First of all, can you introduce yourself as a musician ? 请你自我介绍 。
我叫卫怡然,是The Beauty乐队的主唱。性别男,平时喜欢弹弹琴看看电影什么的,其他也没什么好介绍的.
My name is Dawei Yiran, I’m the singer in The Beauty, I’m a boy, I usually like to play guitar and watch movies, there’s nothing much more to say about me.
What do you think of the Beijing Underground music scene ? 你觉得北京地下音乐现在怎么样?
我认为现如今所谓的地下摇滚乐越来越少了,除了少数人以外,大多数乐手平时还是得上班才能养活自己。北京这边的音乐氛围很好,包容性很强而且非常多元化。可能在大街上随便拽个人,十个人里有八个是玩金属的。观众的消费水平越来越好,对于音乐的质量越来越挑剔,而且如今互联网那么发达,想听什么网上一搜都有,有一次我去愚公移山看演出,旁边有个刚刚放学还穿着校服的学生,他一边听一边跟同伴讨论台上乐队的风格,很专业。这是个好现象,一方面越来越多的人开始接受摇滚乐了,另一方面也给了音乐人很大压力,我觉得现在不是靠死磕的年代了,在认真做音乐的时候要多花一点儿时间去思考,才是最明智的选择。
I think there are less and less rock bands in Beijing that can call themselves “underground” these days.
Apart from a few people most musicians in the underground have to work to feed themselves. The Beijing music scene environment for music is great though, it’s very inclusive, very strong and very diverse. Maybe on any street in Beijing if there are 10 people, 8 of them will be in a metal band.
The level of life of the audience is getting higher and higher and there taste in music is more and more demanding. Moreover now with internet anybody can listen to anything at any given time. One night I was at Yugong Yishan and I saw someone in the audience who was still wearing his school uniform and had probably come directly from school looking at the concert and commenting on it directly on internet at the same time, very professional, this is a good phenomenon I think.
On one side people are starting more and more to listen to rock music, but on the other end it gives more and more pressure to musicians.
We don’t live in the age of doing without thinking anymore, when you do music you have to spend more time to think about what you are doing, this is the wiser choice to make.
What’s your favorite music to listen to ? 你最喜欢听什么音乐和乐队?
我平时听得比较杂;ZZ Top、Gotthard、The Killers…有时候还会听电子和民谣。最喜欢朗朗上口而且编配巧妙的音乐。
I usually like listening to very diverse music: ZZ Top, Gotthard, The Killers…sometimes even electronic and folk music. I love catchy clever music the most.
How long have you been doing music ? What was your first instrument and why did you start playing music ? 你做了音乐做了多长时间 ?你是怎么开始做音乐的?
我玩乐队的时间不长,到今年夏天就整整4年了.刚上大学那会儿学的吉他,当时和弦还没完全学会呢就开始瞎写歌了,都是特别简单的和弦。后来就完全沦陷了,一发不可收拾地喜欢上音乐了。
I have been playing music for quite a short time, about 4 years. I started playing guitar in university, I still hadn’t really studied how to play chords very well when I wrote my first songs, so I was using very simple chords. Later I got completely drowned into it, my love of music became got out of hand.
What are your other musical projects ? 你有别的乐队吗?你的音乐计划
是什么?
现在只有The Beauty一个,我们的风格算是英式加朋克加车库,但其实我们也说不好算什么风格,风格这东西是别人给你的定义,我们的定义就是好听就行。目前乐队还是照常排练和演出,最近写了点新东西。马上会发我们的第一张EP,发完之后继续排练和演出。我们希望有一天能够站上更大的舞台,写出点能让人记住的旋律。但这事不急于求成,踏踏实实做音乐是我们目前最主要的工作。
For the moment it’s only The Beauty. Our style is like English Indie Rock + Punk + Garage but in fact we can’t really say clearly what our style is, I think a music style name is more something other people give you, our moto is “if it sounds good it’s good”.
Our band has been practicing and writing new songs recently, so we will soon issue our first EP and after will continue practice and playing. We hope one day to stand on a bigger stage and write melodies people can actually remember, but everything takes time and for the moment we concentrate on doing music as our most important thing to do.
Any music you want to share ? 有没有你想分享或者推荐的音乐?
I really like Blondie’s album “Blondie”, there mix of Punk and New Wave is great. After that maybe The Strokes, generally speaking when people ask me to recommend a band to talk about I always talk about them.
If you’ve never heard of them just start with the first album “Is this it”, you won’t be disappointed.
推荐Blondie的第一张专辑《Blondie》,朋克加新浪潮太好听了。然后就是The Strokes,基本上别人让我推荐的时候我都会说他们,没听过的朋友从第一张《Is this it》开始听吧,绝对不会让你失望的