Since breaking out of the city’s rock circuit in 2008 with a gut-busting dance-punk sound, Da Bang has grown into elder statesmen of the indie scene. As they continue their 14-city national tour with a show on October 18 at Brown Sugar Jar, frontwoman Pupi is encouraged by the country’s maturing music infrastructure.
“Indie music is still quiet new to China, but there’s more and more access to it online, as well as more channels to promote shows now,” she says. “We see more new faces in the audiences with each show.”
Dubbed ‘Present is the Best Present,’ a lyric from one of their singles released this summer, the tour is their longest yet. They’re playing cities like Lanzhou, Xiamen and Changsha for the first time, providing valuable opening slots to the next generation of homegrown underground rockers like Wuhan’s Chinese Football, Chengdu’s Hi-Person and Xian’s The Fuzz.
No VPN? Watch on Youku.
Sharing the stage with young acts eager to make an impression is something that Pupi is nonplussed by. While their new songs show off a band increasingly comfortable in the studio, the singer promises the band stills shines the brightest live.
“We just let it be natural and seize the moment when we play,” she explains. “Our shows are completely different from our CDs. We think less, but are much more expressive live.”
It’s been nearly two year since their last national tour to promote their excellent Celebrate EP. This summer, they’ve released a pair of singles ‘Wave’ and ‘The Most Afraid of You, Ask Me Tomorrow,” sophisticated tracks unafraid to make expected musical detours to cosmic indie-pop. To promote the tour, they dropped a live performance of new song ‘TV’ on Youku, a sneering track propelled by its psych-rock groove and wild staccato guitar lines.
The new songs are worlds away from their early days, where they rolled as The Bigger Bang, a name Pupi jacked from a Rolling Stones world tour. Formed in 2008 by active members of the Beijing rock scene, the quartet roared out of the gates fuelled by a tried-and-tested sparse sound featuring aggressive post-punk guitar riffs, pounding four-on-the-floor drums and plenty of too-cool attitude.
The band quickly became live favorites, winning Red Bull Music’s New Rock Band Award in 2009. The Bigger Bang EP followed a year later, as did an underground live DVD, sponsored tours and performances in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
No VPN? Watch on Youku.
With accolades came criticisms dismissing the group as a shanzai Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Queen Sea Big Shark. While praising both acts, Pupi shrugs off the comparisons, simply saying “there’s nothing we can do about being compared to them.”
“We were a blank slate when we started, so it was only natural that we showed our influences,” she explains, admitting to reading vicious comments slagging the group online. “We didn’t aim to do that, but we didn’t try to avoid it. Maybe it’s because Chinese indie music is still so new. For people who really care about music, no explanation is needed.”
By 2011, the group’s music had noticeably thickened, showcasing a wider sound that incorporated the group’s diverse influence that range from grunge icons Nirvana to Japanese post-rockers Toe to British electronic music legends Underworld on their debut full-length album, Bone Hug. The band’s sound shifted again with the addition of Zhang Shuai, guitarist of Beijing indie-rock institutions Tookoo.
Released in 2012, Celebrate showed off a maturing band entering a modern new wave phase. The title track was chosen as last year’s Strawberry Music Festival theme song, while standout tracks like ‘Horse’ showed off a group more interesting slowing it down. “With time, we've become more comfortable expressing ourselves musically.
The music now has a different look but it changed naturally, without us even noticing it,” Pupi says. “In my opinion, there’s no such thing as progression or regression in music. Music changes with the different states you go through time. Any state is not perpetual, it’s unpredictable.”
No VPN? Watch on Youku.
While their songs and tour have been well received, the natural question is when will the next Da Bang album come out? She cautions that the group isn’t “rushing anything” but is excited about releasing it to a market place increasingly receptive to their sound.
“We always expect our next work to connect with our fans and feel there’s a lot of potential for the Chinese indie market,” Pupi says. “People are getting tired of too much pop music, which has no soul. There’s a growing demand for a new sound.”
// Oct 17 (with The White Wave), 8.30pm-late, RMB80-100. Brown Sugar Jar, tickets.
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