Text | Li Xiaoying
Proofreading | Li Xuejiao
Edit | Lucy Dong
Character Profile: Echo Brother, pop singer, born in 1987 in Chengdu, Sichuan, Tianfeng. Before entering the show business circle, he was an online singer on the YY Voice K Song Entertainment Channel, and became popular with cover songs. In 2011, Echo Brother signed a contract with Beijing Bole Philharmonic and officially entered the show business circle. In 2011, he released his first album "Echo Echo Echo", in 2013, he launched his second solo album "8:19AM", in 2015, he launched his third solo album "All to You", and in November 2017, Echo Brother entered Huya Live and became a network anchor. In January 2018, the new album "Grown Up" was released.
At the age of thirty, the singer Echo Brother gave himself a musical gift, which was the first time he had taken care of all the songwriting on his own. For this big boy who once became popular with internet cover songs, this is also a major turning point in his career.
On January 15th, Echo Brother's album "Grown Up" was officially launched on the whole network, and the album creation was connected with his personal growth as the main line, and the five songs represented the first birth, young rebellion, youth love, now self and feelings about life.
This album, which was supposed to meet with everyone at the end of 2017, was officially released a month late until the beginning of 2018 due to Echo Brother's "procrastination" and "obsessive-compulsive disorder".
About creation: from singing "SpongeBob SquarePants" to writing songs yourself
"Not everyone will think I'm stupid and question why I want to transform, can you sing SpongeBob SquarePants well?" Not everyone can understand. Someone can understand me, that's okay, I have to change. In the face of music finance, Echo Brother had doubts, caught up with the good times of the Internet, he came out, got so much attention, but he was very unconvinced, and felt that he wanted to say something clearly to the public.
Before this, Echo Brother became popular on the Internet with cover songs, and the public's inherent impression of him was "spare tire song king", a singer who came out of the Internet, what good things can he do? In the face of comments, Echo Brother will care, a little inferior, he has the strength to prove something.
Friend and producer Hu Chen also gave Echo Brother great help. The two have known each other for five years, but in the first four years, Brother Echo did not have the courage and confidence to cooperate with him, until last year, the two went to the United States to perform together, and brother Echo asked "cheekily" between rehearsals: "Master, can you listen to the songs I wrote myself?" Hu Chen happily agreed, and without any accompaniment, Echo Brother sang a piece of his own work.
As a professional music producer, Hu Chen has a strong sensitivity, does not need the fancy orchestration, he can also clearly think of the feeling and effect of such a melody in his mind. Hu Chen was surprised after listening to Echo Brother's oratorio and asked, "Did you write this yourself?" After receiving a positive reply, Brother Echo then proposed to invite Hu Chen to participate in the recording of his new album, and Hu Chen agreed.
While working on the album "All for You", Echo Brother decided to learn the skills of songwriting from producer Xu Huanliang, from lyrics to composition. The first time he gave the song "All to You", it took him half a month to write the lyrics, the first edition did not work to write the second edition, the third edition still did not work to continue to write, and kept writing, until finally through him to write at least five editions.
Now his mobile phone memo has more than 2700 accompanying notes, think of everything to record, if it is time to write a song, he will always pick out the key points from the memo to use, and immediately recall in his mind what kind of situation he wrote this paragraph at that time, why he wrote it. He had to find the feeling in the fastest time, compose the melody, and finish the song.
"You have to know what you're writing, it's important, which word is specific, to express it clearly."
In the perception of Echo Brother, many people with higher education will always be unable to understand the words written by him, and the lyricists themselves understand, but it does not mean that everyone understands. Therefore, when he writes lyrics, he must ensure that he can read them first and then sing them to others, so that he will have more satisfaction. He wants to make a musical work with practical content, which cannot reach the high level of art, but at least it is a good pop song, and it is not easy to do a good pop song.
The lyrics are written more, and gradually the echo brother finds that making music has little to do with the level of culture, and cultural knowledge can only play an auxiliary role, but it may not allow the lyricist to make a clear expression at the fastest speed in the shortest time.
Brother Echo came to Beijing for six years, and the money was not saved, but the songs were indeed written a lot.
If he hadn't left his hometown in Chengdu, most of the songs written by Brother Huiyin would have been emotional expressions, but under the microcosm of the big world of Beijing, the people and things he could contact were different, and such an environment could stimulate his creation.
After the villain of "Grown Up" was completed, Echo Brother first congratulated himself on jumping out of the label of "Internet Singer", and at the same time found some confidence in himself to make music.
About career: "Many ideas, disobedience, deciding on their own music"
Making music is the process that Echo brother enjoys the most, but there are also unspeakable pains.
Income is difficult to hide, everyone who makes music hopes to bring a stable income to themselves through musical works, can motivate themselves to continue to do, but the actual situation is not so, musicians to do things to pay too much representative.
Echo Brother told Music Finance that in fact, he had not met the "big brothers" who really wanted to help him, and he would initially talk to them enthusiastically about his ideals. But slowly, he realized that these so-called "help" were nothing more than superficial statements from these business operators, who felt they were right, that they were right to make money, and that all three views of them were correct.
Echo brother does not like the business model of these four words, a company to find an artist, first of all, to meet two conditions, to be obedient, good packaging, these two points echo brother does not have, "disobedience, their own ideas are particularly much." The company has worked hard for me in the past six years, but I'm honest now, and 80% of the reasons may be my own. I won't cooperate with what you're going to do for me. ”
Echo Brother is very entangled, knowing that his "point" is there, but he is unwilling to change himself, preferring to walk slowly and not to make unrealistic daydreams.
"In my case, I don't mean that everything is spoken with money. Once the first step is backed down for the sake of the established interests, there will be a second step, and with the second step and then three or four steps, the concession will be endless, and the bottom line is that the boiled frog in warm water has retreated to the lowest. ”
In 2011, Echo Brother through the YY Voice K Song Entertainment Channel by cover singing to make netizens well-known, the next year through his first album "Echo Echo Echo", which has a high degree of singing, Echo Brother officially became a singer into the music industry. But it was also from the release of this first album that he had the determination to make his own music and decide on his own musical compositions.
When other Internet singers of the same era gradually disappeared, Over the years, Echo Brother has been working hard to make various changes, opening personal specials, learning to write songs, and practicing guitar. He understands that "red" is a state, and it seems simple to be famous for relying on packaging and team premeditation, but if you want to be really pushed, this person must also have real skills.
There are many voices around, such as making money quickly when there is a topic now, and the relationship between him and business interests is like a game, and it is difficult to say who is right and who is wrong. He wants to make a MV, talk to the director about creativity until midnight, and when it comes to the price, he has to invest at least ten to two hundred thousand yuan.
Echo Brother himself is divided, but he is quite satisfied with this painful state, because it is the best state for the creator. Judging from the current situation, Echo Brother should have chosen such a difficult path as being a singer-songwriter.
For Echo Brother, after all, a flower has blossomed in the live broadcast room and has its own audience. On the mainstream road, whether it is to transform into a singer-songwriter or a singer of a professional-level record management company, the resources of these companies are more concentrated, not necessarily suitable for Echo Brother, for him, the vitality may not be as good as the live broadcast room model. This is probably why in November 2017, Echo Brother will enter Huya Live and become a network anchor.
The music that Echo Brother wants to express carries his true feelings about life. In the song "Thirty-Year-Old Self", he sings about his confused future, constantly saying "Don't be afraid" to himself, insisting on what he thinks is the right choice.
"The public's tolerance for culture is getting bigger and bigger, the acceptance is getting higher and higher, and everyone's requirements for musical works are getting higher and higher." Echo Brother told Music Finance, "Fans want to accept more, better and more refined things, which are works that can convey the most real feelings." ”
About Life: "I want to get married"
Echo brother graduated from a high school, he never thought he could make music, and he used to just love to sing.
When he was a child, he always loved to cry when he was sick and went to the hospital for injections, so every time he went to his father, he had to carry a small tape recorder, and he cried while crying his father and put Zhou Bingqian in his ear. At that time, their hometown Chengdu was popular to go to the jukebox to sing, two dollars a song, dad every time he went to bring echo brother, father and son love to sing.
One summer vacation, a brother who was at home secretly sold the washing machine at home, took more than a hundred yuan of "dirty money" to the night market to buy a pirated version of Jay Chou's album and went home to listen to it repeatedly. Dad found out and gave him a serious boxing education.
Love to sing, do not love to learn, echo brother did not finish junior high school began to soak at home on the Internet, at that time he did not have any dreams, every day in addition to the Internet is to stay at home. When it was time to eat, my father delivered the meal to the house and shouted "waste." Echo Brother recalled that at that time, he felt that life did not seem to be interesting, especially desperate, and the "waste" that his father shouted every time seemed to be able to really run through his life.
"To be honest, if I don't make music, I really don't know what to do, so I feel like I have to thank the music, I really appreciate it, I must make the music well." 」 Unlike those who have actually studied music in elementary school, Echo Brother has never had an orthodox and somewhat painful music learning experience, so he can always maintain his enthusiasm for music learning and creation and his urgent desire.
For Brother Huiyin, leaving his hometown Chengdu to choose to come to Beijing for development is a very correct decision, although these years have not harvested too many benefits and material benefits, but leaving the comfortable hometown of Chengdu, he got the sense of reality that he should feel most as a living person.
He said frankly that because he had never studied music systematically from childhood to adulthood, it was unrealistic to spend another ten years to catch up now, and there was not so much time to learn again. So he learned to cooperate with excellent people, he did a good job of writing and composing music, and other more professional work to find better people to complete, just like Hu Chen, he is young and the top guitarist in China, he likes to cooperate with such people to learn.
"Of course, the prerequisite for working with better people is to do my job as best as possible." Echo Brother is clear and full of determination on his own music learning path.
It's hard to imagine that this handsome echoing brother who a mouthful of Trump is thirty years old. He jokes with a bitter taste, and when he is serious, he is full of humor.
We asked him why he wore a mask all the time with such a handsome face. He asked seriously, "Where is the handsome?" ”
In fact, he is not without self-confidence, but he is used to the state in which he hides behind the mask. Although some people will still think that he is purposefully keeping mysterious and maintaining heat.
"I just don't want to feel like I'm being stripped naked. Many people feel as if they are very smart, I guessed everything, you are dressed like this is what I want to look like, because I see through, what ideas can people like you have, isn't it just to make yourself fire? I don't want to satisfy your so-called sanity, and I think you have to miss it once. ”
"The name was given casually at the time, so why didn't it change it later?"
"Use it, this name has been six years, why change it, and after so many years, I don't think I will have any earth-shaking changes even if I change the name."
It seems that he doesn't care about everything, but in fact, Echo Brother longs for stability in his heart.
In recent years, Echo Brother has always participated in the weddings of various people, his friends in his hometown have been married and have children, last year his brother and sister have children, he also feels that getting married and having children is another important turning point in life.
He also wants to get married, and now he always has a feeling of drifting in his heart, he wants to have a clearer goal, making music is one of the goals, but music is a career thing, and he prefers to have another clearer goal in his heart: children.
Echo brother very much wants to see that he has children, you can talk to him every day, talk to him, tell him that you look at your father, he can make music, he can sing, you can do it. He also wants to tell his children what he thinks, to those who don't believe him, "You see, what I can't do, my son can do, my daughter can do, you think I can't do it, but I at least have a successor, and he will continue to do it for me." 」 ”
Brother Echo said very seriously that the most important thing he wants to do this year is to get married!
"Although I still have a lot of difficulties, I am still young, I have a long time, there will be a way, but it is only a matter of time." Echo Brother said that he usually comforted himself like this, "I really feel that I haven't grown up yet." ”
Rotating Editor of the Week: Li Hezi
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