He sings, he dances, he acts, he composes songs, he works as a producer of many major records- and he is only 24. Lee-hom Wang, young, handsome, and sociable, seems almost too perfect to be true. But the young pop star who has captured the hearts of million insists that he is just a naughty boy next door.
Say the name "Wang Lee-hom" to any teenage girl in Hong Kong, Taiwan or China and you're likely to get an excited scream in return. Wang, 24, has only been in the music industry for fives years but, with his musical talent and sunny good looks, he has already established himself as one of the most popular pop icons in Asia. Whether it's Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai or even Xi'an, hordes of fans bombard airports and hotels in hope of catching a glimpse of Wang.
Luckily, we successfully suppressed the news that Wang should be arriving at our studio for make-up and that he would be going to Big Wave Bay for the photo-shoot (and even changing his top in front of everyone), otherwise, a squad team of fans would certainly have shown up.
With so many reports of prima donna pop star hearthrobs these days, it's easy to imagine Wang as a spoiled brat from hell. His bio states how he started playing violin at age six, taught himself the guitar by 13, compoosed his first songs at 15, and went to music school and became a pop artist at 19. All this might indicate something of a precocious talent. Happily, nothing could be further from the truth.
Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Wang has an American flair to his personality that is obvious when he speaks. "Yo, dude!" He exclaims at some foul-looking foamy substance washing up on the shore. What's most likeable about Wang, however, is his ability to combine the best of both worlds. Despite his upbringing in the States, Wang speaks and reads Chinese, loves his heritage and even aspires to be the link bridging Chinese and international pop cultures. At present, he seems to be on the right track.
Having won the Best Male Artist of the Year and Best Producer of the Year in 1999 for his album Revolution at the Golden Melody Awards, the Taiwanese equivalent of the Grammies, Wang has been nominated again this year in six categories, including Best Arranger of the Year (Descendants of the Dragon) and for top Golden Melody Son gof the Year with his newest song Forever's First Day. He has also recently been inteviewed by CNN as one of the most successful Chinese pop artists. And with his natural good looks and charm, he has recently been picked for the second time as one of the winners of Top Ten Idols, an event held by Taiwanese publiclation Ming Shen Bao. Last November, Wang was selected as one of the sexiest male artist by Esquire magazine in Hong Kong.
None of this success wa sexpected in 1993, however, when Wang causally joined a talent search contest in Taiwan. "I was 17 years old, and i was on summer holiday. My mum and i were sitting in a restaurant and we spotted this poster on the wall about a talent search show, " Wang recalls. 'I had nothing to do, so Ithought, 'why not.' I didn't take it seriously at the time."
With a guitar and one of his own songs, Wang instantly attracted the attention of the record company that hosted the competition and was approached with a contract. "I just treated it as a summer job," says Wang. "Studies always came first and I had a deal with [the record company] to only work on the albums during the breaks I had from school." The contract meant forfeiting his entry into the final, but Wang wasn't really in it to win anyway - after all, he has never been a stranger to awards.
Since elementary school, Wang has won awards in everything from maths to essay competitions. He was ranked second in the American High School Thesis Competition, held by Cornell University in 1993, and was accepted as a member of Golden Key National Honour Society with his painting titled Eagle. He later graduated with honours from Sutherland High School and received a scholarship fro Pittsford Musical Inc. of the University of Rochester in 1994. Having passed the violin exam of Eastman Music School, Wang entered Williams College majoring in music.
Besides working on his degree, Wang spent a lot of time at Williams singing with an accapella band called the Springstreeters. His combination of passion for music and talent with poeple was already becoming apparent. "I fell like we grew up together," Wang said in an inteview with the school's journal, about his days with Springstreeters. For his final year project, Wang penned a musical entitled The Bite That Burns! and received an A for his work. Wang still speaks of the experience as one of the happiest moments in his life. "It was such hard work but everyone who was involved enjoyed it. They were doing it for free and they did it because we're friends. I appreciate that spirit and motivation."
Despite his formal music training, Wang was keen to enter the pop scene - despite claims that it was a waste of his talent. "In classical music we have Yo-yo Ma, but there is no internationally recognised Chinese pop star," Wang explains. "There is a huge potential there." Wang thinks it's a good thing that there are so many Chinese artists who have achieved international appeal, such as Jackie chan, chow Yun-fat and Lucy Liu, and he hopes to achieve the same in pop music and be a good role model for Chinese youths around the world.
Neither does he mind the ever-increasing commercialism of the pop industry. "My view on music is that it has to be commercial," Wang says. "If it's good, people love it and buy it." One crucial difference here is that Wang is not in it just for the money and fame. He's not led by commercialism but merely plays into it. "My goal is not to make a lot of karaoke hits, make lots of money and be famous, otherwise i would have made more than one album a year," Wang says. "Music must come first. When it's good, it becomes commercial."
Besides his remarkable musical talent, Wang's career has also been blessed by man notable musicians around the world. It was the late Seth McCoy who taught Wang how to sing. McCoy, who passed on a few years ago at 68, was among the very first black soloists to break through the boundary of racism and sing for Metropolitan Opera. It was McCoy who inspired Wang to think about his heritage. " Seth told me the world is not Rochester; here you're Wang Lee-hom, but outside there, your're a foreigner."
After his pop career kicked off, Wang met Jim Lee, a respected and experienced music producer who has worked with many notable pop stars such as Karen Mok and Coco Lee. The pairing has proved to be sensation in the pop music industry. And it was with Lee that Wang worked in producing the highly popular track, Revolution. "Lee taught me a lot how to be a producer - the techical side of things," says Wang. "He is my mentor."
Back in New York, where he spend about half of the year churning out new songs, Wang also works with many big wigs, one being Alex Richbourg, drumer programmer for Janet Jackson. In one of his newest songs City of Pleasure, Wangs works with Richbourg to combine Chinese elements, such as ping-pong ball and kung fu sounds with Western style drum grooves. This is apprently the path Wang wants to take in bridging the two worlds he is familiar with.
Wang's passion for his heritage is also noticeable in his reaarangement of the song Descendants of the Dragon. Originally sung by Wang's uncle, Li Juan-fu, Descendants of the Dragon became a legend in Chinese music when it was released in the 1980's. It was at a time when China was recovering from an especially turbulent and destructive periold in its history and moving on to becoming a world power. The song touched a chord for many chinese people, at home as well as around the world.
While Li has given up singing and moved on to heading Yahoo Taiwan, his nephew is picking up the ball to take the legendary song further. "Twenty years ago, when my uncle sang this song, it had a more local meaning. Now, when you talk about chinese people, you are talking globally," Wang said in a recent interview.
Another of Wang's musical inspirations is Stevie Wonder. Wang quotes one of Wonder's 1974 hits, LIving For The City as what he thinks music creation should be. In the middle of the song, The music lowers and thre is dramatic interlude about a black man visiting New York City, and being tragically framed for drug possession. "[Stevie Wonder] does all these different voices; he doesn't mind doing these things that might make others think of him as an idoit," Wang says. "He believes in what he is doing."
Wang's attitude to life and his career seems to be a winning formula, and work has never stopped pouring in. Besides his newest album, Forever's First Day, and the single, Time To Fall In Love, this talented homeoby, as Wang often refers to himself, has just finished the shooting of his first two movies. China Strike Force, in which Wang stars with pop legend Aaron Kwok and Japanese bombshell Norika Fujiwara, was released last month, while In the Names of Heros, with Hong Kong hearthrob Stephen Fung and pop princness Gigi Leung, is expected to be released this month.
Yet if there is one more thing that Wang has succeeded in over the past years, it must be the art of dealing with people. Like many other up- and-coming pop artists, Wang has had his fair nubmer of publicity headaches. Rumours about his sexuality and who he has been dating recently, as well as whispers along the grapevine that he stepped on Aaron Kwok's toes for wanting to sing the title track for China Strike Force, have all, at one time or another, got this homeboy frustrated. "I personally didn't mind [the sexuality rumour]. What upsets me is the way that the question came out," Wang says vehemently. "I was at an event for something totally unrelated and then out of the blue there was this question. It was rude and disrespectful."
At other times, Wang is weary of how reporters are so interested in his love life. "I was at this press conference once promoting my album, and thre were a few minutes out of an hour-long press conference where some reporters asked about this song i wrote about lost love," Wang recalls. "The next day, i read the paper and the headline was "Wang Lee-hom's Lost Love". There was no mentioning of my other songs. I was like, 'what the hell?' " Needless to say, recent sightings of him at a restaurant with Karen Mok have fuelled furthere speculation about the duo's relationship.
Wang sees nothing in these rumours and looks on them with a laugh. "I've wised up to see things as they are; there are always good things and bad things said about you." Wang sums up the experience: "Some people might say, you've put on weight, and then others say, you're skinnier. I say, 'screw it' "
Wang has foudn the perfect solution to getting his thoughts across without them being twisted by the press. He now writes a weekly diary on Sony Music Taiwan's website in Chinese and English. "If people care to read about it, then they'll know." And mandy do. The content of the diary has been recapped in many of his fans websites and Wang receives many responses each week.
In a couple of months, Wang will return to the life he loves most: making music in the studio. He is expecting to release his first English album in Japan next year. It's not going to be a holiday - as a matter of fact, work in the studio can get quite stressful and intense. "I don't deal with stress very well, I sink into it," Wang says. "When I'm stressed, I become high-strung and can't eat and sleep; I don't change my clothes and I don't take a shower." Sounds horrible, but when that stress is a result of your passion, it can be ironically pleasurable. "I feel much better now, having spent my day off practising piano in pure unadulterated solitude. I spent quality time today...and am much happy this way, Wang wrote, closing one of his recent diaries.
