinter faction bands like Earth Crisis, pure politics or social change hasn’t really been that prominent in metal in the West; it’s always been more focused on individual achievement and redemption (Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” or Manowar’s “Return of the Warlord” both being explicit examples of this ethos).  Having invented some of the world’s oldest and most cohesive philosophies, I’m certain that this factor was well-appreciated by the Chinese.

Not surprisingly, as rock in general grew up in China, metal grew up as well.  The first true metal band in China was undoubtedly Tang Dynasty.  Formed in 1988 by Ding Wu, Zhang Jun, and two Americans, Kaiser Guo and Andrew Szabo, the band hit some hard times after Tiananmen, but rebounded in late 1989 with two new Chinese members and a renewed sense of purpose.  The band achieved rapid-fire popularity, playing to 100,000 fans in 1990 at the “Asian Games” and proving that Chinese metal had considerable cultural and commercial potential.  Tang Dynasty recorded the first known metal album ever to be recorded in China, A Dream Returns to Tang Dynasty, in 1992.

Since then the growth of the scene has been rapid and steady.  There are now Chinese Death Metal bands (Stale Corpse, Regicide), Black Metal (Ritual Day, Purgatory), traditional metal (Iron Kite), and even grindcore (Gorgasm).  Much to my own personal chagrin, the dreaded tendrils of nu-metal and rapcore have also begun to move east, as China also sports bands such as AK-47 and Overheal Tank.  Painkiller Mag, one of the major sources of research for this article, has a section on Chinese metal clubs—these days you can catch a live metal show in Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Wuhan and Chengdu.  You can surf the web in China and find band sites and message boards just as you do in the West; some of them are listed later on in this article, but you’d better be able to read and type Chinese!  Record labels, once controlled only by the government, are becoming more numerous, and are delivering heavy music to the masses.  In short, China’s metal scene is beginning to resemble that of any other country.  For a nation that didn’t even have a single heavy metal band until 17 years ago, that’s remarkable progress.

The Chinese Metal Scene: From The Horse’s Mouth.

I’ve studied China, but I haven’t been there—yet—and, like most other people in the West, my own experience with Chinese metal has been extremely limited at best.  If I was to do this series of articles correctly, I knew I needed help from someone on the inside.  Enter Azchael and Yang from Painkiller Mag.

Painkiller Mag is, so far as I know, the only web zine dedicated to Chinese metal that is available in English.  (I studied Chinese language in college, but I speak it very poorly and can’t read more than a few characters—it’s a much harder language to learn than a Western language).  It’s run, oddly enough, by two Germans.  Both have lived in China for some time, and together they’ve made it their mission to bring the word of Chinese metal to the rest of the world.  Their on-line magazine, available in English at http://www.rockinchina.com, contains and links to an extraordinarily wealth of information about the Chinese scene, including band profiles, a history of Chinese metal, city-by-city scene reports, and reviews.  It’s an indispensable starting point for anyone interested in this scene.

The miracle of email enabled me to interview both Azchael and Yang across the immensity of the Pacific Ocean and the various language and socioeconomic barriers that, in years past, might have kept the Western and Chinese metal worlds entirely separate.  Their words are the best source of information about what’s really going on over there.

NoC - Michael De Los Muertos of No Official Capacity

Az - Azchael (Max-Leonhard von Schaper of Painkiller Mag)

Y - Yang Yu of Painkiller Mag

Noc: Most of our readers probably haven’t heard of any Chinese Metal bands, or even know that China has a Metal scene.  What would you say would be the first or the most important thing for Western metal fans to know about the Chinese scene?

Az: Certainly, that there is an underground scene at all.  I remember coming here and thought of being imprisoned in a Metal-free country until I watched the show of 206 and Thinkers and of Pulse.  The underground is boiling here, it’s starting, it’s small and familiar, it’s big and enthusiastic and it isn’t so commercial as back in Germany.  It’s in a way still true underground, without this ignorant, arrogant touch.    

Y: China is the new upcoming force in any aspect!!!  No, kidding—well, if people know that China isn't that old-fashioned in any genre, I'd be happy enough.  Chinese rock started quite late, but we are fast learners! 

NoC: The history of the Metal scene in China is very complex and is very much involved with the development of rock music in general in China.  It seems that Tang Dynasty is the first band from China that was truly Metal.  What can you tell us about this band—are they still around, and what is their reputation in the Chinese Metal scene?

Az: Yes, Tang Dynasty is still around and they are widely recognized as China’s first Heavy Metal band.  They started at the end of the 80s and consisted of two Chinese and foreigners, two American fellows.  Their first record, called A Dream Returns to Tang Dynasty, was written after the impression of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and is probably the most successful Metal record in China’s history.  More than 700,000 legal copies and more than one million pirate copies mark their tremendous success.  For example, normally a metal record is pressed 20,000 times, and if they sell out again, about [another] 20,000 times.

Check them out at http://www.painkillermag.com/china/Tang_Dynasty.html.

[NoC note: These figures are phenomenal.  In the West, a metal album is considered successful if it sells 10,000 copies.  A 700,000-selling record in the West would be market saturation on the order of the more successful Pantera or Iron Maiden albums.]

Y: Well, they are playing some kind of melodic heavy rock with some few metal riffings.  You know when Chinese rock started to go, many musicians of the first rock generation considered the western heavy metal style as some kind of an artistic music movement and they tried to do it on their own way.  There has been THE BREATHING, BLACK PANTHER and the first Thrash Metal Band called OVERLOAD.  All of them are very successful and toured the whole [of] China for a decade.  Record companies thought wrong when they invested into newer Metal Bands which turned out to be commercial flops.  TANG DYNASTY still is struggling for a successful comeback, BLACK PANTHER’s hard rock changed into melodic pop rock and OVERLOAD are trying their luck with punk attitudes. 

NoC: Painkiller Mag’s history of the Chinese Metal/rock scene frequently mentions Cui Jian as the “Godfather of Chinese rock and roll.”  Does Cui Jian have a role specifically in the modern Chinese Metal scene, and do Chinese Metal fans acknowledge him as an influence?

Az: Cui Jian actually has no real relationship to metal.  His latest musical creations feature hip hop and rap styles.  But he’s very dedicated to Chinese underground music in general and he’s constantly watching underground rock shows (including metal gigs) and visits the Midi Festival every year.  He is the founder of the “No-Sync” movement in China, that fights against the playback shows of pop musicians.

[NoC: I assume this is a movement that opposes the standard practice of pop performances which are often lip-synced.  Milli Vanilli must not have been big in China!]

Y:  I think he knows little about Chinese metal but he certainly doesn’t care about all that.  He has been treated like a hero since his first hit 20 years ago and his name became a term that stands for rock music in general, whether he wants it or not.

NoC: What bands or specific albums would you recommend to a Western metal fan who has never heard any Chinese Metal before?

Az: Heavy Metal:

Hollow (foreign students playing metalcore with Chinese musicians)

Spring Autumn (the new melodic folk metal band of TANG DYNASTY founder Kaiser Kuo)

Tang Dynasty—A Dream Returns to Tang Dynasty

Thrash Metal:

Overload—Overload
BLOODBATH - (coming soon)

Extreme Metal:

Ritual Day—Ritual Day / Split-CD

Suffocated
RIGICIDE—Split-CD

HADES—Hades (the first Chinese Death Metal band)

Nu-Metal:

Ashura—Tomorrow Never Die

Twisted Machine—Return to Underground

Yaksa—Yaksa

Compilation CDs:

Resurrection of the Gods II and III (by Mort Productions)

Bleeding China (Mort Productions) 

NoC: Your history page mentions that a turning point in the history of the Chinese rock scene was a performance by a Filipino surf band in 1982.  I found that very interesting because I have an opinion (which is not shared by many others) that surf rock was very important to the original development of Heavy Metal in the West, especially surf rock guitarists Dick Dale and Link Wray.  Would you agree that Metal could not have come to China without Chinese rock fans having heard surf music first?

Az: Well,­ that’s a tricky question, but in a way, I think that’s true.  Cui Jian himself admits that some of his influences include those “surf music” artists, and as the manager of Black Panther notes, that one of these Filipino bands opened his eyes.  I think this so called surf music is certainly one of the two main influences: cover bands and circulating tape copies of foreign rock bands [in the underground].

Whether Metal would have come up or not if there hadn’t been surf music—well, let’s put it this way: if surf music cover bands would not have been allowed to perform in Beijing at that time, it would also have meant that the governmental pressure and the strict control would have been more rigid, which would mean that all other influences as well would have been suppressed resulting in no rock music at all.  So we can say that if governmental control would have been stronger, than there would be also no rock music.

Y:  I don’t think [that Chinese metal wouldn’t have come about without surf rock].  Chinese rock started in late ‘80s; we didn’t have that natural progress since the ‘50s like in the Western world.  Metal is not the only “imported” western music style—you will find everything in here.  Chinese kids got some CDs and fell in love with its music and started to do music of this style.  It was a simple take and play reaction.

NoC: In European Communist countries such as Russia, Poland, and East Germany, fans originally became aware of Heavy Metal in the 1980s by listening to poor quality duplicate tapes of Western metal albums.  (For example, I have heard that Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” was very popular in the USSR).  Did this also happen in China?

Az:  Yes.  Cui Jian, Tang Dynasty, Gao Qi and many other bands in the very beginning spent all their money they had on their music equipment and on these tapes.  Even today you can buy them in many underground shops throughout the whole country.  Especially in the closed and shut-off country that China had been in the ‘70s and ‘80s, these tapes represented a window into the world of rock music and of freedom.

Y:  Well, but we Chinese made a fortune out of these copies and started doing pirate copies in high-quality CD and DVD format!  Haha, sad but true—most of the rock fans in China got onto rock or metal because of those cheap pirate copies.  But pirate copies of Chinese pop stars have sold 100 times better than Metallica! 

NoC: One of the things I’m sure our readers will want to know about is the relationship between the Chinese Metal scene and the government.  Many Westerners assume that Metal would be suppressed or outlawed by China’s Communist government (because that was what happened in European Communist countries).  However, it seems this is not the case.  Can you comment on this?

Az:  Generally speaking, the Chinese government has opened up towards the Western world and especially in sense of business and cash flow.  Whereas personal freedom and human rights may not have the highest priority, monetary profit certainly has.

Y:  Personal freedom and human rights might also not be the highest priority of most people in the cities where those rock scenes are.  People are used to being controlled; their major interest is the cash flow!

[NoC: My own observation of the West’s relations with mainland China bear this out.  Western governments, particularly the United States, have since 1989 focused on issues of human rights and democracy, and have often attempted to condition economic concessions to China upon progress in these areas—a state of affairs that the Chinese government finds generally condescending and myopic.  Without expressing comment on the state of human rights in China, which isn’t the point of this article, it may be relevant to our discussion of the metal scene to interject that, throughout China’s modern history, Western nations have tended to respond to China in a paternalistic and condescending manner, without bothering to understand the difference in values and perceptions that continue to divide East and West.]

Az: The Chinese government tried to break the rock and roll development at the end of the ‘80s, beginning of the ‘90s (especially after the Tiananmen Incident), canceling shows, banning artists from performances and giving them no support at all through state-owned media houses (CCTV, record companies).

Y: But the main reason was not the revolutionary spirit of rock which possibly didn’t exist in Chinese rock in the same way like in the US or western Europe.  The government simply doesn’t want a huge crowd gathered at one point which may cause social troubles.

Az:  During the 90s the position and the attitude of the Chinese government changed a lot.  They turned a blind eye on the development [of rock] and concentrated to promote the so called Cantopop or popular music via their media channels.  However, Chinese rock didn’t stay in the cradle, but grew stronger over the years, earning the respect of hundreds of thousands of Chinese.  And as the former state-owned media houses were forced to show a profit [for the first time], they also looked at the Chinese rock movement, such as Zhang Cun, Xu Wei, Dou Wei, Cui Jian and others, and signed them [to their labels].

The next big wave of Chinese underground music to be signed was the punk movement with its dozens of bands.  Punk music as metaphor for youth revolution entered China and convinced the media houses to invest.

The underground metal scene however was and is ignored by the government and big media houses.  Nobody cares for metal, especially as there is no money behind it.  Too few listeners mean too few potential buyers of records, which results in a too small turnover for potential companies.  No masses, no influence; no market, no money, no interest.

Y:  I would say the police or the government does not really have a problem with longhaired kids playing noisy music—if you don’t cause any real troubles you would get trouble with the government.  The rules are declared for anyone: no anti-Communist propaganda, no anti-regime statements, no pro-Taiwan-Independency, no porn or sexual exhibitionist acting, no drugs…well, no sex, no drugs but rock and roll, haha.

[NoC: “Pro-Taiwan-Independency” refers to the major political bone of contention between China and the United States, the status of Taiwan.  In 1949 the Nationalist government that had previously been in control of China was ousted by the Communists and fled to the island of Taiwan.  The Taiwan regime has been supported economically and militarily by the USA, but mainland China insists that Taiwan is a “rogue province” that will eventually be returned to rule by the Communists.  The “independence” of Taiwan is a sore subject with the Chinese Communist government.]

NoC: What Western Metal bands are the most popular in China?  Do Chinese Metal fans listen to Chinese Metal more than they listen to Western Metal?

Az: As nearly everywhere on the world, Metallica, Pantera and Nirvana have taken their place in Chinese music history, influencing thousands of young students to reconsider their previous taste of music. Furthermore I would say that Rammstein…

Y:  And Marilyn Manson and Slipknot…

Az: ...are very popular. 

Y:  But it depends of what the pirate copy industry is offering to the kids.  Some bands like Dark Moor became quite popular while Edguy remains not that well known—that’s because you can get every album of Dark Moor on pirate copies, but there are only two albums out of Edguy..

Az:  Surely every metal fan has their own taste of music here and likes different bands, and so it is very often astonishing to see which bands are known in the metal scene, as they are hardly known in the origin country in which they perform.

Chinese artists, though, have a hard stand in China.  Due to the production possibilities and sound quality, most Chinese listeners prefer to buy [pirated] foreign records.  Support for the home scene is unfortunately not very common and limited to small circlea of friends and hardcore fans.  [NoC: I believe he means “hardcore” in the sense of “die-hard,” as opposed to fans of the specific style of music known as hardcore.]

Y:  Plus, China has become a very US-oriented country when it comes to modern music.  Output of Chinese musicians is simply not on the same level as foreign bands.

NoC: In the Western Metal scene, for many years there has been hostility between “True Metal” and what most people call “Nu-Metal” (bands such as Korn, Slipknot, Linkin Park, etc.).  I see that, with Chinese bands like AK-47 and Overheal Tank, nu-metal has arrived in China.  Does the hostility between “True Metal” and “nu-metal” exist in China as it does in the West?

Az:  I have to admit that this hostility in a certain way exists.  From my personal point of view, this is totally stupid, as everybody has their own taste of music and you should always acknowledge the talent and spirit in music, not whether it’s a trend or “that kind” of music.

China features quite a few very good nu-metal or so called “rapcore” bands.  Tomahawk, for example, started as a Death Metal band and switched to nu-metal.  But they are amazing and have very energetic shows.

Y:  These are different circles in the hard and heavy scene.  I think the Black Metal way of thinking causes more problems than anything.  Or this psycho “death is beautiful” talk of many gothic kids.  Heaven forgive them for their [ignorance!]

NoC: From looking at Painkiller Mag and the profiles of bands there, I see that the various types of Metal that exist in the West (Black Metal, Death Metal, etc.) also exist in the Chinese scene.  However, I do not see the term “Power Metal” referred to.  Does what we call “Power Metal” in the West—bands like Blind Guardian, HammerFall, Manowar, Rhapsody, etc.—exist in China?

Az:  Well, you can certainly get all records of Rhapsody in China (as fake pirate copies), but it is not really popular.  But that happens to be due to historic reasons.

In the beginning Chinese rock and Chinese Metal was highly marked by an idealism and ideal to criticize and improve social situations.  The Tiananmen Incident, however, changed the opinion of the Chinese youth and many had lost their faith in the government.  Losing this faith, their music and their lyrics changed from a focus of their country to a focus on how to live their lives.  Especially in the punk and nu- metal music you can find this attitude of how to have fun and how to spend the day.

Power Metal often concentrates on fantastic stories (Blind Guardian, Rhapsody) or tells stories without a certain relation to our present lives.  This kind of music has no relation to Chinese life, to their present well-being, their present condition having to live in this country, which they all love, but for which so many have lost their faith in the government.

The listeners want to hear something about their daily lives, about how to spend the day, how to drink, meet girls or boys, how to cope with family problems or how you can survive the daily struggles.  They need aggressive music to release their energy and have no time to dive into fantastic stories about kings and dragons.

[NoC: In my personal opinion this is a fascinating insight.  Power Metal is most popular in countries that are extremely affluent, have high standards of living and high levels of satisfaction, generally, with economic and social conditions—Germany and Italy especially.  Are the fantasy realms of Power Metal, then, a form of intellectual “luxury”?  I’ve never thought about this before.]

Y:  I think there is another reason: to play a good sounding Power Metal, you need to be very skilled musicians and you need high-level equipments on stage.  Well, most of the musicians who have the ability to be successful with Power Metal, they all went into the pop music business where you can get more money and girls.  The standard equipment in the most rock clubs is really not good.  The sensation of Power Metal is the bombast of the sound and the catchy melodies.  The sensations of brutal Death or Black Metal are simpler to realize.  You don’t find that much gothic metal in China either.  Underground musicians simply don’t do much to improve.  The only ones who do are all into progressive stuff like THE LAST SUCCESSOR, SUGGERGUN or MIRRAGE. 

I wrote a song’s lyrics for a Power Metal project of a friend, and I was supposed to be a singer too.  It was about an ancient tale and we were often talking about making a concept album about a heroic king of an imaginary ancient time.  But that project has been laid on ice since this very friend has 3 other bands and his Mort Productions to run.

NoC: Back to the subject of Power Metal, in countries such as Sweden, Italy and even countries in the Middle East, Power Metal bands often take inspiration from heroic themes of their countries’ history, usually ancient or medieval history.  From my own study of Chinese history it seems that China’s history, full of epic battles and awesome figures such as the Emperor Qin, is very well-suited to provide this kind of inspiration to Metal artists.  Are themes of heroic Chinese history and culture popular in Chinese Metal music?  Can you give us some examples of Chinese bands that do this?

[NoC: I’m speaking of Emperor Qin Shih Huang Ti (260-210 BC), the first Emperor of unified China.  If you’ve seen the excellent martial arts film Hero you will be intimately familiar with Emperor Qin and what he was trying to do].

Az:  Well, let’s say there is a general interest in Chinese history in the lyrics of Chinese Metal bands.  But if you play brutal Death or Satanic Black Metal, which is the most common style of Chinese metal bands, how the hell can you combine a Chinese hero into that?  Like Emperor Qin was a Satanist trying to dethrone the holy Buddha?  I don’t know, there are a few bands who care about epic themes, but the clichés (how do you spell it?) of Chinese metal is blood and killing or social problems.  Who cares about lyrics anyway?  The fuckers should learn to sing clear and listenable before they make a big deal about lyrics.  Well, there are epic-themed songs or bands, but the majority isn’t much into that.

NoC: About Power Metal again!  Your zine mentions that Labyrinth was the first Western Metal band ever to play in China.  Labyrinth is a Power Metal band.  Can you explain why this band became the first to play in China, as opposed to some other band?  What was the response to this performance?

Az:  Labyrinth was the first foreign Heavy Metal band in China, but not the first foreign band!  Deep Purple, Joe Satriani, The International Noise Conspiracy and even Udo Lindenberg played here before (see http://www.painkillermag.com/china/foreign.html for a whole list of foreign bands that played in China).  But Labyrinth was the first real Metal band.

Why Labyrinth?  Why Italian Power Metal?  Well,­ on the one hand they are known here and had been featured before by the Painkiller Magazine.  On the other hand, they wanted to come (they had been on an Asian tour anyway) and it was financially bearable to bring them here.

Bands and promoters have to live and the costs to have a China tour for a bigger band are much higher than the profits that potentially can be made.  At present the cost par rarity between China and Europe is about one to ten, which means that the same thing that costs in China 1 RMB [NoC: Yuan Renminbi, the Chinese currency, also abbreviated CNY; as of this writing, $1 US = 8.27 RMB] costs about 1 EURO in Germany.  That’s quite attractive for tourists who want to buy things here, but if you have to finance plane tickets and the money for the band with RMB-priced tickets, you would need either ticket fees higher than a two day stay in a Chinese hotel or [guarantee an audience of] more than 2000 people, which is extremely difficult to achieve without problems.

Arranging a club-tour through ten-twenty cities with 200-400 people per gig is fairly easy, but will also not help to cover the related costs for a bigger band (think of Metallica’s fee).  However, smaller foreign underground punk bands, such as Dogshit Sandwich, Sonic Bastards or Disturbance have recently undertaken such a national tour through China.  But here again, the support for punk bands is higher than for metal bands, and more audience would show up.

Y:  The most basic reason was, that was our only opportunity to ever get a foreign metal band at that time!  We were planing to get OBSCENITY, KREATOR or EDGUY. Later we were focusing on NIGHTWISH or RHAPSODY, but there are too many problems to get such a concert started in here...

NoC: The Chinese language seems like it would be a language that is especially well-suited for singing by death and black metal bands (similar to how some Scandinavian bands, like Thryfing, sing in ancient Scandinavian languages and almost use the language as another instrument in the band).  Do you agree?  Are the lyrics themselves very important in Chinese Metal?

Y:  Well, like I said, some bands are making a big deal about their lyrics which are not understandable when they are playing.  The singer of RITUAL DAY had to change the lyrics many times for the print of the [CD booklet] after finishing the recordings!  They don’t want a clear statement within their lyrics, it shall sound like “we are holier than thou.”  I am very disappointed in Chinese metal bands in that, what most of them want is to do something big, but they don’t put enough work into it.

NoC: What do typical Chinese Metal fans look like?  Do they usually have long hair, ripped jeans, band shirts, and leather jackets, or is there a uniquely Chinese look to Metal fans in China?

Az:  Looking different from the masses is very important in China, coloring the hair brown, yellow or red is a first start to change in a country where everybody is born black-haired.  Small teddy bears stuck to the Guns N’Roses bag are as well present as Slipknot shirts and long hair.

There is no usual image, but the general metal fan wears a black metal shirt and has a little longer hair, but you can see everything here.

Y: I have natural born black hair cut short, some times wearing a band shirt and normal jeans and this is the majority image of most metal fans in China I meet at concerts. 

NoC: All over the world, the Internet has been a huge help to the Metal scene.  Are there a lot of Metal-related web sites in China?  Do Chinese Metal fans swap MP3’s of their favorite bands?  Do they visit message boards and chat rooms related to Metal topics?

Az:  The Internet as a mean of communication is widely established. In every small town (less than 100,000 people) are at least five internet bars in which the youth and those not-so-young spend night and day to play games, chat via QQ or download music and inform themselves about things they cannot learn in the newspaper.

So it is no wonder that there are certain well-respected and well-established websites and web magazines promoting metal music and informing about artists, performances and records (foreign and domestic).

NoC: In Europe, open-air Metal festivals with many bands on the bill are very popular, especially in the summer.  Are there festivals happening in China or other parts of Asia?  If not, do you think they will in the future?

Az:  There are only a few open-air festivals in China and most of them pop music related.  Those that also cover rock music can be count at one hand and that single one that actually includes Metal music is called the Midi Festival of Modern Music, that takes place either in May or October and covers the most important bands of Chinese underground scene, featuring rock music, punk music, hip-hop and also the finest ones of metal.

NoC: Do you know any Chinese Metal fans who will go to any European festivals this year (especially Wacken) from China?

Az:  Going abroad is fairly difficult for Chinese.  It is expensive and not everybody has a passport.  Those who have interest in Metal usually do not have both, so even if some might want to go to Wacken, there mostly is no chance for them.  Hopefully the situation will change soon, as China is opening up and salaries are increasing.

Y:  Yes, a friend of mine starts working for German Lufthansa this summer and he told me he will want to go to Wacken.  But he will be one of the few who could represent the Chinese fans there.

My Comments and Summary.

This was one of the most fascinating interviews I’ve ever conducted.  Knowing virtually nothing about the Chinese scene a couple of weeks ago, I now feel like I have a basic understanding of what’s going on over there, and what I’ve learned is exciting.

It’s very interesting to me that the fate of the Chinese Metal scene is tied very much to the political and economic fortunes of the country as a whole.  This is probably not surprising in a nation with a Communist government and a planned economy, but it’s mostly alien to us in the West, and in my opinion it’s a crucial fact to understand about the Chinese scene.

I believe there are tremendous opportunities for cooperation and information sharing between the Chinese Metal scene and metalheads in the West.  Clearly the statements made in the interviews regarding the popularity of pirate copies of Western metal bands indicate that the Chinese fan base is interested in Western metal, and I think that the more interest Western fans can show in Chinese bands, the more that metal scenes on both sides of the Pacific will thrive.  At present this is difficult because I’m not aware of a single company in the Western world who stocks Chinese Metal CDs.  But, the Chinese themselves may make inroads on this obstacle.  If record labels and distributors are being forced to show a profit for the first time in China’s modernizing economy, it’s inevitable they’ll begin looking to foreign outlets of distribution.  Given how low the barriers generally are between countries when it comes to distribution of metal releases (how many “Japanese import editions” of albums do you own?), once Chinese distributors put a cautious toe into the waters of the Western metal market, I think success will follow.

The metal scene in China exists, and it matters.  In my opinion, those of us in the West should be asking ourselves, what can we do to help their scene develop?  In the meantime, it’s exciting to think about what awesome metal bands remain to be discovered in the Middle Kingdom, and how the contributions of the Chinese will come to enrich the form of music that we all love so much.

Coming Up in the Next Edition.

I am attempting to secure interviews with Chinese bands, and secure some Chinese Metal releases for my own review.  Hopefully these will be covered in a future edition of this feature.  Check back again for the rest of the story!