News Articles from Singapore

Mr Clean to go Grunge, Singer get serious

Straits Time, Life! 19/7/00

Lest anyone thinks he is just a pop idol, the usually clean-cut singer-songwriter Wang lee Hom has decided on some drastic measures.

Like showing off his new grunge look, complete with beard and long unkempt heair in a documentary about the one year he spent making his album....And not showering for days.

Oh really?

He jokes:"I looked like absolute hell! I was really pimply, like a caveman, with my hair all long."

But one wonders how effective that can be when the 24-year-old native of New York has such boyish good looks.

So much so that he was voted best-looking male artiste in a recent Hong Kong Internet poll. Not that Wang, who has won a string of awards for his musical compositions, needs to prove his credentials anyway.

A graduate in Music and Asian Studies from Williams College, he composed and arranged all the songs on his latest album, Forever's First Day, while doing his masters at Berklee College of Music.

On dealing with his pop idol image, he said:"I try to let it be known that I'm a behind-the-scenes person who arranges all the songs and plays all the instruments."

What better way than a documentary on making of his album?

To be shown on Channel V, it shows him at work at his Homeboy studio in Boston as well as the studios of Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson.

While he does not fret over the excessive attention paid to his good looks, he does get exassperted when his love life becomes the centre of attention.

He said:"Despite putting all of your life into the album and spending so much time on it, they (reporters) just want to ask you about other things."

Other things being that rumour of his alleged relationship with fellow American-born singer Coco Lee for example.

Asked why they were often linked together, Wang exclaimed:"I don't know!"

Or, that screen kiss he is going to have with Taiwanese actress Lin Xinru, of My Fair Princess fame, in that Stanely Tong movie that he is shooting now.

"It's less than one-quarter of a second! It's just a peck! It's nothing! I hate to build up everyone's expectations over nothing," he said.

But he does accept that people find details of his love life interesting.

"Mei you ban fa! (No other way about it)," he signed.

So, is he seeing anyone now?

"No," he said. Not after he broke up a long-distance relationship with his taiwanese girlfriend.

This was what inspired the first and last songs in his album--Forever's First Day abd You Can Tell Me.

Taking a break from music, Wang is now acting as Aaron Kwok's cop partner in Stanely Tong's China's Strike Force, his first movie.

"This shouldn't betract anything from my music. I have been singing for five years now and it's my seventh album. People will still think of me mainly as a musician," he said.

For his physically-demanding role, he took on three weeks' of martial arts training in Hong Kong.

Besides Kwok, Japanese actress Norika Fujiwara and rap-star Coolio also star in the English-language production which is being shot in Shanghai.

He revealed that he has accecpted an offer to star in a gongfu flick, Tie Quan.

Besides acting, he is also busy with promotional activities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has just concluded a 2 and 1/2 hour outdoor concert in Taiwan before a crowd of 20,000 on Saturday (July 15).

However he does not have any plans for a concert in Singapore yet. Fans here would have to wait till September before wang comes here to promote his album.

His latest album has met with positive response so far.

"The response has been very, very good in Taiwan. It's probably going to be my best-selling album," he said.

Perhaps that would put all the attention on his music alone. For once.