The hometown of Ou Jiayuan, the lead singer of the Sound Toy Band, is 100 kilometers away from Chengdu. In 1999, Ou Jiayuan quit his job as an art teacher in his hometown and came to Chengdu, the closest city to him where he could find someone to do rock music. After 21 years, the sound toy band he founded has become inseparable from Chengdu, and in a sense, the sound toy band can be seen as the beginning of Chengdu's rock history. They are not like many old rock bands have a clear development path, always suddenly silenced, and suddenly appeared, but in the intermittent process, they have always had a stable sense of existence, at least in Chengdu, sound toys are a name that cannot be bypassed.
The lead singer of the sound toy band Ou Jiayuan, now the initial members are only Ou Jiayuan. Flag /Photo
The band toured to Shijiazhuang a few years ago, catching up with the bad climate, and Ou Jiayuan suddenly understood the struggle and romance in the music of the Universal Youth Hostel. He believes that the temperament of some bands will be shaped by the style of the city where they live, sound toys are such bands, in his description, the formations are wet, ambiguous, beautiful, these are also the key words for people to describe the sound toy music, "many people were initially impressed with us, but also because our music is very suitable for the city."
The city representative band that came out of the "Tavern"
Sound Toys performed its first time in a tavern, when the band was called "The Pilgrim's Betrayal", a name that had to emphasize screwing, ou Jiayuan felt that it was too much like a heavy band, so he changed his name to sound toy, which was suddenly much lighter.
Twenty years ago, rock 'n' roll was the world of heavy music, new metal styles were reveling around the world, and a band known for melodies and harmonies didn't look as rock' and roll. Ou Jiayuan said that the early sound toys did not pay attention to the public's opinion, and the performance often played for dozens of minutes. Retro art rock is like a rebellion against mainstream music, including mainstream rock style, "our songs at that time were not at all like in the first demo, the audience did not see such a performance, there was no band like us, we performed to conquer, carrying the piano like a machine gun."
Because of the outstanding style, sound toys quickly became a representative band in Chengdu, they signed a contract with the tavern, the tavern's then managers Tang Lei and Shi Lei began to take them to perform in other places, the band spread their influence little by little, "At that time, the tavern was a refuge for rock and roll, all the people who played rock and roll were there, and we gradually got a little fame in the circle, and we were ready to release the first record." And the story of the sound toy can also be regarded as the beginning of this record."
Screenshot of the performance of Sound Toys in a Tavern in 2001. Videographer/Shi Lei
The debut album burst out of the rock circle
The first album had two directions, one was a concept album based on more than thirty minutes of "Good Night, King", a song to fill an album; the other was the later release of this version of "The Most Wonderful Journey", which contained relatively beautiful and literary works. At that time, the band, except for Ou Jiayuan, wanted to record "Good Night, King", "I think we couldn't grasp the music of "Good Night, King" at that time, this would become a classic if it was made, but we did it at that time, and we would waste this IP." In the end, Ou Jiayuan personally decided on the presentation of this album.
The album was released in 2003, in which "Secret Love", "Ailing", "Sunday Street" quickly captured a large number of literary and artistic youth, in various rock forums, these songs have been repeatedly marked, disseminated, beautiful words in the lyrics, also interpreted as poetry. Although this is a very popular album, rock elements do not occupy a large proportion, but in the rock and roll environment at that time, it still provides some new creative perspectives, those that are not grand, soft and private emotions, can also be used as a basis for expression, and have their own beauty.
Sound toys and Trojan lyrics later gradually appeared on various QQ signatures, Ou Jiayuan said that at that time the band was regarded as a kind of cruel youth literature, but everyone did not care about the provenance of these sentences, just like many of the songs on the album were not completely spread in the rock circle, they reached more people. Many years later, the band re-uploaded this album, and Ou Jiayuan saw the messages in the album and knew that these songs accompanied the youth of many people.
However, at that time, Ou Jiayuan did not know the response of this record, but thought that it might sell well, because when the tavern gave the band a record royalty, it had at most tens of thousands of dollars at a time, "At that time, the band was still averaging, everyone felt that there were so many, and the albums should have sold more than 10,000 copies, which was not less at that time."
In the second year after the album was released, the contradiction between Ou Jiayuan and the band members has become irreconcilable, and the sound toy has disbanded, which is an unpleasant past, and there are still marks on the Internet that have been disbanded, but the parties are reluctant to mention it. Ou Jiayuan believes that the problem lies in himself, "Before, I never considered the feelings of others, what I wanted must be what I wanted, and my emotional intelligence iq could not handle communication at all." It's not a flaw, it's a personality flaw that hurts a lot of people. I'm a little better now, just relatively better, but I know I care about other people's feelings."
Cover of the debut album The Most Wonderful Journey.
Witness the growth of Rock in Chengdu
After the band disbanded, Ou Jiayuan worked as a tuner in a tavern for six years, occasionally working with contemporary art, and he said that he cared more about expression than music. During this period, the band also tried to reorganize, but did not get on the right track of creation, "at that time, I was still not satisfied with the band, and the substitutions were always tossed, like a zombie band, occasionally performing." At that time, there were many real estate openings in Chengdu, and the band could receive some commercial performances, a fifteen hundred yuan, which was enough for a month's life. Participating in some contemporary art creations, the income is more considerable, Ou Jiayuan is mostly involved in video works, once wanted to be an actor, he felt that his personality was too introverted, when the actor can open himself, want to play a drug lord, the underworld, but the works he appeared in, are silent roles.
Sound toys have changed musicians many times over the years, and now the initial member is only Ou Jiayuan, who once said in an interview that the musicians of sound toys can form a Chronicle of Chengdu Rock and Roll. The stop-and-go state of sound toys is also related to the large number of musicians, Ou Jiayuan said that the band was disbanded by him countless times, and once he was not satisfied with the performance of the music festival, and announced his dissolution on the train back.
When tuning in the tavern, I personally experienced the growth of many Chengdu rock bands, Ou Jiayuan remembers the first time the secret operation was performed in the tavern, or a group of childish children, and now look at their scene, typhoons and music have matured beyond recognition, "and Xia Ying of the mosaic, who was also a child at the beginning, is now an uncle-level star."
Ou Jiayuan is now preparing the band's third album, want to add some electronic things, so that the music has a better rhythm, he found that the performances are now watched by young people around 25 years old, these young people will not be like them, the music has returned to the commodity attributes, like represents consumption. The music of sound toys has always been listened to rather than interactive, but now young people are keen to dance, and Ou Jiayuan hopes to communicate with the current young people by rhythm.
Ou Jiayuan is now preparing for the band's third album. Flag /Photo
As a former wave, it is inevitable that there is a sense of crisis, Ou Jiayuan believes that life dissolves a lot of things, "experiencing the passage of time, the decline of creativity, looking at the current state of the people around you who were very talented before, knowing that it is inevitable." There is also some past that has also been dissolved, Ou Jiayuan said, and the unpleasantness of the past has also been relieved with time, and people and rock music are growing.
The drummer who reinvented the band, Huang Jin, was a drummer for Sound Toys, one of the band's founders, and one of the first to leave the band, before joining and leaving the band again after compiling the album Love Is Expensive in 2015. Ou Jiayuan said that Huang Jin played music with him when he was 20 years old, during which time he was divided and merged, and in his impression, Huang Jin left the band three times, the last time was a disagreement in musical taste, "He has always liked electronic things, and he is now joining the remodeling is very suitable for his path, more suitable than us." Ou Jiayuan said that although the two belonged to different bands, they were still very cordial when they participated in the variety show recording, chatting and smoking together. After the sound toys were eliminated in the first round of the variety show, Huang Jin came out to send them to the car and hugged the band, "At that moment, I really felt particularly warm."
Ou Jiayuan hopes that after he is old, when he is more confident about music, he will record "Good Night, King", this IP that has been left for 20 years, there have been many impulses to record, but every time he just thinks about it and shelves it again, with the passage of time, this work that has been talked about in rock forums is no longer the gesture of the past, Ou Jiayuan has been constantly assigning value to it over the years, he feels that when this work really comes out, it may not only be music, maybe it will be a musical. Over the years as a band, Ou Jiayuan can't remember how many songs he wrote, but for him, "Goodnight, King" is always his most important work, because it was the beginning of his musical story, and perhaps the next opening of his musical story.
In 2020, Sound Toy Band participated in the recording of "Summer of the Band" with its current lineup.
Beijing News reporter Tang Bo
Edited by Tian Kaini Proofreader Li Xiangling
Source: Beijing News