Zang Hongfei, musician, debater of "Strange Story", duan zi player, one of the early rock musicians in China, is now working as a keyboard for the band Dragon Shinto, and has served as a producer for Xu Wei and Tan Weiwei. After participating in "Strange Story", it quickly became popular and frequently appeared in various variety shows.
Zang Hongfei, a Beijing native, has a wide range of contacts, and every time he mentions it, there will be several friends around him who know him, and Zang Hongfei seems to know people all over the world.
Zang Hongfei has loved music since he was a child, and in 1993, he formed the band "Red Peach 5" with a group of friends and served as a keyboardist. In the following two decades, he became a well-known "Living King" in the circle, with musicians including Xu Wei, Zheng Jun, He Yong, Zhang Chu, Xie Tianxiao, and his own band "Dragon Shinto" is China's first true reggae band.
But this old cannon of the rolling circle did not rely on the strange performance in a variety show until middle age to catch fire. Zang Hongfei's life has undergone unimaginable changes, and all the young people are proud that they can turn a corner to know Zang Hongfei. But he told me that he was actually a very passive social person, never taking the initiative to organize a game, never making friends, and rarely going to bars, livehouses and other entertainment venues, because he grew up in those places since he was a teenager, and after so many years, he couldn't get any happiness from it.
Most of the time, Zang Hongfei's life is basically static. He loves to walk, rarely smokes, and even if he sleeps late, he watches TV or plays games at home, and is not as "impatient" as in front of the camera. He said he was physically weak and had often felt tired lately. It's probably only when you hear these words that you remember that he's actually a 41-year-old man.
Less than half a year after the end of the fourth season of "Strange Story", Feifei became busier and busier. He appears as an angry, a little stuttering, but funny and sincere middle-aged rock musician in various young people's variety shows. His home's music studio has been half-turned into a cloakroom, filled with clothes he added to the variety show recordings, and two suitcases next to it to make it easier for him to pack his bags when he travels frequently. This rock musician, who had struggled for many years to get from the ground to the ground, was already very skilled at finding a camera position for himself in this shoot.
Today's National Day holiday, Feifei did not arrange any work for himself, and took a complete vacation. By chance, I once heard his voice on a friend's WeChat. He was asking about the computer configuration for playing "Eat Chicken" (PUBG) in a group called "Go, Glory of the King", where most of the more than a hundred people were Internet celebrities and anchors, and I heard that he occasionally teased girls in it.
I know that in the previous question about "how to evaluate Zang Hongfei", the two high-vote answers both used the same sentence to interpret Zang Hongfei in their eyes - running away for half a life, returning is still a teenager. Probably the reason why so many people like this man with dirty braids and stuttering when excited is precisely because he has become our "middle-aged peer" in a way that never compromises easily or pretends to be forced.
Self-description| Zang Hongfei |▼
I now earn a month's top a year before
My name is Zang Hongfei and I am 41 years old. My name is given by my grandfather, Hong is the meaning of the goose, that is, I want to spread your wings and fly high, but in fact, the person you should be able to spread your wings and fly high is called Li Jianguo.
The money I earn now on a variety show is not an order of magnitude at all, how to say it, that is, a month may be the income of the previous year. This year my dad got sick and had surgery, and I paid for it right away, and I was able to cover the cost of staying in the best ward or treatment. But if last summer, I don't know what I should do.
In fact, before "Strange Story", they had been looking for me, looking for me four times, and I had refused the first three times. I especially can't accept standing there and being judged by others, I care a lot. I actually have a very proud or very hurt side in my heart, so I don't want to stand there and let others judge me, I say thank you teacher or something, or how much I am inspired here or something. Few people can inspire me, I'm all this age.
Later, I calmly analyzed the situation at that time. I had 800,000 followers at the time, which was relatively large in the rock circle, but relatively small in the whole entertainment industry. At that time, I wanted to talk about the difficulty of investing in a variety show, because you had not yet reached the eyes of investors. And I don't think I can quickly accumulate fans anymore, there's just no way, you have to rush out of your comfort zone.
I rarely push myself outside of my comfort zone, and this month, instead of bragging, I've also pushed a show that gives me a lot of money. It needs to be a skit, so I told him to leave it at that. Aside from being a last resort, I won't push myself into my psychological comfort zone, and "Strange Story" is the only time in the past few years. But it's still worth it.
I was able to have a studio this year, and I have such a good partner who is willing to work with me, and it's also (because) a lot of them were touched or laughed at in Stranger Things. And my influence is still rising exponentially, including how much money I can make this year. Haha, actually beyond, but I want to be humble.
I used to suffer for too many years, and I wanted to buy everything when I had money
I have also suffered, including living at a friend's house, including going to work and being blown out, twice, I remember it very deeply. Once in the NPC, once in Xizhimen, it is halfway through the singing, and people say you go or something. You know that the people who play the keyboard take a lot of things, and the big bags and small bags are blown out, and they feel that they are particularly miserable.
Another time, I was walking on the road, I met a classmate of mine in elementary school, his financial conditions are better, I saw that he was still very close, because the elementary school was in a group of six years. I said hello and he said I thought you were dead. Then I said okay and I was gone. Then many years later, last year he asked for my phone number through others, and then I was quite emotional, I didn't give him, I sent a particularly long weibo, I said from the day you told me, I thought you died, I felt that you were not my friend, so I will not contact you again.
Then for a while I used to sell CDs on the street. Just like these stall people now, if someone suddenly runs, you will run, anyway, if you see someone running, you will run, it may be the city management coming, or the police will copy something, just run with the CD. I have set up stalls at Baishiqiao, Xinjiekou, Renmin University, and Wudaokou.
After too many years of suffering, now that I have money, I want to buy everything. I especially love to throw things, once or twice a year. It's the big green trash can outside one or two buckets, and there are clothes and everything. I threw things because I bought a lot of things, and after a while I found it useless. A friend just took away probably ten shirts two days ago, from me.
I don't really understand [luxury] at all, and I don't like it very much, I prefer some street brands that are more suitable for my image. But I always buy luxury goods to buy and play. And it's funny, I look like I'm in some luxury stores abroad, and they all think I'm definitely not the one who bought this, and no one is receiving me. It was also in Paris and later in Tokyo. Sometimes the more luxury you wear, the more you suddenly get exceptionally good service in the luxury store. They watch me take something very expensive, they'll give you tea, then give you a snack, and then a set of them for you to hold and see. Sometimes I think it's ridiculous and funny. Actually, I didn't have much money, but I really spent a part of my income on the treatment of myself, the days when there was no place to live on the street. So sometimes some friends say how much money I make, or I'm particularly ostentatious, and I think they still don't know me well enough.
I can't encourage young people to live like me, and the odds of success in living like this are very small
In fact, not many people have the opportunity to suddenly rely on themselves one day after encountering many setbacks, live well on this thing they like, and then say to life that you fuck. So in fact, young people cannot be encouraged to live like me, and the chances of success in living like me are very small, and most people will end up with a bad ending. You look at all the people in the whole rock circle, but the majority of people are actually having a bad life, and some things really can't be copied.
My greatest strength is that I can recognize what kind of person I am, which many people can't do. It's about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, what your musical level is like, or what your level of speech is. Where are your strengths and weaknesses, which side you should use, which side you should show, which side of these people is better than the other side. I am particularly able to evaluate myself clearly, my understanding of myself is something that others cannot do, and people are particularly prone to either look down on themselves or be overconfident.
In fact, there is another point, I am not hurting young people, contemporary young people are particularly confident and feel that they can do it, but I think contemporary young people can't do it. Whether it is the cognition of the world, or the pursuit of the individual, or knowing where the boundaries of the world are, I think contemporary young people are not very good at these aspects.
I saw a childhood friend two days ago, my friend who hasn't had a good two years, and now he's gone to the United States and has a lot of gambling debts in Las Vegas. The last time I met him, he said a sentence that made me particularly emotional, I think we are in the 70s. He overdrafted a lot of credit cards, and I said how come you guys have been overdrawing their credit cards lately, and he said I went to see Pink Floyd's last tour. He said that if he didn't watch it again this time, Pink Floyd might never perform again. At that time, I especially sighed that he owed so much money the first two days, so good gambling, completely social, and had nothing to do with music, but he overdrafted his credit card and flew to Rome to see Pink Floyd's last tour, which was the post-70s.
I may be able to become a genre actor like Takeshi Kitano in the future
I just won an award this year called Best Social Network Musician, which is the person who loves the Internet the most. I think Chinese rock bands or Chinese musicians are too ignorant of the way of communication, and I recognized this earlier than they did, so I became a vested interest. This is the problem of guns and bullets, one is the end, the other is the means, in fact, the means are not as important as the end.
Now there are many friends in the music industry who don't consider me a musician. Maybe the people who used to look for me won't look for me, and people know that they won't look for me either. They think you're already so busy anyway, you're so expensive right now. My arrangement is the most expensive in China, and the performance is also the first-line price, and almost no one is higher than me, after all, in this industry for more than 20 years. I'm also doing some songs now, but in a new way, in a completely self-directed way, and then maybe I'll work with other artists, and I also made producers for Xu Wei and Tan Weiwei a while ago.
In fact, whether it is talking or playing the piano, I can accept it, just to see what can entertain me. Of course music will always do, and rock 'n' roll can give you something nothing else. The feeling that there are thousands of people singing with you at the bottom, when dopamine secretes that feeling, you see so many people dancing together, you do movie stars, you do variety stars, you can't do anything to give you that moment.
During these days, the company let me study acting, and I took a class and almost died of exhaustion. Because our company has a lot of dramas and movies that are shot every year, I may be able to become a type actor like Takeshi Kitano, but I can't become the kind of all-round actor they want to act like, and I am lazy.
I don't play much with my peers, I don't want kids, I just want to live selfishly
You see the way I've been going all these years is that I'm going to go to this, going to this, what I can do, what my company is going to do later, or what my music is going to be, probably all of which I expected. But in life, I will still be unhappy or sad because of some small things, and I will gamble with many people about something, and my heart and eyes are particularly small, just like children.
I don't play much with my peers, and none of my friends I've known in recent years are my age. My classmates are now in the enterprise are not small heads, the second marriage is over. After all, I'm in my 40s, maybe another 20 years, I don't want to be involved in things like marriage and having kids anymore, I just want to live selfishly, I don't want to pay so much for one person. Because if you want a child, you have to take care of him, and I don't want to distract myself from loving others.
I don't know how I got to live like this, and it wasn't deliberate. This way of life brings a lot of good and bad. I feel that I have received so many more things in my life than others, whether it is beautiful, ugly, good, evil or informative, and there are many more than others. So whether it's good or bad, it's quite rich.