With debut album Takasago Army Tawainese metal outfit Chthonic really found their stride and it raised their profile considerbly in both Europe and North America; gearing up for the release of Bu-Tik the band is poised for even greater things. Ghost Cult caught up with bassist Doris Yeh to see what’s going on in the Chthonic world.
Tell us a little about what ‘Bu-Tik’ is like.
I think the music on Bu-Tik is more agressive. Takesago Army contains a lot of melancholic pieces, because it’s about the inner emotions of a soldier which forms the basis of a concept story. On Bu-Tik we touch many different subjects and stories, which is a different approach compared to our previous records, which were all concept albums. The interesting part is that all these different stories are connected to our previous records.
So how are all the albums connected?
It’s quite complicated. There is this male character who is an acolyte at a temple. In Taiwanese history there is the 228 massacre, which is a gruesome massacre commited by the Nationalist Chinese government under Chang Kai-Shek. There’s a battle at the temple where he serves and he’s desperate to help his people by invoking the spirits of the dead and go back into history to reverse the wrongs that has befallen his people. However, he gets trapped in a mirror by an evil spirit. Bu-Tik, the new album, is all about violent events that happened throughout Taiwanese history. These are all things that the main character on our previous albums saw. That’s how the albums are connected.
A lot of the lyrics and albums in the band’s discography are steeped in Taiwanese political and historical themes. Why is this so important for you?
Ironically the my grandparents from my mother’s side were a nurse and a soldier in the army of Chang Kai-Shek who escaped from mainland China when Chang was driven out by the Communist armies under Mao. My grandfather on my father’s side was almost a victim of the 228 massacre. So when my parents got married it was nothing short of a revolution in the family. Before I went to university I knew nothing about the Taiwanese history, because talking about that was taboo. Almost all the history of Taiwan is related to China. In university I got classes in English grammar by a professor who also taught about traditional Taiwanese folk music. A lot of students skipped classes because of that. He taught us about real Taiwanese history and he urged us to read books and do research on the parts which weren’t a part of the official curriculum. A lot of people say that music is pure entertainment and it shouldn’t be related to politics. The thing is that politics is almost everywhere in your life. Take Korea for instance; after the Second World War there were two different regimes installed in Korea which divided the country in two and affected the lives of ordinary people in an incredible fashion. The influences of politics on your life may not be noticeable on a day-to-day basis, but it becomes painfully apparent after a longer period of time. It’s very important for society to stay on top of political developments. So when people say that music and politics are two separate things I feel that it’s total bullocks. It’s just a poor excuse for people to run away from reality. History is basically the product of political events in the past. I do want to emphasize that Chthonic isn’t a political band. We just sing about events that happened in the past.
Why are the visual aspects so important to you?
We want our costumes to be connected to our music. If our shows would only be about the music our fans could just simply listen to our albums or MP3s. If we want to get people to our shows we need to visualise our music and make people part of the whole experience. We spend a lot of time figuring out which outfits best represent our music. In the beginning our costumes were just plain weird and silly.They were modelled after Japanese bands. We didn’t know where else to buy our costumes than in Japan. Luckily we work with our own designer nowadays and we can choose with type of costumes fits our personality best. Dani (Wang – drums) has this facemask with Oriental influences for instance. CJ’s (Kao – keyboards) mask is our own creation. We’re all so proud of him for letting us go crazy on his mask. He’s a trooper.
The band also released three high-end video clips in support of Bu-Tik. Is it still worth to invest so much money in that format in this day and age?
Because of all the historic references in our music it’s important for us to explain them to our fans, so they get an idea what our music is all about. Those video clips are a great way to explain what our songs are all about. Of course they were expensive to make and some members of the band had to take loans in order to raise enough funds. We are all convinced it’s worth the effort, because those videos received an incredible amount of views from Europe, North America and Australia. It also gave us the chance to work with three different directors who came from totally different backgrounds. The video clip for ‘Supreme Pain for the Tyrant’ is filmed by a movie director for instance. The one for ‘Defenders of Bu-Tik Palace’ is directed by someone who normally makes commercials. A famous Taiwanese photographer directed the video clip for ‘Next Republic’. It was really inspiring to see how these people took our ideas and taking it to a whole new level. Being involved in the creational process of a video clip is more exciting for me than making an album. For ‘Defenders of Bu-Tik Palace’ we underwent two months of brutal martial arts training. The choreographer asked us to do a lot of jumping and kicking moves, which brought us lots of cuts and bruises. It took us 25 hours to shoot all the martial art parts. When we’re touring in North America we get a lot of questions in interviews whether we know Kung Fu, because we’re from Asia. At first we didn’t know anything about it, but now we do.
Chthonic is building quite a name for itself in Europe and North America. Do you see yourself as paving the way for other Taiwanese and Asian metal bands to follow suit?
In a way, yes; we do hear people in other Asian countries asking themselves why their country doesn’t have a band like Chthonic from Taiwan. I don’t think we’re that succesful in Europe and North America yet. We still have a lot of ground to cover. We did stir up some competition between Eastern Asian metal bands who questioned themselves why Chthonic plays on Wacken Open Air and gets on all these high-profile tours and why can’t they. I think it’s a positive way to encourage other bands to step up their game, write better music and become more professional.
Raymond Westland