Lips McKenzie are one of a handful of bands keeping the spirit of underground rock music alive in Shenzhen. While bands in the city get more disparate and hard to come by, the guys in Lips continue to rock out at every opportunity.
They return to the stage in Shenzhen this weekend, with not just one but two gigs lined up at Brown Sugar Jar - Public Live on Friday evening and The Brew on Saturday. We caught up with the band’s guitarist and singer Curt Zimpfer to talk about Lips’ unique live show, their hopes for the future of the band and the difficulties of recording music.
Image courtesy of Lips McKenzie
So, you guys are known for improvising and making jam music, can you talk us through that style of music?
The main component of jam music is live improvisation. As we compose songs we leave sections open for improvisation in a certain key or mode. During that section of the song we have no idea what’s going to come next, and neither does the audience. So, it creates a kind of addictive live atmosphere that every show is different and not to be missed. Keeping things interesting is super important to us. I think all of us would go crazy if we were one of those bands who played the exact same set list, note for note, every night.
Jam music is also supposed to be fun. It’s an escape, it’s happy, it’s free, and that’s the atmosphere we want to create at Lips’ shows: a free space for people to feel free from judgment, to come dance like a weirdo, talk about ideas, and make a couple friends. And if people like the music on top of that, well then, hell, that’s just the gravy on the turkey.
A major part of your guys live repertoire is improvisation. I guess it’s kind of rare to find that kind of experimentation in China, what informs your guys decision to be a bit bolder with your style of music?
Our special brand of ‘jam’ music comes from our own vastly different, individual tastes in music. I guess striving to be different and unique is what encourages us to do what we do. One of my favorite parts about playing in this band is that each member is an absolute weirdo, and puts forth their own strange style of creativity. Each person’s personality is represented in our songwriting. I think that’s why we kind of label ourselves as ‘jam’ because we make an extensive effort to draw from different kinds of music, to the point where a lot of the stuff we do is so strange that I don’t know if it can really be put into one distinct genre.
Have you guys come across many bands that share a style similar to Lips McKenzie? You mentioned outreach to other bands in the future, how do you imagine that process going?
Of the bands we’ve come across, I haven’t really noticed anyone doing the live improvisational thing. There’s a decent collective of Dead Heads in Beijing and Hong Kong that get together to play some Grateful Dead music which absolutely contains improv, but on the spectrum of original, live improvisation I haven’t heard of anyone doing it. Reaching out and collaborating with other bands in the scene is essential to building a community. The scene here is so small that any kind of competition is just stupid. If any of us want to achieve our goals we have to work together. Point. Blank. Period. One idea we’ve kicked around between us, Thin City, and Mott, was covering each other’s music. About a year ago Lips covered the Mott song ‘Winner’ and it was really cool. More cross representation stuff like that is not only fun, but essential in building this thing together.
Is there a difficulty in getting your songs down on record? If a certain tune is changeable depending on your live shows, do you feel reluctant to put something down permanently on paper?
Oh god, haha, yeah man. We’ve hopped into the studio twice already and nothing has really materialized out of it. The end product didn’t sound like us. It was very square and rigid. I, personally, absolutely hate being in the studio. In my opinion, that’s not how music is meant to be experienced. Looking to the future, it’s definitely something we have to do. We’ll get back in the studio and create something we feel accurately represents us….one day….
At the moment the Shenzhen electronic scene is very much taking off, thanks to new venues and more DJs in the city. How should we judge the rock and indie rock music scene in comparison to electronic music?
Apples and oranges, man. It pains me to say that I feel like the peak of the Shenzhen live music scene came and went already. The bands that really take it seriously are now playing all over the place with the occasional show in Shenzhen, and there hasn’t really been any new blood that’s taken over the underground scene. A few years ago the electronic scene and live music scene really worked together. But as more and more acts start touring nationally, and now internationally, it’s tough to keep the homegrown underground alive.
Daniel Power has done a phenomenal job with Unchained, and I think the existence of places like Oil and the old club Sector have really played a big role in that. I heard Katie Cooper the other day say she heard Unchained was mentioned on her favorite podcast she used to listen to growing up in the UK, which is crazy awesome to me. So they’re leagues beyond us at this point, but again it’s not a competition. I’m so pumped for those guys, and further down the road I hope to do something with them again like we used to do in the old days.
image courtesy of Lips McKenzie
What are the next steps for Lips? What can we expect to see next from you guys? New music, new collaborations, more touring?
The future for Lips looks bright. We just signed on with a tour management company called Music Dish, who will hopefully be able to take the load off of us a little bit and start helping us book tours and hopefully be able to get us some spots at festivals. So, absolutely more touring. Tour, tour, tour. We’re a live act, and the end goal for us is to be able to quit our jobs and be on the road 150 days out of the year. We want to keep writing more music too, and keep honing our live improvisational skills, maybe get some more goofy stage antics into the mix. Who knows, anything is possible, even that pesky ‘studio album’ we should probably start working on…
Catch Lips McKenzie as they play a pair of shows in Shenzhen this weekend:
Fri May 10, 9.30pm; RMB50 at the door. Brown Sugar Jar - Public Live. See event listing.
Sat May 11, 9pm; free entry. The Brew. See event listing.
[Cover image courtesy of Lips McKenzie]
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