It was the third time that I have arranged to meet Fang Rui (方锐), but the last two meetings were both cancelled due to my unreasonable course arrangements in extracurricular classes. But anyway, Fang and I met at the coffee bar named “Camp Hood”, where I found their white coffee to be really delicious. That coffee can calm people’s moods and help an atmosphere become more relaxing led to a deep conversation.
Fang described her music as honest, natural and lightsome at the same time. “Honest means that my attitude when creating is sincere, while natural describes my way of expression. I want my songs to be easily understood by my audiences. Instead of writing advanced words just to pretend, I prefer artless words that can truly convey thoughts,” said Fang. She further explained that “lightsome” stands for “cool instead of too painful” when discussing with audiences the heavy topics such as worldwide disasters and wars. She believes that songs should convey positive emotions, or at least serve as a third party to tell a complete story.
Fang keeps her own habit of writing and collecting ideas during her daily life. She mentioned that she seldom starts to create songs as soon as inspiration comes. She would rather think about her inspiration carefully and draft her songs after a period of reflection. As a result, after thinking twice, her thoughts will become more objective and mature. “It takes me about 1 month to finish making a song. As I have a long-term cooperative producer, I consider my workload to be just fine. However, it would be too much for me if I had to do all the stuff completely on my own!”, she said, smiling.
Like many of her peers, Fang is a musician who heartily combines her life experience in to her music. When I was at home preparing for our interview, I realised that her most attractive song for me was “Story Never Ends” (故事不会在秋天结束). Hearing that I liked it, Ms. Fang candidly said that this song was written for a boy she had fancied before. But as Fang became more familiar with the boy, she noticed that he is actually not a person worth developing a romantic relationship with, and he is not even worth becoming friends with. Since then, once she performed on stage and sang it, she doubted herself as to how she could ever hold in favour a person who is so improper. “Well, at least he brought you that inspiration for a good song!”, I joked, and she fortunately laughed.
Describing herself as being interested in music from a young age, Fang was in fact not at all determined to be a musician at that time. It was in college that she actually became devoted, where she joined a music club with classmates who were all trying to write their own songs and become independent musicians.
After seeing most of them give up their music dreams and bow to reality, she felt ridiculously responsible for continuing to do what she really wants. “Being a musician is hard; it is true. It takes a lot of courage and luck to move on and just listen to your heart”, Fang confessed.
Admiring Ryuichi Sakamoto very much, Fang said of him, “He was a person who left his footprint in the world through music. He also contributed a lot to the development of humanity by creating significant works”.
Fang’s intention is to become an artist who uses talent to compose fair music that audiences can enjoy and even learn from. I believe that one day, she will indeed discover her true value of music and that her devotion will turn into valuable revelations for the audience.
