Interview with The Swamp

From Rock in China Wiki

The Swamp, photo taken by Yoshito Katori, 2004, November 1st, Shanghai The Ark

Interview with The Swamp

Hai Liang from The Swamp, Azchael for Rock in China, via email on October 26th 2008

[edit] Interview

Azchael: The Swamp, rock band from Guangzhou, formed in 1993, electronic, post-rock, psychedelic music. In short that the band I'm conducting an interview with and I am very happy to have the chance to ask this legends of Guangzhou some questions. First of all, could you maybe shortly introduce yourself and give me a brief introduction, how you came together as The Swamp and how you've developed in the last few years.

Hai Liang: The Swamp was formed in my university in the very beginning. Only Roy (the bass player) and I were the band members. It was not until 1997 that my younger brother Sean joined us and played as the drummer. At that time, Jim studied in middle school and learned to play guitar from me. We four often gave performance together. Till the year 2000, The Swamp formally came into being.

It’s hard to describe or even define our music in a single word or phrase as the music's style is always changing through these ten years. What’s more, we select and adopt many music elements such as electronic, post-rock, ambient, progressive-rock, even jazz, classical to our music composition. I began to play Guqin last year and tried to adopt lots of Chinese national music elements to our music however which, are only the elements being used in the music. What I want to say is that, we always try our best to create a brand-new, unique voice of our own.

Our members now are:

Hz: Lead Vocal, Guitar, Guqin

Jim: Guitar, Effect, Sampling & Small keyboard

Sean: Drums, Hand sonic, Sampling

Roy: Bass / keyboard & Backing Vocal

Azchael: What brands are your instruments of?

Hai Liang:

hz: guqin: made in china / Guitar: gibosn_sg / Guitar effect: boss_gt-8

jim: Guitar:fender_telecaster-8402 / Guitar effect: rat2 / dod250 / line6-dl4 / whammy / Sample: boss_sp303

Sean: drum: Roland hand sonic / pearl drum / Zildjian Cymbal: Zildjian

roy: bass: fender / Keyboard: korg tr

Azchael: Do you see yourself rather as a band from Guangzhou, a South-Chinese band, a Chinese band or a rock band?

Hai Liang: That sounds interesting. In my opinion, I wish to remind myself, The Swamp as a band, should have its own music style and which is also unique to the others. We don’t have to claim our band as rock band, electronic band, or even Guangzhou band and with other additional properties. This is just a way helping people get to know us. However, I can feel that, in south China, especially the beautiful landscape in my hometown as well as the warm feeling local accent & childhood days and all the sweet memory, which indeed changed and influenced our music composition unobtrusively and imperceptibly.

Azchael: Which foreign bands would you like to jam with or with which musician?

Hai Liang: Wow, that should be dreaming of. Maybe they are radiohead, sigur ros, mogwai, brian eno, world’s end girlfriend... too many...

Sometimes I may think about jamming with the bands that are totally different to us, like Red Hot Chili Paper, hehe, that must be very interesting.

Azchael: What do you think about the domestic rock scene? What do you think about the developments in Guangzhou?

Hai Liang: Guangzhou was once a center of pop music within China. It has not been gradually replaced by northern cities until the 90s.

However, when mention about rock music, it is always considered a barren desert, which has been a big misunderstanding for years. Many people focus on the rock music in northern cities like Beijing and they will easily take it as metal or punk for granted. It’s unfair to judge the development of rock music in Guangzhou in such aspect. Actually, Guangzhou has its own way of development.

Electronic bands like Yufeimen, [[[A]]], dub bands like Wang Lei, progressive experimental bands like Liangyiyuan and many folk bands with unique south ethos such as Wutiaoren singing in Haifeng dialect, Yelang and his Nanman band, and secret backyard always trying best to adopt the vigor of Chinese artistic conception to their music.

Other examples like Hongkong’s style rock bands singing in Cantonese. These kinds are of many in Guangzhou, young and vigorous. Some others are brit-pop bands, funk bands, etc. Metal takes a small part, however not a few here. One of them is called Acnes which has kept playing metal for ten years.

In my view of it, indie music in Guangzhou has a bright future.

Azchael: Say, if I would come today to Guangzhou and would like to see a rock show or an underground show. How would I find out about this and where should I go?

Hai Liang: The atmosphere for performances in Guangzhou is not better than in Beijing, however it is already better than in many other cities.

Nowadays, places mainly are 191space, C-union and Loft345. The first two are of different kinds of music shows while Loft345 mostly is of progressive and experimental ones.

In the past days, there was a bar called Bunker, mainly for metal and punk. It is said that it hasn’t been for performance during these days, I don’t know whether it’s under interior decoration or management adjustment.

Azchael: Which other domestic band do you like?

Hai Liang: Secret backyard, Golden Cage and [[[A]]].

Azchael: To the end of 2007 you released several albums and records. Why so many at once, in such a short time?

Hai Liang: Whether music is of perfect composition and has been recorded perfectly are mainly what we consider before releasing. When these two have been perfectly done, certainly we will release the record and share it with our fans.

Azchael: In 2004 you did your "Breaking away from the orbit" tour and in 2006 your "Here comes the wind" tour. With two years time span in between, what were the experiences in the cities you visited. How were you welcomed and how did the venues grow or decline? Came more people to your shows or less?

Hai Liang: Two years time may not be long enough for many cities changing a lot, however we did. Although we’d been to many different cities for performance before the first tour, 2004 indeed was the first time we toured around our country. It lasted for 3 months, in more than 10 cities. Quite a lot problem and frustration while not a few pleasant surprises and excitement went through this tour. It seemed like a vacation as we stayed for several days in each city. Our manager Lam wrote the tour diary as well.

Our 2006 tour circled around eastern cities as transportation there are well-developed. The schedule was busy and this time sounded more like at work. In particular, we selected some cities which we hadn’t been to before, such as Dalian, Xiamen, they are clean and beautiful, and we made lots of friends there.

We went to Hongkong every time we were on tour. This city is very different from others in mainland China. What’s more, we cooperated with a Hongkong indie label 89268, with their professional activity planning and tour arrangement, we can always be easily absorbed in the performance and spend spare time in travelling around. We prefer to buy music instrument there.

There were only several performing places in Beijing in 2004. But nowadays, quite a lot emerge, especially the live house with professional sound system.

Fewer changes took place in other cities. However, the performing places there have become more and more professional. In our 06 tour, more people came to see our show, particularly the places we’ve once been to in 2004.

Azchael: What was the most important event for your band and what has changed? What was the impact?

Hai Liang: When looking backwards, many important events took place in the year of 1996 and 1997. In 1996, we planed a successful music concert in Kaiping and then the first Kaiping music festival with some local DJs. We also invested in running a live bar. All those things made us believe that, we could plan and make music by our own without other people’s invitation.

Also in the year 1996, for the first time, we tried to record our music by eight-track record machine, which is a turning point in our music career. At least, we knew we didn’t have to wait until the day when plenty of money come or invested by record company, then to rent a studio for recording.

In 1997, we began to try recording demo by computer. By doing that, we built up more and more experience in recording and mixing, which in turn, gave us more confidence in making music by our own.

Before that, we were always seeking chance to cooperate with record company. But we can do by ourselves now, absolutely.

Azchael: You have joined the Kaiping festivals, Cui Jian's Snow Mountain festivals and several Midi festivals. Which festival was the most advanced one, the most interesting one, the one you connected most with the audience?

Hai Liang: I think, the most advanced one is the 33rd Hong Kong Arts Festival, though people were not as many as in Midi music festival, sound and lighting system, video projection and so on, were very professional and creative. The service and arrangement through the whole music concert were of the first class.

The most interesting one is the Inner Mongolia Gegentala Grassland Music Festival. That was the first time we saw such grassland that stretched to the horizon. Although some unexpected accidents happened, became our sweetest memory in the end. For instance, the bus trip to Beijing lasted for 23 hours because the driver lost his way. What’s worse, the air conditioner was broken down during that time. We had to get off the bus for the bus repaired. Then we played games together, which made us feel very happy.

The MIDI Festival this year was held in its school, though smaller scare than before, we did enjoyed ourselves and the greenery. People there recognized us and talked to us, which made us feel closer to each other.

I think, smaller scare music shows can have a more interaction among us. Such shows like last year’s “Time to flow back” music concert, lots of people stayed in a small room, which made us feel close and talked a lot to each other.

Azchael: What are your plans for the next year (2009) and when is your next tour kicking off?

Hai Liang: One of our biggest plans is to hold an unplugged show next year. We haven’t done that before. So we just want to try our best. Till now we haven’t planned for the tour, maybe it will be in May next year.

Azchael: What do you think of www.rockinchina.com?

Hai Liang: It’s great with lots of information here. What’s more, it’s one of the few English website introducing Chinese rock and roll.

Azchael: Thanks for the interview

Hai Liang: Thank you, too.