■ Biography
Zhao Zhao, a native of Liaocheng, Shandong, was born in the south and grew up in the north. Folk rock singer, music producer, founder of fig band.
Now Zhao Zhao has created more than 500 songwriters and opened hundreds of solo performances.
In 2015, Zhao Zhao's work "When You're Old" won the CCTV Spring Festival Gala Stage and Hunan Satellite TV's "I Am a Singer" and other stages, this song has become the most covered song by singers and artists in recent years, and has also become a well-known classic for the whole people, and won the "2016 QQ Peak Music Festival" Annual Top Ten Hot Song Golden Melody Award.
△ Zhao Zhao. Courtesy of respondents
On July 26, near 11 o'clock, Zhao Zhao walked in, took a carton of milk from the refrigerator at the door, and sat down while opening it.
It was a bar in the old city area, his friend's place. The visit to his hometown is coming to an end, and he is going to return to Beijing after resting here for two days.
Saying that it is a rest, in fact, there is no day idle, every night late at night, it is the most enthusiastic time for him to "dialogue" with music, and therefore, during the day, he is quieter.
That's right, quiet. Just a month ago, the new album "Night Lang" was launched on NetEase Cloud. Some commentators say that the new album has the anxiety of suffering from the status quo and unable to break through; others say that in the new album, he uses musical notes to piece together life into a beautiful poem. But Zhao Zhao, who was presented in front of the reporter, was calm and quiet.
For nearly two hours after that, the rain outside the window fell from time to time, as if he had "grabbed a handful of light rain and sprinkled it" from his work. Zhao Zhao in the bar, talking about creation and art about his hometown, is frank and gentle.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > about creation</h1>
"I wish this song was sung to you"
Mention Zhao Zhao, one song that can't be avoided is "When You're Old".
The song became popular shortly after its release in 2012, which is no surprise in Zhao Zhao's view.
"I finished writing this song in 2011, and I thought that this work might be on fire." Zhao Zhao said that Yeats's classic love poem has been circulated for more than 100 years, which shows its classics.
In 2013, this song was brought to the stage of "China's Good Songs" by Zhao Zhao, which touched countless people and was named "the most heartfelt song of the year". In 2014, Zhao Zhao sang the theme song for the TV series "Hey, Old Man" and produced all the soundtracks for the TV series, which was directed by Yang Yaya and starred Huang Lei, Song Jia and Li Xuejian, and with the popularity of the TV series, Zhao Zhao's songs such as "When You Are Old" and "You Are the Girl I Want Most" also "brushed the screen" again.
In 2015, "When You're Old" was brought to the Spring Festival Gala stage by Karen Mok, and then taken to the stage of the third season of Hunan Satellite TV's "I Am a Singer" by Li Jian. This song has become the most covered song by singers and artists in recent years, and has also become a classic that is familiar to the whole people.
But unlike many people understand, in Zhao Zhao's view, the song "When You Are Old" not only has love, but also family and friendship.
"If you look at the lyrics seriously, you may have a resonance, it can be a song with commonality." Zhao Zhao said that this is also why, at the end of the song, he adapted the lyrics into "I really hope that this song is sung to you." "This 'you' can be yourself, or everyone around you." Zhao Zhao said.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > talk about art</h1>
"I am to you, mouth to heart, nine summers to three winters"
"If there are young people who also want to go down the path of art, what do you most want to say to them?"
"Then let them learn the language first."
When Zhao Zhao said this, there was no pause, as if it was a question that he had considered many times before, including the answer.
△ Zhao Zhao participated in CCTV's "Classic Aria Circulation" program
In 2018, at the scene of CCTV's "Classic Arias", Zhao Zhao "dialogued" with the audience with a song "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment", which also made more people re-recognize him.
"Seven stars, one robe of wind, Buddha to the cangsheng; heaven haohao, the sun dissolving, the crescent moon to changhong; I am to you, mouth to heart, nine summers to three winters..." This is "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment", but it is not all "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment".
"Afterwards, some people said to me, you are really bold, and you dare to change "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment"." Zhao Zhao smiled and said that he was actually not afraid of being questioned by others, but he was a little worried afterwards, because "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment" was selected as a textbook for primary school students, and he was afraid that the adapted works would "mislead" the children.
The text is like its person, and so is the work. From the "Sound Rhythm Enlightenment", we can see the stubbornness of a typical Shandong person.
"Why is it 'mouth to heart' and not 'mouth to heart'?" Zhao Zhao said, "Many people have asked this question, and everyone will feel that 'mouth to heart' should be more elegant than 'mouth to heart'. But isn't the mouth just the mouth? It's just that its name is more popular, shouldn't we also have 'pride and prejudice' in words? Maybe this is my stubbornness and small willfulness. Zhao Zhao said.
"The seven stars are the seven stars of the Big Dipper, and the wind of a robe means that when the ancients stood in the wind, the wind blew over and filled the robes..." Zhao Zhao said, he deliberately added the tone of the ancient people's poetry to the song. And the instruments played with it, in addition to the guitar, are all traditional Chinese instruments, pipa, flute, guqin, wooden fish, shakuhachi... "Each instrument represents a role in my imagination, the guqin represents the elderly, the pipa should be a woman, the flute and the flute represent a young man, and the wooden fish represents a child." This is also Zhao Zhao's stubbornness, his love and obsession with traditional Chinese culture.
"Chinese culture is broad and profound, and in a word, the ancients paid attention to songs and songs, so in recent years, I have always tried to use the form of music to blend the beauty of Chinese characters with modern music, so that tradition and modernity meet in musical works," Zhao Zhao said.
△ Zhao Zhao participated in Yang Lan's "Legend of Ingenuity" program
Zhao Zhao said bluntly that he generally does not participate in variety shows, afraid that he will not be able to catch the "terrier". But this does not prevent him from participating in "Home to Eat", "Readers", "Classic Arias" and Yang Lan's "Legend of Ingenuity", it is not difficult to find that these programs have one thing in common, that is, there is a poetic beauty of life, and there is a person's understanding and thinking about life, including reconciliation with himself.
But Zhao Zhao is still Zhao Zhao, "not a poet, not a folk song, not rock, not an art, not an idol", although he is over the age and not confused, in his own words, he is still insisting on being himself, singing the songs he wants to sing according to his own ideas and ways.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="65" > talk about hometown</h1>
"The little city I miss, after many years you will not come unharmed"
△ Two days after the interview, Zhao Zhao sent blessings to the readers of Liaocheng Daily.
Zhao Zhao used music and left a mark in many places.
In 2018, he sang the custom song "Fujian Like You" for the Fujian Tourism Bureau, which received rave reviews after its launch and was used in the Four Nations BRICS Conference. In his words, it was a work that was almost in one go. In the same year, he was invited by Jia Zhangke to participate in the second Pingyao International Film Festival and sang the song "Pingyao Xing" tailored for Pingyao.
So, have you ever thought about creating a song for your hometown?
Over the years, Zhao Zhao has faced this problem countless times. On July 26, on the morning of this hometown with light rain, Zhao Zhao's answer was four words: "Near homesickness." ”
"I want to talk too much about my hometown, and I'm too familiar with it, but I don't know where to start." Zhao Zhao said that if you write songs for Liaocheng, you may have to find a better state.
But hometown, in his works, is not without traces.
"Shandong" has dirt and old locust trees, and behind Zhao Zhao's old home, there are also old locust trees; "Zongxiang" has his heavy nostalgia for his hometown, "The small city I miss, after many years you will not come unharmed, my mother told me his old appearance, taking advantage of the twilight to find your incense... The rice dumplings in my heart are my mother's hope..." Perhaps the heavier the thoughts, the more unhurried and melodious they are expressed.
Young children leave home to work hard, sell songs in bars, work in piano shops, and even can't afford to pay rent... For Zhao Zhao, a dreamer, the past is leisurely, and hometown is the warmest background in his heart. Longing and affection can be transformed into melodies, which are presented in the work affectionately and without trace. For example, "Dream Back to Hometown", such as "Coming Home to Eat". Or, as he sang in "Shandong", "The drifter has gone, a thousand miles to the north, and the window of the house is lonely in the twilight... The return of the servants of the wind and dust, how many miles you have walked, the lamp in the house illuminates your way back."
Reporter: Lu Xiaolei Zhao Zongfeng