The Local and Exotic Amazing Insurance Salesman
Zhang Si'an is actually a Frenchman named Jean-Sébastien Héry, aka "the French guy who plays Chinese folk music with a Chinese instrument." Now he has one more title to add: front man of the "Best Band in Beijing" as selected by the Global Battle of The Bands. After winning the Beijing battle, The Amazing Insurance Salesman will soon journey south to compete for the "Best Band in China" title in Hong Kong.
With 张思安 (Zhang Si'an) on guitar, Free the Birds drummer Maomao, and Dutch bass player Maikel, the Amazing Insurance Salesman bring something different to Beijing's crowded music scene. They consider themselves as a rock band but they serve up a mix of jazz, blues, bossa nova, fusion and classical music.
Before he heads to Hong Kong, I had a little chat with the Frenchie about music, our city, inspiration and luck. Here's some snapshots from our talk.
About the Amazing Insurance Salesman:
"I have been doing folk music for ten years, but I want to put what I've learned from folk music and jazz into more popular music. So I want to go back to rock and roll again."
"Maomao is a friend from before – we tried to start a band in 2006 but it didn't work at all. I think I wasn't ready for that."
About early life:
"I studied violin when I was a kid. We had this exam for music when I was eight. The teacher at the exam told me that I will never be a musician. It was a big disappointment for me. But I was young and didn’t know what I wanted, when an older guy tells you that you won’t be a musician, you believe it, so I stopped doing music."
"When I was 16, I was depressed. I heard the Radiohead song "Creep" on the radio. I felt like falling in love or something. My brother had a guitar but he wasn't using it. So I took it and started to learn. I learned three chords and wrote my first song."
About singing in Chinese:
"The beauty about the Chinese language is that one character can have many meanings at the same time. To translate the meaning of one Chinese character into English or French you sometimes need a sentence. Sometimes Chinese is more direct as well."
What do Chinese people feel about your work in Chinese?
"I get different feelings. I get people that are really amazed. They find me singing in Chinese very interesting and the fact that I use a Chinese instrument. Some people don’t feel anything, just like: oh, right. Some people say that you shouldn’t do this, they say that I’m a foreigner, I shouldn’t sing in Chinese."
About KTV?
"I hate KTV."
About venues in Beijing:
"For rock music I like 2 Kolegas the most. It feels like a place for rock music and you have direct contact with the audience. I like playing at MAO because the sound is one of the greatest. And the sound at Mako is really good. For folk music I like playing at Jiang Hu and Jiangjinjiu."
"I played that the Ditan folk music festival twice. I think that's what I loved the most."
What made you stay in Beijing?
"The first thing I discovered was the music scene in Beijing. I went to the River Bar at Sanlitun South Street, and I met Xiaohe and Wan Xiaoli. And I was surprised that this kind of things was happening in China. All the sudden I realized that it was possible to do something different. That's why I started to sing in Chinese, I wanted to do something different, and bring my own experience."
About winning the competition?
"I think the main reason was that we were very relaxed and didn't care what was going to happen. The idea of the contest was to have more people know our music. We didn't really think about winning. So we just played like we play usually. We were the first band to talk to the audience. And the bands before us didn't talk to the audience at all."
Were there any other bands at the competition that were good?
"I thought Residence A were good. But they got disqualified because they used a loop. The judges told them not to use it, but they did it anyway, that's why they lost."
Are you excited about the contest in Hong Kong?
"I'm very happy about it. Because when you do music you never know what is going to happen and you really struggle with it. Of course when something like this happens, it makes you happy, it means something, it means you achieved something. It means that your music is not that bad."
"Because you are always asking – "Am I doing shit or am I doing good music?" So when the people think that your music is good and vote for you, it means something. We are happy that we are going there and we hope that we are going to win. But it's a different city so we have no idea how the people are there, or how they will react to our music."
About inspiration:
"There's nothing specific that inspires me. Sometimes it just comes to you. But sometimes I really think about what I'm going to make before I do it. A friend told me this the other day – that the more miserable your life is the more you get inspired. And I think the more you doubt, the more you get inspired."
How do you explain happy songs?
"The happy songs come in the happy times I guess. But it’s not the same. I think the best songs are the sad songs. You can listen to a happy song all the time, but you can not listen to a sad song all the time; you can only listen to it when you have the same feeling as the song."
What makes a good band?
"Good musicians, good understanding between people, good timing (you need to practice every week), a good idea and a good direction."
How many songs do you have at the moment?
"We have close to 15 songs now. But we haven't recorded an album yet. We tried to do the recording at many different places but it's difficult to find something good. I'm going to talk to someone, and hopefully we will have something out there soon."
