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The cute American-Chinese divulges on his music, movies and life in New York

At merely 24-years of age, Wang Lee-Hom has established himself as a singer-composer-arranger.

With seven albums under his belt and a couple of movies in the pipeline, the classically-trained musician was in town the last weekend for a charity show organized by the Singapore Heart Foundation. Dressed in a black top-gray pants-khaki jacket combo at the press conference, the 1.8m tall lad was undeniably good-looking. After all, the New Yorker was not nominated as Taiwanese girls' No. 1 sexual fantasy for nothing.

Hailing from Williams College, the level-headed singer was certainly proud of his new album Forever's First Day, which has so far sold a brisk 10,000 copies in Singapore and 200,000 copies in Taiwan since its release in late June. Entirely composed and arranged himself, the R&B-infused album was done while finishing his Masters at Berklee College of Music last year.

Coupled with talent and good looks, this award-winning American-Chinese's star will certainly be shining for a long while.

Would you like to tell us about Forever's First Day?
I took about one year to complete this album, and it's 100% mine. It's a very meaningful album and I'm very confident about it. Though I'm not completely satisfied with it, I'm very contented that I'm involved in the entire process and I learnt quite a fair bit from it too. I'm grateful to Sony Music, my record label, for giving me the opportunity and time to develop this album.

I felt so relaxed after finishing Forever's First Day as I've put in a lot of my life experiences, musical influences, and emotional upheavals in it.

After this album, the prospects of two movies came along. The timing was apt, as it didn't clash with the producing of Forever's First Day. The only thing was that due to time constrains, not much promotions were done for the album.

The only solution to this was that I get on Sony Music website every week to talk to my fans, telling them about my album, the fun facts and some details that people don't know. My fans know that I'm always interested in making movies, as they know that I've been involved in stage plays since high school.

Forever's First Day is a somewhat different album from your previous efforts. Do you think it'll affect the sales?
Well, it depends on the market, I guess. It has done pretty well in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I won't produce an album based on market tastes. This is my precious one-year effort and I didn't want my record company to give me too much pressure. I didn't step out of Homeboy Music Studio [in Boston] for an entire week. It was an intense week of concentration.

I know some of the songs are not mainstream music, neither are they love ballads. But they're music that stem from my own musical background. For example, the song "Descendent of the Dragon" is very personal. It's significant also because I'm born in the year of the Dragon, and that I'm a Chinese living in a Caucasian country.

Can you tell us about your involvement on the big screen?
I'm currently filming China Strike Force and Tekken. Both are action movies. China Strike Force is a Stanley Tong thriller starring Aaron Kwok, American rapper Coolio and Japanese actress Norika Fujiwara. I've also done a short film directed by Leslie Cheung called Ashes to Ashes. It's an educational anti-smoking film where I fall in love with a smoker played by Karen Mok, where I asked her to give up smoking for me.

Do you think this will be a big career change for you?
No. I think that as an artist, you can only demonstrate your capabilities one step at the time. In fact, I've acted in stage plays since I was 13-years old. I act to further improve myself and to gain more experience. As a composer, to continue producing songs, I need to expand my horizons and not to write from a textbook frame of mind.

There're lots of waiting time during the making of a movie. During those hours, I'll spend the time thinking of new songs. I have my music manuscript with me and so far, I've already written a couple of songs. I will also be writing the songs for the movie soundtracks.

Do you prefer singing or acting?
Singing, of course!

What are your musical influences and how do you get your inspirations?
I have a lot, actually. Jazz, classical, pop. I'm formally trained in classical music. I feel that maybe I ascribe to the classical composer Bart who was an American like myself. At that century, nationalism was the big thing in music. Bart went to Hungary and loved their music. He then assimilated the traditional Hungarian music into his compositions and thus became well known for that. For me, I think it's rather similar to me. I'm a Chinese, born and raised in New York. I came to Asia and discovered Chinese music. I also discovered the many varieties of music. I try to put that kind of feel and soul into my music.

You said something about creating an internationally recognized Chinese pop music sound. How do you define it?
Well, you can't really define it. There're certain clich you can mention, like the instrumentation. You can use the guzheng, er-hu, pipa, or something like that. There's also the music theory part of it like the Chinese scales, chords, things like that. Also, what I'm really interested in is the Chinese sensibility. If you watch Lee Ang movies, what makes his movies very different from the other directors across the world is that there's this Chinese sensibility to it. The way that Chinese people interact, the culture... it's reflected in the movies and it's very touching.

I think that growing up in the States, I know that inter-personal relationships are not so meticulous as that in the Asian countries. The "flavor"is not the same, and in a lot of Chinese songs, they talk relationships between people in much greater detail. And I like it. I find that it's something unique.

How do you think your musical style has changed over these four years?
I think I've become more confident and I trust my instincts a lot more. Also, in the last four years, I've learnt a lot more about music through Williams College and Berklee School of Music. I was just getting my skills more polished. I’ve also learnt a lot about production, electricity, microphones and recording equipment. I'm more confident in what I want to achieve and my own music style.

Did you face any racial discrimination while you're growing up in New York?
The unhappiest moments weren't being discriminated. It was more of the disunity among the other Chinese migrants. They're unsure of their identities as Asian-Americans.

I didn't felt this when I was younger, until when I entered college as there're Chinese-American students' organizations. I met a lot of ABCs (American-born Chinese) there and we realized that all of us don't speak our mother-tongue. So we started taking Chinese lessons and learn about our roots. Though we're all ABCs from different states, we did go through similar life experiences. Like, we may all have stricter parents than our American friends, and we've taken some form of music lessons, regardless if it's violin or the piano.

Were you active in the Chinese-American organizations' activities?
Yes. If I do hear of any events when I'm back in the States, I'll definitely try and attend them. I was recently invited to be a guest performer at Harvard's Taiwan Students' Association annual function.

You've been compared to fellow ABC David Tao. Is there a rivalry between you two?
Everyone presumes that since we grow up in the States, our backgrounds are alike. The world is so big. He's from Canada and I'm from New York.

But both of you have changed the music scene in Taiwan with your kind of music and the way you express your songs.
Singers should have their own style. That'll make them stand out. I like David's work. I feel that he's worked very hard to arrive at what he is now. I don't think we're competitors. The music industry is big enough. I actually do hope that there're more of such musicians.

Will you be producing an English album?
Yes, most definitely. I plan to produce one next year.

Are you preparing for it now?
No. I'm currently doing movie soundtracks, one commercial and one single for the Hong Kong market. I still have many songs to write and many songs to record.

Will you be thinking of holding a concert in Singapore?
Yes, I will. I'm already planning my world tour for next year. It's going to be really, really big. But it'll probably be with my next album, so it'll be during Summer or Fall next year.