[EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW] Dawen's (大文) Music Journey In Taiwan!

HypnoticAsia holds an exclusive interview with Dawen!

Dawen is a singer-songwriter from Chicago before moving to Los Angeles for 4 years and living as an independent artist. Now, the singer signs with Universal Music Taiwan and has debuted his first major label album in Mandarin Chinese entitled “Hello.”

Back in 2010, Dawen competed at Kollaboration Acoustic 4 and received the first place prize with his song “Shoes” which is finally recorded and included in English on his new album. We’ve supported the artist as he competed at Kollaboration and even now, with his debut in Taiwan, we’ve followed the news and journey.

Check out our exclusive interview with Dawen as he talks about what it was like living in LA, moving to Taiwan, competing at Kollaboration Acoustic 4 and even who he wants to collaborate with in the future. Not only that, he mentions what he misses about SoCal and some awesome news about a U.S. Tour!

HYPNOTICASIA: Please introduce yourself to the readers of HypnoticAsia.

DAWEN: What’s up, Hypnotic Asia!! This is Dawen. I’m a singer-songwriter and producer and faithful reader of Hypnotic Asia from the beginning. Woo! I spent four years in LA as an independent musician but in 2012, was offered a record deal with Universal Music Taiwan and subsequently moved to Taiwan! Jump to 2014 and I’ve just debuted my first major label album in Mandarin Chinese!!

HYPNOTICASIA In 2010, you competed and won Kollaboration Acoustic 4; what was it like winning such an award and what have you gained from the competition?

DAWEN Kollaboration was an amazing experience. I had always wanted to be a part of it since watching a show in Chicago nearly ten years ago. I ended up auditioning for the show six times and on the sixth time, I was offered a chance to compete. Through the show I met comedian PK and Roy Choi, as well an encouraging Asian American community that I hadn’t known before. PK has always said, “Hone your craft.” I really love that quote and I’ve always remembered it since hearing PK say that in Chicago back in 2004. Kollaboration believes in “empowerment through entertainment”. I can’t think of a better way than that to achieve self definition.

HYPNOTICASIA: 4 Years ago, you unleashed your first single “Wake Up”, which deals with Asian American stereotypes and prejudice towards minorities. The track was very popular with college and high school students; did it make you feel accomplished when many students were listening to the words you were putting out though this song?

DAWEN: With ‘Wake Up’ I wanted to express the way I felt as an American living in a country that didn’t always regard me as its citizen. Wake Up was my quiet anthem to not be complacent, to not be satisfied with being marginalized. When students started telling me they liked the song, I didn’t feel accomplished per se, rather, I felt good knowing that other people related to the way I felt and were frustrated just like me by the prejudice and racism in their lives. I am indebted to the educational community for supporting my music during those years. Looking back, those were some of the toughest for me.

HYPNOTICASIA: Your first Mandarin single, “A Change of Heart” made its debut on the Taiwanese idol drama, “Lady Maid Maid;” how did it feel hearing your music on a famous drama?

DAWEN: It was definitely exciting! There’s nothing quite like the first time you hear your own music coming out of the television. It’s familiar and new at the same time. More importantly it was an amazing opportunity and blessing to have that song used for the drama. I’d love to have one of my English songs in an American TV show one day. That would be amazing.

HYPNOTICASIA: What made you change and translate songs like Rebecca Black’s “Friday”, Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and more to Chinese? Did you enjoy the response it received from fans and media all around?

DAWEN: Translating Friday into Chinese was an afterthought. The song had already been parodied to death. One day I was bored in my apartment and thought to myself: “There’s a billion versions of Friday already. But wouldn’t it be really amusing if someone sang it in Chinese?” Now keep in mind, my Chinese wasn’t even that great at the time, but it has always been a fun thing to try and sing well known English tunes in amateur Chinese translations.

The reaction to my Chinese version is perhaps the only time I’ve ever experienced something of my own going ‘viral’. The views started climbing immediately and in less than 12 hours, teachers of Chinese started emailing me asking me permission to use my translation for classroom use. It felt even more surreal when they started playing it on the radio in LA. I didn’t mind that it was a novelty. The important thing was that people said nice things about it. They didn’t hate it, haha.

HYPNOTICASIA: We’ve seen you grow from being a YouTube celebrity to now releasing your first mandarin album, what has the journey been like?

DAWEN: When I got to Taiwan I realized that my Chinese language skills were really inadequate. I enrolled in Chinese class my first day here and continued in an intensive course for 3 months. By the end of it, my vocabulary had improved and I was able to write and even read the paper albeit slowly. This was important to me, being a singer songwriter as I had hoped to write all my own Chinese lyrics as well.

Taiwan is really different from the US and I had to adapt culturally, too. It doesn’t happen overnight but I think I plunged head first with a good attitude. I’m going to hit my two year mark here very soon and I’m honestly in love with this place.

HYPNOTICASIA: What was your inspiration when writing the songs for your newest Mandarin album, “Hello?”

DAWEN: “Hello” was the first song I wrote in Taiwan. It’s the first song I’ve ever written in Chinese. It’s a departure from the sound of “American Me”, my indie album. Writing in Chinese was at first a huge challenge for me because the rhythm, cadence, and tempo of Mandarin is totally different from English. I imagined myself as a student learning Chinese for the first time. On the first day of class you would probably learn the basics like the word, “hello”. I took that idea and combined it with what it’s like when you meet a cute girl for the first time and you want to say hello to her but you don’t know how. The whole song is an excuse to get someone’s attention. It’s an innocent way of telling someone you’re interested in them.

HYPNOTICASIA: Which would you say is your favorite between your first English album “American Me” and your first Mandarin album “Hello”? Why?

DAWEN: Hmm, for “American Me” I don’t really have a favorite track from that album. The tone was very dark and heavy, sometimes bitter. It was a very serious album that expressed a lot of issues that I wanted to get off my chest. I’m very proud of all the 16 tracks . I would say that “Wake Up” really set the tone of my writing style and that “Just You” was a nice romantic reprieve from all the seriousness.

In contrast, there are two songs on “Hello” that are without a doubt my favorite. “Acid Rain” is a track that in my opinion, sounds like it could have been on “American Me.” My writing style changed so much between the albums but that song has such an R&B feel to it that it reminds me of the music from “American Me” every time I play it. Also, the lyrics describe a breakup from a past relationship I had while I still lived in the US. I basically took that memory of that breakup, changed the setting to Taiwan and used Chinese to recount the story. The result is “Acid Rain.” The second song is “Shoes”, the only English track on my album. “Shoes” is the only song I wrote in America that I put on my Mandarin debut. It has a jazzy feel to it, in contrast to the pop acoustic sound of the “Hello” album. I wrote ‘Shoes’ for Kollaboration Acoustic 4 back in 2010 and never got a chance to record it till now. The “Shoes” recording session was amazing. We recorded all the instrumentals live from 11 at night to 5 in the morning. The musicians who played on it are some of Taiwan’s best and it was a complete honor to record that song. It was also the only song that was wholly produced by me. I will never forget that experience.

HYPNOTICASIA: If you could recommend one song off your newest album “Hello” to fans, which would it be and why?

DAWEN: Well, for US listeners, I would recommend “Shoes,” as it’s in English for one, but also because it has a lot of humor and healthy pride in the lyrics. “Acid Rain” as I mentioned earlier, is my favorite. I would also recommend the title track “Hello” to anyone learning Mandarin Chinese. The lyrics are super easy to understand and you will never forget how to say ‘hello’ in Chinese after listening to this song, haha.

HYPNOTICASIA: Is there one artist you’d like to collaborate with you that haven’t already?

DAWEN: I can only choose one? There’s plenty of artists I’d love to collaborate with. In the English speaking world, I want to collaborate with Bruno Mars. In the Mandarin speaking one, I want to collaborate with Jay Chou. They’ve both influenced my own music not only in style, but in their work ethic as well. In the YouTube community, I would like to collabo with my friend David Choi, haha. (Dave, let’s do something!) People don’t know this but I started my YouTube channel after a conversation I had with David at the San Diego Asian American Film Festival back in the fall of 2009. I started taking the idea of putting covers on YouTube very seriously. While I wasn’t very prolific as a YouTube singer, YouTube was what led me to Taiwan in the end.

HYPNOTICASIA: Is there an artist you’ve always wanted to write a song for but haven’t had the chance yet?

DAWEN: I’ve always wanted to write a song for Boyz II Men. They aren’t very active these days but I still dream of writing for them or at least a group that’s as amazing as them. I think it’d be cool to write for Taylor Swift, too. It just sounds like an awesome challenge.

HYPNOTICASIA: Now that you are residing in Taipei, Taiwan is there anything you miss about America?

DAWEN: I miss my brother’s dog, Sweet Pea. I miss my brother George, too, lol. I miss my friends, In & Out, Father’s Office. Sometimes I miss the idea of driving but I think of traffic on the 405 and then I don’t miss it all.

I’ve recently announced my West Coast tour in March so it will be a great way to see my friends hopefully!

HYPNOTICASIA: What does your music playlist look like right now? What songs and genre can we find on it?

DAWEN: Lately, my playlist consists of Mandopop and Soundtracks. I’ve got a lot of JJ Lin, Stephanie Sun, the Secret Life of Walter Mitty movie soundtrack and Lorde’s Pure Heroine. Oh, and also, Capital Cities’ ‘Safe and Sound’.

HYPNOTICASIA: What can we expect from you in the future in terms of music and releases?

DAWEN: The West Coast Tour in March! I’m coming home!! Performing in 4 cities, opening for Canadian artist Wanting as part of her Say The Words North American Tour:

Mar 20 Los Angeles, CA at House of Blues

Mar 23 San Francisco, CA at Fillmore

Mar 24 Portland, OR at Lola’s Room at McMenamins

Mar 25 Seattle, WA at Triple Door

Buy Tickets：www.bandsintown.com/Wanting

HYPNOTICASIA: Is there anything else you’d like to say to your fans and readers at HypnoticAsia.com?

DAWEN: Thank you guys for all the love and support throughout the years. I can’t wait to come back home. Check out my album “Hello”. I’m really proud of it, as it’s the culmination of the last two years. Don’t be afraid to listen to music in Mandarin Chinese. It’s a beautiful language. Check out all my vids on my YouTube: youtube.com/dawen

Oh! I almost forgot! You can get my album now on iTunes and Spotify!! (If you haven’t already, buy Dawen’s first Mandarin album “HELLO” on iTunes HERE.)

Lastly, a big shoutout to my brother George, who produced 3 of my vids: “Hello”, “Firecracker”, “Let’s Work It Out” ft. Kimberley.

Love you guys, and see you soon!