LAY ZHANG interview with Dazed China

Lay Zhang said that he had a dream, but didn’t know how to make it comes true. The process seems like a countdown to him. You just gotta work hard first.

During the interview, he said he also has fear, but it may have also become his “motivation” along the way. Lay named his Weibo account casually and didn’t expect that one day he would be Lay Zhang the superstar. He also didn’t expect that “hardworking “ would be his synonym.

Dazed (D): How did you get through in this pacdemic outbreak? In theory, it should be your personal time, right?

LAY (Z): Yes. I was learning, taking the classes, dancing and… seeking face masks, and making music.

D: You completed your first concert tour ‘Grandline’ last year. How do you feel after these 7 concerts?

Z: I didn’t invite any performing guests to my concert. I did all 21 songs with non-stop dancing and singing for the whole concert. There were a few talks in between. But I felt that the audiences were coming for my performance, not for my talking. So I tried to finish the talks earlier and back to the performance immediately. But fans told me that they also wanted to hear more talks from me. So I will improve this in the next tour. I actually couldn’t hear much from the audience seats when I was performing on stage with my headphone monitor. But I was really emotional when seeing fans’ supporting projects, including the lighting show and the banners. I think the most regretful thing is that I couldn’t watch my own concert and enjoy it live with everyone. I did lots of rehearsals for every concert, so I really want to enjoy it as an audience. This is the most regretful thing. I hope I can use the VR tool to bring myself into the concert in the future. You really should take a look at my concert.

D: When will the next concert be approximately?

Z: I don’t know yet. Under this circumstances, I wish that everyone can stay safe. Especially the heroes who are fighting on the frontline: the medical personnels, and military staffs. I hope that they all can stay safe.

D: Is there any job that is forced to be postponded or cancelled? What was your original plan for this year?

Z: Originally I was scheduled to attend Virgin Fest in LA this June. I think this opportunity is so precious because there will finally be Lay Zhang’s name on a stage overseas, but then the pandemic happened… Originally there was even a tour with this festival, and my album is going to come out at that time. With this opportunity, I can sing in Chinese, even in Changsha dialect for one of the songs. Being able to sing in Changsha dialect for a whole song on this stage, it’s completely dope just even to think about it!

D: In the fourth album which you are recording now, did you make any new trials on the musical styles?

Z: I actually have been emphasizing that I am making “M-pop”. The “M” here stands for “mix”. It’s actually more than the mix of languages, my new album also tried to mix Chinese myths, stories, totems, and also Chinese tradional instruments with a “Chinese taste”, like Guzheng, Hulusi, etc. I think the “Chinese style” shouldn’t be only those arrangements that people think of. It should be more of the things that are actually happening around the Chinese people. Environment makes people who they are, so others will see that there is an invisible hand guiding the way Chinese people look at the world and their attitude toward certain things. I hope I will have those to act as the backbone to my music.

D: You mentioned that you are “living in the countdown.” Talking about your “countdown to 30 years old”, what do you want to achieve before turning 30?

Z: 30 years old for me is more of a reminder rather than a limit. There is nothing that I can’t achieve after 30 years old. I mean with the things you really want to do, you can still strive for it even if you’re 80! But 30 years old is indeed a reminder, it reminds me that “there’s really not much time left.” And what I mean by that is the capacity of my body. Dancing at 17 and 28 is definitely not the same. The flexibility, the power, they are all too different. I do have more experience, more techniques, more expressiveness, but the things that you lose as time goes by will get more and more obvious. This is something you can’t change. So I hope I can enjoy the stage while I can still dance, and show more performances that I think are cool, at least. So when the day that I really can’t dance anymore comes, I can turn around and do something else. Something dun and meaningful. 30 years old is not my countdown, but everyday of my life is a countdown to me. Life is so short, but there’s so much I want to do, maybe I’m just too insatiable.

D: When you mentioned that you have been misunderstood by the public in the past two years, you seem quite relaxed.

Z: I can only say, youth comes with frivolous. However, I think it is persistence. People should have their dreams. This is my dialogue with myself: What is the main purpose for you to come to this world? To enjoy all your experience, and then to leave. I think you need to have a goal, or you will have no fun living. In 2019, I did feel more and more incomprehensible. Sometimes, I even doubt that it is wrong to advocate hard-working. Should we just encourage everyone to stay at home and do nothing? Their argument seems to have a standpoint and some reasonings, which is called “false reasoning”. However, when they find their own “echo wall” (when the idea is echoed to form the mainstream public opinion field), it also impacts me. I will feel that they are right, and my point of view is too outdated. Until now I still appreciate the saying that “Choice is greater than effort”. But you can’t stop working hard, you know?

D: The previous interviews of yours make me feel that you are always young and zealous.

Z: Not exactly. The reason why there’s a saying that “Men will be forever young at heart” is because every man has in his heart righteous ardour and it has nothing to do with age. Why can’t we have real talk? Doesn’t every man want to conquer the world or even conquer the universe? It is because of such “ideal” that we gain ceaseless motivation.

D: Apart from your fans, more people might know you from the variety shows or reality show. Does that bother you? What’s your expectation of how people see Lay Zhang?

Z: To be honest, every Lay Zhang people know are all Lay Zhang. It just differs in the perspectives and the ways that they see. It’s like we act different to our parents and colleagues, and we have to admit that both of them are us. Think about it and you will find that, in fact, every part of you that people see is real. I used to hope that I can make people realize apart from the variety shows, Lay Zhang is indeed a musician. But as I grow, I begin to take it easy. Because some people like watching variety shows, some like watching films and TV shows, and some like listening to music. No matter from which aspect they know you from, it shows that you are known to them. This is a good thing already. And to tell the truth, as I grow, I get to know that it’s useless to explain and emphasize that “I’m a musician” to people. If your music is good enough, it will certainly be welcomed by them. And if they don’t listen to your music, it only shows that you are not that good. If you can understand that, then you won’t feel bothered by such thing.

D: You made the reality show Reknow last year, which is a 13-day overseas journey. Why did you want to make this show? How did the plan for this start?

Z: I talked with Min Yan (a director) about this idea in 2017, and made it comes true in 2019. I’m really happy about this. At the beginning, I wanted to know more about the local culture. I also want to enter the overseas market. One of the prerequisites is whether I understand the culture of this country. Actually I didn’t know much, so I went there to experience the local culture. What I want to do next is that we can show our national culture to foreigners in the second season. The first season is to know about foreign culture, and the next season is to，introduce Chinese culture. We can talk with old artists who are the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage. This may attract foreigners’ attention to Chinese culture. This is my idea, however, it will be difficult to realize. One problem is that it seems like current foreign audience is not large or maybe it hasn’t been promoted yet. I’m not quite sure. Anyway, that was my original idea.

D: You’ve won a lot of music awards. Which of these is the most special to you? Why?

Z: They are all very important. They are a nod to me. These awards are deserve to be remembered and I’m very grateful to get those awards. But the most touching one recently is the TME award at the end of 2019. I saw from my XBack that I got this award several years ago but due to several circumstances, I got it at the backstage, so this time they wanted to give me the best award. Actually I didn’t remember that, but I was really moved by them. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it! There are things that I’ve forgotten but somebody out there has kept that in mind. They have been giving me supports for so many years. I always say that I want them to be proud of loving me and that others won’t be pointing fingers at them for loving me. But I know that it is my fans who are my main source of confidence. Because of them, I won’t give up even it’s really diffucult. So what I want say is, all the awards that they have won for me, I’m happy to receive them anywhere.

D: You have been in several movies and TV shows over the years, like Oh My God, To Be A Better Man, The Mystic Nine, The Founding of An Army, and so on. How much does the professional attribute of being an actor weight in your mind?

Z: I can’t count this gravity specifically, because you don’t have a very specific way to mark every choice in your whole life. But I enjoy acting more and more, and it doesn’t conflict with my music. Many people said that my music has no empathy, I admit, because my life is really monotonous. Because of the career limitation, I can’t experience life, travel around the world or do something else like everyone my age. However, in different films and television works, I’m able to have different identities and experience so many stories and emotions that I could never have had in my life. It feels like using others’ stories to experience my own life. For me, it’s a very good exercise, really valuable, really precious and really interesting.

Next, I will have some plannings for film and television works. I still hope that with whatever I do, I can do it well, or at least at the passing line. I hope to receive better stories, and better characters. They don’t have to be the main characters or having lots of screen times, as long as the characters are brilliant.

D: In recent years, you have been in a state of “finding yourself”. Till now, do you think you have found the answer you’ve been looking for? When did you first get the idea of “finding yourself” ?

Z: I haven’t found the answer. But isn’t ilfe a process to finding yourself? Actually, “finding myself” belongs to 2019. Now, I’m so busy I don’t even have time to think about it. 2020 for me is “just do it”. It’s quite happy to experience the ordinary life like others through shows and filming. But then again, having cameras following is not quite an ordinary life to be honest. That’s not true life. God is fair. You just have to trade-of something for what you’ve got. I think if I want to exchange what I lost with what I have, I can still get it. I don’t do it because I still have dreams waiting ahead.

Content by Dazed China

Translation by XtweetTRANS for LAY