Sing from the city, sound of the valley

Xiao Juan and Residents from the Valley at backstage of the 2010 Beijing Pop Music Festival held on October 17, 2011.[Photo/IC]

This is the sixth year that you hold a theme concert. Compared with the past concerts, what is so special about this one?

Arai Soichiro: This time we have introduced more string instruments in the performance. We had cello playing in our performance before, but not other instruments. Since Xiaoguang can now compose music that can be played by string instruments, we decided to find another guitarist to join our performance. The performance will be enriched by the combination of more instruments, and will be more expressive.

The theme for this year's concert is "About Love", and you will be presenting the five statuses of love, what are they?

Xiao Juan:　Actually, there are more than five statuses of love. But we try to show the various sides of love through our songs. Love In 1980, for example, describes the simplicity, purity and tacit nature of love, which is usually found in people of that age. It's kind of an oriental love. But in Love Is like a Song, you can feel a young girl's longing for love, which is very interesting. Because of Love has then showed the many details of love, you have to really listen, and feel it. And River Without a Bridge, is a song that describes the kind of love that doesn’t really have a happy ending, one that ends with no results actually coming. We just want to share the different tastes of love.

Have you experienced all the kinds of forms of love in your songs? If not, how can you express them as they are?

Arai Soichiro：Yes, I have. Maybe what we have experienced are different from one another, Xiao Qiang might not really have gone through the kind of sadness in love(laughing). But we could share the experiences with each other.

Xiao Juan: The feelings that we express through songs are not only felt through romances. The bitter feelings that I feel and express, for example, may not come from love, but the pain that I felt as I grew. I think music is the liberation of the feelings that brewed in me through the years. Making music is like brewing a beer.

Xiaoguang: I think you have to fling yourself into a relationship, and then you won't miss a single taste of love. Love is a voluntary act, not passive.

Most of your fans are die-hard fans, and they praise your songs highly. But there are also people who say that the songs lacked soul, since you do many cover songs. What's your take on that?

Xiao Juan: I don't think it has to be original songs to deliver our soul, our thinking. Sometimes, people's understanding of themselves is rather limited, even though it might be them in the most natural state. We cover other people's songs because I feel that I resonate with those songs. Also, I think we need to learn from others, as accomplishment in music is obtained gradually, it's not an inherent ability for most people. What's more, it's actually not easy to cover a song well, especially in your own way, with your own feelings. We cover songs that once touched us, or that we love; we write songs to present the world that we see and feel.