At the Simple Life Festival during the "Eleventh" period, Gao Qi took his overload band and Hip-Hop Man Ouyang Jing to play a cross-border cooperation between rock and hip hop. For ordinary audiences, Ouyang Jing is undoubtedly more well-known, and this summer's popular variety show "China Has Hip Hop" has pushed hip hop music into the public eye, and has also made a number of underground rappers popular.
However, in the hearts of rock fans who squeezed into the front row of the stage, Gao Qi was their idol. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the golden age of Chinese rock music, he once circled a vote of "girlfriend fans" with his high appearance and creative talent.
From joining the breath band in 1988, to later forming the first domestic torrent metal band - Overload Band, Gao Qi became famous for heavy metal rock, and the first album "Overload" introduced Thrash Metal to China, releasing restless hormones and thinking about life in "Shadow of the Ancestors", "Wasteland Trapped Beast" and "Poem of Life". Since then, he has also composed many popular songs such as "Magic Blue Sky", "Green Grass", "Perfect Summer" and so on.
Since the release of their third album "Life is an Adventure" in 2002, Gao Qi and overload band have been silent for a long time. Until recently, he returned again with his new album "Song Ci Ji Yi", composing music for Song Ci "groundbreaking", and chose to perform in the form of a children's chorus, and Li Jian was also invited to participate in the recording of the song. At the scene of the Song Song song series public welfare activities, he accepted an interview with the media, responded to the questions of the outside world, and also shared some views on the current music market.
From heavy metal to children's chorus
A rock singer went to compose a song and adapted it into a children's chorus, which sounded a bit magical. Li Jian also described gao qi as "incredible" in Weibo. Gao Qi explained to the media: "I have been doing diversified music, overload and this album are two things, for me they are parallel, not conflicting. When he formed the Children's Choir, he realized that the name "High Flag" was difficult to separate from "rock", so he gave the name of The Illusion Factory to express the beauty of pure music.
In fact, when you see Gao Qi himself, you will feel that it is not at all abrupt for him to score ancient poems. He is not too close to the image of the rock singer we remember as "crazy and cool", his voice is very soft, and his speech and demeanor are very cultivated. He described himself as a person who would never let go of the opportunity to joke in ordinary life, "just like ordinary people, of course, the state on stage is another expression." ”
Gao Qi grew up in a musical family, his father was a choir conductor, his mother graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music, he was exposed to a large number of classical music and Chinese and foreign literary works since he was a child, and the idea of composing music for Song Ci was also buried when he was studying.
In the process of composing the music for the new album, his father, who is the conductor of the choir, also participated, and Gao Qi told the media: "The final check before the publication of the five songs was done by my father, who was in his eighties and took reading glasses to find one of the wrong notes from tens of thousands of notes, especially seriously. ”
For this attempt at the new album, Gao Qi feels that it has met expectations and hopes to continue to do this series. However, in the interview, he still expressed his love for rock and roll, believing that rock is the music that best expresses his ideology. Rock albums will continue to be released in the future, and will return to the heavy metal style of the first album. He said: "Making the heaviest music can show my life energy." ”
Culture is hidden underneath
Many media at the scene are more concerned about how Gao Qi views the sudden rise of "hip hop" in the current music market. Gao Qi recalled the scene of his first meeting with Ouyang Jing in the recording studio, "At that time, I felt that at first sight, he was a special American fan, and many of my friends were like this, they were all very cool and talented people. In his living environment, he can contact many people who engage in hip-hop music, and he is not surprised that hip-hop is accepted by the mainstream, Gao Qi said: "They have actually been expressing it, this year this opportunity is particularly good, it is completely released, and many times these cultures are hidden underneath." ”
There are two main voices that talk about rock 'n' roll over the years, nostalgia and ridicule. Nostalgia regards Cui Jian, Moyan Sanjie, Tang Dynasty, and Black Panther as insurmountable classics, and calls the 90s the golden age of rock music. The ridicule faction ranges from the scene of the collective car accident in "I Am a Singer" to Zhao Mingyi holding a thermos cup and teasing that the Chinese rock music gang is old and rock music is no longer good.
Gao Qi does not agree with the idea that the 90s were a golden age, and is also opposed to equating Chinese rock with the musicians and bands of a certain era. He said: "In fact, the market share at that time was not as high as it is now, and it was influential because no other music had risen for a while, which did not represent how strong rock music was in the entire market, and today I feel that there is this trend." ”
He feels that there are a lot of high-quality rock bands at the moment, and the fan base is also undergoing positive changes, which are unimaginable in the 90s. In the past few years of performances, he found that there were many "small fresh meats" among music fans, and even was born in 1996, and the first album he released was the same age. This group of young fans, they are in an era of information explosion, have more opportunities to contact high-quality music, aesthetic and identification of music are much higher than before. "In the '90s, a lot of people came to see a hilarity, thinking that rock 'n' roll was dry and fun. Without the current psychic communication of fans, you can feel that they really like your music. ”
The way rock musicians live
It is worth mentioning that the new album "Song Ci Ji Yi" released by Gao Qi was produced through online crowdfunding. For independent musicians, this is indeed a particularly good model, not only partially solving the problem of funding, but also allowing fans to gather to the greatest extent.
But before that, the way rock musicians live has always been a mystery to the outside world. Some time ago Dou Wei for a mobile game composition caused widespread controversy, these years Dou Wei life is very low-key, and even by netizens jokingly called "big immortal", in the hearts of many fans, rock musicians should be independent personality, will never be kidnapped by business, for a mobile game composition is a very "face-dropping" thing.
The media at the scene interviewed Gao Qi's views on this matter, and he was quite dismissive, but showed a strong interest in Dou Wei's composition. "I did a lot of work in the '90s, and for a while I wrote songs for commercials, which I had to write in order to survive. The cooperation is very good, but in the end it is still unbearable, there is no psychological reason, it is completely a writing reason. ”
This "Song Ci Ji Yi" album, Gao Qi is also quite "willful", he does not have too high expectations for album sales, even if he can't return to the original, he will continue to do it out of his own pocket. He said: "The purpose of our music is not to become a billionaire in the end, but to enjoy it in music, if your fans can support you to make music better, without looking at other people's faces, that is to make your own life happy." ”