Interview Hanggai & Earth Beat: Musical Notes

The Netherlands' Embassy in Beijing have recently a special interview with 2 people. Jerome Williams who is the owner of Dutch booking agency Earth Beat from the Netherlands and bandleader Ilchi from the successful Chinese-Mongolian folk rock band Hanggai. Hanggai is the first Chinese-Mongolian band to have managed to tour continuously abroad and is successfully building a reputation and fan base abroad. Let’s find out more about the cooperation of this Chinese-Dutch team.

How did you find each other, how did your cooperation start?

Jerome: I read about the release of Hanggai’s first cd and saw that they were performing in London a week later. I thought let’s go and check that out, the review was promising and I am always looking for interesting new acts to present. I saw the show and the band was great, the people in my office were not too sure, as there had not been successful Chinese, let alone, Mongolian bands performing much outside China. But the show convinced me that this band had a very high potential to perform and keep on performing around the world. Many of the bands who perform unknown music tend to be novelty acts but I saw Hanggai just as a great band that could build up a fanbase and keep on touring. The fact that they were the first to bring this kind of music in their own way, only helped us to get noticed and bring them to festivals that might not present them otherwise.

Ilchi: I think that we met Jerome in 2008, he saw a video of our performance online. In September 2008 he came from the Netherlands to the London Thames music festival. We were performing there, that was the first time we saw each other. From 2009 Jerome started working very hard to organize shows for us.

Is this your first time working with a Chinese act / Dutch company?

Jerome: No I had worked with Liu Fang (刘芳) before a artist who plays Pipa and Guzheng. We presented her a few times in Holland. Then in early 2009, I went to visit her and her family in Kunming and had a vacation there for 2 weeks. I really like Yunnan, it’s a great and relaxed place to be. After that trip I came up to Beijing to meet the guys of Hanggai and the scene was totally different than the one in Yunnan, but it was as impressive as seeing Snow mountain the first time.

Ilchi: I had never though that the first time working with a company would be a Dutch one. But we have a mutual trust and understanding, and the cooperation started very smoothly immediately, I’m very greatfull to Earthbeat.

What are and/or have been surprising elements in your cooperation sofar?

Jerome: Most surprising for me was that there were not too many differences between working with a band from China or from a other country. The bands goals are the same, and it’s very hard work from whatever country you are. Working with a band from China does require some extra points of attention, but by now I think we ( the Hanggai team ) all know what these are, and we can work with it. Most annoying are all the visa’s you need to gather for a lot of countries. This is time consuming and costly. And basically it’s strange to get invited to perform somewhere but then they ( the inviting country) make it as hard as possible to accept that invitation. Although they really want you to come over and perform. Anyway, it all comes with the job and as said this is also the same for a lot of people from a lot of other countries.

Ilchi: I think what makes our cooperation incredibly valuable is that we have a mutual trust, in the end we firmly believe in the same goal. While the people around us didn’t believe in us, we still managed it, only through all these experiences the band has been able to keep moving forward and improving.

– Jerome: Do you think there are some typical Chinese things about your cooperation if you compare it with your experience with other bands that make life easier or more difficult?

– Ilchi: Do you think there are some typical Dutch things about your cooperation if you compare it with your experience with other organizations that make life easier or more difficult?

Jerome: Well the Chinese food is so good and food is so important that I sometimes feel ashamed to see what we get to eat on the road. But then I think that this is more difficult for the band than for me, and they hardly complain about it, the band just enjoy it more when they get really good food.

Ilchi: I never really gave this much thought, but sometimes I tell Jerome that I’d like to live in the Netherlands, and he sometimes tells me he’d like to live in China.

What has been the highlight of working together sofar?

Jerome: For me having them showcase at Womex Copenhagen was great, they arrived more than a week early in Holland and they performed and rehearsed almost nonstop until they flew to the Womex. The venue there was great, the sound was fantastic and the place was completely filled with professionals from the music industry. Somehow from the moment the band started playing, the audience were all brought to Mongolia and landed 45 minutes later again in Copenhagen. That feeling was fantastic. But then the real work started: to get the band to all the festivals and venue’s who wanted them to perform. Still I enjoy every show I am at and I see the audience is taken by the music and realy enjoying themselves. I am very proud of Ilchi and the band for all the hard work they put into it. I might be the one to present an opportunity for them to go around the world and perform, but if they don’t do this in a great way, they will never be asked back. Luckily, I am planning a tour for the release of their 3rd cd and everybody is waiting for them to come back and put on a great new show.

Ilchi: There are many highlights, WOMEX 2009 is unforgettable to me, through Mr. Jerome’s hard work, we finally got to play at WOMEX. Everybody felt an enormous pressure, because the audience were all professionals from the music industry like festival directors, venue owners and agents. We never thought that we would win them over and and make everyone like us.

– Ilchi: do you think other Chinese acts would be interested in working with Dutch companies? (compared to other countries) Any advice for them?

– Jerome: do you think that Dutch companies should be interested in working with Chinese acts? Any advice for them?

Jerome: I think a lot of companies are working with artists from China already, Holland is a bit small but we represent a fairly large part of what is going on in music. Not too many companies have Chinese artists on their roster but are somehow involved in producing cd’s, promoting shows or in other forms presenting artists from China. Maybe it’s because of our travel/trade genes from the past or our current liberal tax laws for major corporations, but a lot of non Dutch artists are represented by companies in Holland. Electronic Dance Music (EDM) for example, is a huge international market and a lot of it comes from Holland. Then there are a number of major artists that have companies in Holland like the Rolling Stones, U2 and Madonna among others. Any advice, make sure you get down to China and enjoy the country, the people and the food ( yes again food, get used to it ). Take your time and follow your instinct.

Ilchi: At the moment there are already a lot of people working with Dutch companies, and also Dutch people in Beijing that work with Chinese rock bands.

What’s your impression of the Dutch crowd’s response to Hanggai?

Jerome: I think it’s great, I am pretty sure that nobody speaks Mongolian in Holland (or in any other country outside China and Mongolia where the band performs) and they do get the music totally. Hurizha, the singer of the band, speaks hardly any English, but he is able to take people away to a place where language is no boundary. I see him do it on stage but also when hanging out in the Maloe Melo ( a local blues bar ) in Amsterdam, communicating with audience and artists who perform there. The Dutch audience are very open to new things and that also helps, but in the end the reaction of the audience are the same around the world. The band makes people happy, dancing and longing for a place they have never been.

Ilchi: I think a lot of people in the Netherlands like Hanggai, and also more and more people are slowly starting to understand Hanggai. The Dutch fans have given us a lot of enthusiasm, I feel that they really understand our music.

What’s the next big goal?

Jerome: Well the band has just performed in Morocco and by that having played in 6 out of the 7 continents, so presenting them for a show at Antarctica would be just fantastic. Not sure how to deal with the environmental impact, but I am sure we could work that out. But my main focus is now the release of the third cd and we’ll be doing a new tour to promote it, and get them back to all the fans they have built up over the past years is my main focus. Other dreams I have are, their music in a sound track of a Quintin Tarentino movie, recording with Rick Rubin, doing a world tour as support for Wilco and many more.

Ilchi: Our new album will be released at the end of the year. We are preparing the promo tour for this new cd. It is a very important moment for us, and a very important experience to go through.

When can we see Hanggai perform again in China?

Jerome: Looking at the schedule they are performing at a lot of the festivals this summer in China. They were in Europe in May and June then New York and Canada in July. The rest of the summer is for China, follow their Weibo and find out.

Ilchi: This summer there will be a lot of music festivals in China, you can see us at a lot of these music festivals.

Any final words?

Jerome: I know that Hanggai will continue to tour the world and I hope more bands from Holland will be looking at China as a place to perform, it’s definitely worth it. I am happy that I do get more and more calls from bands who want to perform in China and see it as a country worth building up a career. And if Holland can be a guide/transit country to China as well as from China to Europe and the rest of the world I would be more than happy to support that.

Ilchi: I think what makes Hanggai special is that we are Mongolians, we live in China, but we have our own culture.