Helen Feng is a 29 year-old American national born in China who has been living in Beijing for the last 6 years. Currently DJ for 88.7 Hit FM, Feng is also the lead singer of "Pet conspiracy", an electro-clash band, and "Ziyo", a rock-band. The latter has released their first EP (Extended Play) in January which is distributed by Warner in Beijing and other Chinese cities.

How did you start with your band "Ziyo"?
I had been in China for a while and I wanted to get back into music quite desperately. I decided I wanted to learn guitar. I just picked up the best looking teacher which is my current guitarist. He basically started offering me lessons. He was a crap teacher.  He said, "You are pretty broke, I am pretty broke. We can do bars and stuff like that in the evening and make some spending cash." He put together a music band. Zhang Jie, my bassist, is from a death metal band. My drummer Maomao is into folk music. We started rehearsing in my bedroom. We fast realized none of us could copy songs whatsoever. All we wanted to do is jam. And so the first day we tried to copy this one song. After seven hours of not even being able to get the chorus done, we decided to just play around and we wrote three songs within the first two or three weeks.

Where does the name "Ziyo" come from?
We started to get gigs; we couldn't come up with a name because we didn't have a style. Everything came out with jam sessions. One day, a big promoter was doing a big promotional thing. We gave a name and changed our mind; we gave another and changed our mind again. They asked us, "What kind of music do you do?" -"Zi You Ba"(自由吧: "free" in Chinese). And they put ‘Ziyou' on our name. We decided to change the "You" to "Youxi's" (游戏: "game"). And then we took out the U of the English name. It looked cooler (laughter).

How would you define the music style of your band?
Just until the last year we had around 250 gigs, in 3 years. Since that time we started of getting this idea of who we are. We don't necessary narrow ourselves in any category of music. At first we tried everything. Now I'd say I don't know. We are kind of a very good party band, a party band with content, not like we are playing the greatest hits party band but like we wanted to see the audience moving.

What do you think about the Beijing rock scene?
Beijing has the potential to be the New-York SOHO of Asia. Beijing has the most clashing, ugly, chaotic and yet beautiful culture that you can possibly imagine. It is not as stylish as London and not as advanced in terms of cultural products as others countries in Europe. The thing is also it is open to influences and that's something that makes Beijing art scene really exciting as an artist out here. In Beijing, everybody who has something to put on the table, you're allowed in. So that is why foreigners love it here cause they bring their own culture, something different, something new. Some people are fantastic and are really working towards building a better art and cultural scene. But at the same time it is the chaos, especially seeing a lot of young bands, confused but also extremely creative.

Can you tell us more about your EP?
The EP was a big learning experience, I think every band should probably go trough this. Warner is gonna release something for us which is, I think, the first rock band they have done in China in the last seven years. We are still looking for ourselves stylistically. So the EP we are releasing is not necessarily exactly like our live show. Our live show is a lot more energetic. If you listen to our EP, it is a lot more pop-rock. Our EP was supposed to be released in October but it was postponed. The distribution company doesn't think it is gonna make any money. So it is trying to find the least expensive form of distribution which is to package us with two others pop-rockers from Taiwan and Hong-Kong and release us together. Frankly there is no music market right now in China.

What are your projects?
"Pet Conspiracy" is on hiatus cause one of our members is working on a project in Germany until the end of April after which we'll pick up again. "Ziyo" has a few gigs, the biggest one being the MIDI festival coming up in May and our official EP launch at MAO Livehouse in May 16th. There's a few smaller warm up gigs before MIDI, but they are not going to be advertised. We plan to tour hopefully in the early summer, before the Olympics. I also want to record an album for "Ziyo". So far I am currently looking for a production talent for our album.

Practical information:
Helen Feng is on air on 88.7 Hit FM every Sunday from 1-3pm. Ziyo's EP will soon be available at various independent stores and rock venues in China. Price: 20-30RMB (TBC)

Text: David Courbe
Photos: Wang Zhuo
Mars 2008