"If I'm good enough,
I want you to remember my songs and people.
If I think it's average,
I'd rather you forget me. ”
Celebrity Face to Face
Interview | Peter Chen
Many people are not familiar with or have long forgotten the name "Peter Chen", who is Peter Chen?
In the Taiwanese pop music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, people jokingly called him the "fire brigade", as long as he sang a song he wrote, 100% of the fire would spread all over the country, and won a large number of heavenly kings and queens such as Liu Wenzheng, Fei Yuqing, Feng Feifei, etc. Classic songs such as "Late", "Ali Baba", "A Cut of Plum", "Several Degrees of Sunset Red" and other classic songs are also from his hand, which is an indelible youth memory in the hearts of countless people.
Tagawa: How red were you at that time?
Peter Chen: Let me tell you a number, I make fifty songs a month, it's terrible, it's only thirty days a month how do you get it.
Tagawa: Did you say that as long as the singer is not hot, he will ask you to write a song, and it will become popular immediately?
Peter Chen: There is this saying.
Tagawa: Why do you write songs that have such charm?
Peter Chen: In fact, in my opinion, making a good song and making a bowl of delicious noodles, although the degree is different, the way and process are completely different, the concept is still the same. How do you know that the noodles you do this will be eaten by others, just like how do you know that you, the singer, will love to listen to? How do you know that "Qingyu Case, New Year's Eve" will be on fire, how do you know that "Late" or "A Cut of Plum" will be on fire, not completely lucky, you have a sense of taste, your sense of taste is very sensitive, is a person who will care more about each other's feelings. I'm one of those people.
Fei Yuqing and Peter Chen
Peter Chen, whose original name was Chen Xiaoyin, was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in 1944 and moved to Taiwan in 1949 with his mother and father, who was an air force pilot. He said his parents brought him to Taiwan without his consent, and he became a Taiwanese kid who ate bananas every day and wore a mopboard.
Peter Chen did not study music, his parents hoped he would become an engineer, and he was successfully admitted to Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University majoring in mechanical engineering, but he has always loved music. At that time, it was the era when Western rock music swept the world, Peter Chen was obsessed with the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and would sing hundreds of English songs in college, and Tao Zhe's father, Tao Dawei, formed a band and sang in the song hall, because the song hall was mostly foreigners, he gave himself a stage name, "Peter Chen" came from this.
Return to your hometown
In September, Changying Park in Beijing, where Peter Chen and his wife Badu come to run every day, say that the air is good, the environment is good, and they enjoy this life. Seeing this scene, I could hardly make any connection between Peter Chen in front of me and Peter Chen, who created the myth of "a song and a person" in the Taiwanese music scene, and I was also curious about where Peter Chen had gone over the years.
Tagawa: How did you meet Mr. Badu?
Peter Chen: We meet in Pingshui, then we know each other, and then we rely on each other for our lives.
Tagawa: What is the greatest support that Mr. Badu has given you?
Peter Chen: She's very strict.
Tagawa: How strict?
Peter Chen: She is very serious and takes good care of me. She knew I had a slightly higher blood sugar and wouldn't let me eat too sweet. I love fruit, so I eat it secretly. I took two out of the fridge and ate them when she wasn't paying attention. Because I grew up in Taiwan, so I eat a lot of this fruit, and now I have to restrict my eating fruit, which is very torturous, can't eat grapes, can't eat pineapple, it's very cruel to me.
Peter Chan with his wife Badu
There are not many reports on Peter Chen's past on the Internet, and his video materials in Taiwan at that time are even fewer. We wanted to ask him for some old photos from before, and he told us that because he came back to the mainland from Taiwan and moved back and forth in multiple cities, there were very few old photos left.
Peter Chen: In the name of Jack London's novel, Call of the Wild, he said that the husky should go back to his mountain, to his wolf pack to lead or follow the wolf pack, I am also the husky, I am a Taiwanese husky, to return to my birthplace, that's it. From 1988 to visit relatives, now thirty years, in fact, I am very happy, I feel that I returned to my hometown, and then live here, here to create, this is a very good thing I have done in this life. Ordinary people come back to take the route of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, but I can't wait, I will go to Japan, because Hong Kong and Shenzhen have to queue up, to wait for three months, I said I can not wait, I will take a detour, from Japan through Shanghai and then come back.
This year, Peter Chen returned to the stage like a newcomer, confident and full of affection, the audience applauded for him, shed tears for him, netizens praised him, and the media also sent him questions, why did you come? He replied, why didn't you come?
Peter Chen participated in "The Voice of China"
Tagawa: What was your feeling at the time, what was your first reaction?
Peter Chen: I feel that what I have done in recent years has finally come to an answer, that is, it tells me that you are doing the right thing.
Like a warrior, you're wounded
Peter Chen said that 2018 is the year of his debut, the musician Peter Chen has returned, and his legendary story in the Taiwanese music scene has also received attention and inquiry, including about his depression.
Peter Chen: It should be in 1985, 1986, Ouyang Feifei's performance, when I was her guest, I sang four songs, when I sang two songs, I was already depressed and anxious together, I felt that I couldn't stay on this stage for a moment and a second, I went directly to the backstage, Ling Feng asked me, how did you come down, wasn't it still finished? I said I don't do it, I don't sing, I go to the hospital to hang up an emergency room, I think I'm almost finished, that anxiety attack is about to explode the heart, almost stopped.
As a second-generation musician in the Taiwanese pop music scene, Peter Chen followed the Taiwanese pop music giants Zhuang Nu and Weng Qingxi, and before Luo Dayou, Li Zongsheng and others. He said that he hated sweet songs the most, in composition, the introduction of R&B, lyric rock, disco music and other Western elements, the representative work "Ali Baba" was defined as the first disco style song in the Chinese pop music scene; in writing lyrics, he jumped out of the implicit restraint of expression, boldly wrote "Late" that told the story of love triangle, which once swept the two sides of the strait.
Peter Chan in his youth
Peter Chen: I'm a kind of eager person, a Leo, just like the A blood type, so do things very hard, sometimes exceed your own load, although your career is successful, you are anxious, you are depressed, like a warrior, you are injured. I know that many people in the show business circle are melancholy because they are eager to be kind, that is, they are too demanding of themselves.
Tagawa: How do you think this era of music is different from your musical era?
Peter Chen: Music is all about competition, and I think music now should be a little easier than we were back then. Because in that era when records were very popular, more than a dozen record companies produced films at the same time, and its competition was very fierce. Maybe Feng Feifei and Teresa Teng, just like Liu Wenzheng and Gao Lingfeng, they all competed. Every producer is like a coach, and he has the task of winning or losing. Whoever wins, Feng Feifei wins, he sells a million copies, he sells two hundred thousand, some sell eighty, some fifty, it is high and low, so there will be pressure, there will be competition. Now I don't see any competition, it's just a row on the leaderboard, but no one is actually paying for it.
Tagawa: So how do you regulate such an emotion, or how do you "cure" yourself?
Peter Chen: It's very simple, I left this environment, I think I was very lucky, because there was an English song at that time, called "wake up to get out this place", that is, I want to leave this bad place, go back to where, back to nature, back to every forest park, back to every scenic spot, back to a place that has nothing to do with these fame and fortune.
Tagawa: So if it becomes popular again, will it disrupt the state of life that you are enjoying so much now?
Peter Chen: I don't think so. In fact, I am such a person, no matter how popular the song is, it has not much to do with my life. There will be connections, more and more people will look for you to take pictures, whether it is at the station, the train station or the airport, the street or the restaurant, anyway, you are a public face, you are a symbol, like a thing, everyone feels happy to be close to you, I also enjoy that feeling. Because I think it's a lot of fun.
Tagawa: In the thirty years that you hid yourself, did you feel lost without this interaction?
Peter Chen: In fact, I have never hidden, but I just said that some silkworms or animals, when it comes to hibernation, go inside a shell, in fact, hibernation is to resist the cold outside, it hibernates only to break the cocoon and come out, and then spread its wings like a butterfly again.
A "plus" life
At the peak of his music career, Peter Chen "ran away" due to depression, returned to the mainland from Taiwan, he was invited to hold a concert of 100,000 people in his hometown in Chengdu, opened a recording studio called "Magpie Shed" in Beijing, Dou Wei, He Yong, Xie Tianxiao had recorded music here, and then he opened a "77 grams" restaurant in Guangzhou, buying vegetables and cooking every day, and even being a takeaway brother himself.
Peter Chan is in his restaurant for 77 grams
Peter Chen: Many people say, Teacher Chen, your music career will not hinder your catering career, they think I am doing a good job, I said no, there is no conflict between the two. It turned out that I could still do a lot of such things, I also did takeaway brother, our restaurant is very small, the business is too good, no one delivers food, people are very hungry, I will go to deliver food.
Tagawa: Don't you feel like there's a gap in your heart, or do you feel unbalanced?
Peter Chen: No, I don't think it matters.
Tagawa: Once such a brilliant superstar.
Peter Chen: I never thought I was a master musician, nor did I think I was a godfather, I felt like a musician.
This year, Peter Chen returned to the public eye again because of two TV variety shows, and many programs and music productions began to seek cooperation with him. In his previous "retirement career", he said that he had never stopped composing, composing more than 100 ancient poems, and was also working hard to release his works.
Peter Chen: When I write this ancient poem, in addition to pushing this song out, I also hope that young people will feel that it is feasible to sing ancient poems with modern music, and not think that ancient poems are more difficult to understand. I am a science and engineering student, I know what ancient poetry is, but as long as you look at it and get close to it every day, you can learn a lot of things. I think ancient poetry is a very exciting thing, it is the best thing in our culture, which is why I have been doing ancient poetry for several years. Because I've been doing pop music culture for so many years, I've learned that I must have something more positive, something that belongs to ourselves, something that our ancestors have left behind for generations, and I think this is very important. The so-called Chinese pop songs, I think the most powerful thing we have now is not music, but lyrics. I don't think there's a single place where the lyrics can compare to the lyrics we Chinese, let alone the fact that your ancient poems are taken out again, and it's even more incomparable.
Peter Chen on the show "Classic Arias"
Singing "Qingyu Case, New Year's Eve"
Peter Chen: In fact, my concept of life is said in two words, which is a relatively "plus" life. Whether it is to add points to yourself, or for the environment around you, society, or your friends, relatives, you try to do some extra points, do not do some subtraction things, so now I think, I will also do some extra points, maybe write some good songs, push it out, so that everyone can sing. If I could tell these young people about my experience, I would be happier and let them go a little less wrongful, pay more attention to their own health, and leave a good body to do things.
Tagawa: What kind of psychology did you hold when you returned to the stage again? Wouldn't you worry about saying, what if I don't succeed?
Peter Chen: I don't think there should be any question of success or failure, I don't have any concept of winning or losing, even if there is, it is a contest between my yesterday and today, or my today and tomorrow. I remember a long time ago, there was a movie called "007", there was a song, its English name is "You only live twice", I think this name I like, one person lives once, you get the Yama King's Palace, he said I can let you live twice, so I think if you go out of the mountain again, that is to say, prepare to live again.
Some of the pictures come from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact to delete.
Choreographer: Li Han
Editor: Liu Mengqi