OzAsia celebrates its tenth year with its boldest program to date.
As Australia’s leading international arts festival, the anniversary features an impressive array of Asia’s best theatre, dance, music, film and visual arts. Dozens of artists will come together for the unique Outdoor Live Music Concert Series, including Japan’s Kenta Hayashi, Singapore’s The Steve McQueen Band, and Taiwanese folk-rock band, WonFu.
“I’ve never been to Australia before,” says WonFu lead vocalist/guitarist Yao Xiao-Min. “Our bass player [Twiggy] has visited two or three times. She can’t go to Australia because she’s pregnant, she’s my wife!” WonFu formed back in 1998, and played their first show while the members were in university. The band are known for their unlimited explosive energy and humour. Apart from Yao Xiao-Min and Twiggy, WonFu also includes vocalist/guitarist Mami and drummer Dopy. “We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare,” says Yao. “So we quickly wrote a song and went for it.”
Yao says WonFu are looking forward to visiting Australia. “We are all happy, and we love travelling. We have been to many places, like Japan. The members of WonFu are just like college roommates – we always stick together, go to restaurants, movie theatres. We are pretty close. We were not sure if we wanted to [play together] as a band.… After I met my wife Twiggy, and our first drummer, we practiced a few cover songs, [then we thought] ‘we can do better.’ We played at a festival at Taiwan called Spring Scream…It was pretty fun. After that we wrote more new songs and after three years we played at more festivals. [At one of the festivals] we sent the judge a demo… And we were picked by the judges as the best. It helped us become more well-known.”
OzAsia is a fantastic way to bring the fast-paced culture of Asia into the global spotlight, featuring bold, risk-taking bands celebrating the vibrancy and immediacy of the 21st Century. This year, the festival features the return of the much-loved Moon Lantern Festival, which has been cancelled in previous years due to inclement weather.
Yao says OzAsia attendees can expect WonFu to play a colourful variety of their music. “We’ve been together for a long time now,” he says, “but we keep things the same. We’re always happy, and love to be open-minded. We don’t hate any kind of music. Sometimes we even play heavy metal, and we have a song called ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll BBQ,’ which we’re looking forward to playing in Australia. We like to stay open-minded… and although everybody knows jazz is very difficult, I still want to play it. It’s just like the old time punk rockers. They don’t know how to play very well, and only know three chords, but it’s still good.
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“We’ve starting playing music that is warmer, probably because we’ve all grown older. When we were young we were all shy…[but] when we grew older we also found it hard to express our love... But maybe because we have a family and we have kids, something changed. Every day we have to speak baby talk, and normally you wouldn’t do that in public, but now I can do that any time. It’s like a switch has turned on, I can express feelings bigger than happiness, something touching. In the early years WonFu wouldn’t sing warm music, music that is comforting, but I think we can do it now.”
OzAsia also features a variety of family-fun events, with many immersive and interactive performances. Korea’s ‘Croquirky Brothers’ are a hilarious comedy duo who combine clowning, comedy, and interactive patrician that includes live drawing of audience members, famous paintings and iconic objects. Yao says the variety of performers are great, and that WonFu are “happy, summer people” who will also bring a lot of fun and energy to the stage. “We try to experiment with all music styles, and make our fans happy…We don’t want people to say WonFu is this, or that, because music is so vast, and you should experiment with every kind.
“[We’ve also] been to Coachella twice to visit. The main show featured Paul McCartney, and we’re all fans of The Beatles. Some of WonFu’s performance styles are a little like The Beatles. We have three vocalists that add a lot of harmony in our songs, so we love the harmony within Beatles songs; sometimes it’s John Lennon, sometimes it’s Paul McCartney, sometimes George, sometimes Ringo. They’re a great influence. Our drummer sings as well, and when he does we all dance on stage. It’s a very simple dance – something you’d see on Sesame Street – but it’s interesting. We do a lot of creative things on stage. We try to do everything on stage, so this time we hope we can make everyone happy. Our great gift [is our ability] to make everybody happy. Whether it’s a gift from our parents, or from God, we don’t know, but we do know we can do it. And we’re going to bring that energy to Australia and OzAsia!”
WonFu was three times nominated for ‘Best Band’ by Taiwanese Golden Melody Awards (equivalent to the Grammy Awards in Taiwan). “It’s an honour, actually,” Yao says. “It inspires me to keep working and writing new songs because they only nominate around five or six bands per year…. There are still so many great bands in Taiwan, and we are friends with a lot of them. Taiwanese bands are all friends. We are so happy to be nominated and will continue to do our best.
“There were some bands that weren’t nominated and it’s not because they’re not good, but maybe we are just the lucky ones. But I don’t feel a lot of pressure, actually. Many people ask me which band they think will reach the finals and win ‘Best Band Of The Year’ and I say I hope it’s WonFu. Normally we wouldn’t say that because we have to be humble, but we want WonFu to be best band of the year, so you have to tell everyone the truth… Everybody is good, but I want to be the best.”
OzAsia will certainly give WonFu the exposure they need outside of Asia, with their unique creativity, quirky sense of humour, and effortless technique that has constantly surprised fans over the years. Yao says the band’s future looks bright. “Our plan is to continue playing, but I hope we can release more singles. The world has changed, so it’s not so focused on albums anymore. WonFu writes different music styles, and when you put everything together some things work, and some don’t… But every song is equal, and we need to treat them fairly, so it’s better to release them as singles so we can tell the story clearly for everybody to understand.
“We’re also looking towards more overseas invitations,” Yao Xiao-Min adds. “We love travel, and we love great food. I love oysters.”
