China's top rock musician Xie Tianxiao and his band Cold-blooded Animals are playing their first nationwide concert tour Boundless Rock. They will travel to 11 cities around China ending in Xuzhou on April 18. He shared his ideas about rock music and life with China.org.cn before leaving Beijing.

Xie Tianxiao [China.org.cn]

Xie was born in Zibo, Shandong Province in 1972. Naturally rebellious, his school life didn't last long. After being punished by teachers and making trouble, he dropped out of school at the age of 14. Then an incident changed his life forever. Some of his friends stole goods from a local factory and hid in Xie's house. The police found them and punished Xie by imposing a stay-at-home curfew on him. He couldn't stand the monotony of being continually indoors and borrowed a guitar from a friend. It was the start of his musical career.

"I think I've had the 'rock spirit' since I was a kid," Xie said with a smile. "As the famous DJ Youdai said, rock never dies. Its spirit will live as long as human beings exist. When there was no rock music, it was still there in people's lives. It's a spirit of questioning and an uncompromising attitude to life."

He came to Beijing in 1991. At first he didn't have any specific goals but gradually music came to occupy his life. He said he wrote songs and lyrics from the very beginning. "For me, music is not job. It's my life. I don't play because I want to make an album. I just want to express myself and my feelings," Xie said.

A poster of Xie's nationwide concert tour?"Boundless Rock"

Xie's first album Cold-blooded Animals was published in 2000, three years after the band of the same name was founded. It was a great success. According to news reports, about 150,000 tapes and 40,000 CDs were sold. The band played a rock festival in Japan the same year. They were invited to play in the U.S. in 2001 and Xie stayed on for a year to explore the music scene there. This experience helped him make up mind to develop his career back in China and also radically changed to his music style.

Before going to the U.S., Xie's music was full of western elements. "We attracted a lot of attention at the concert in Texas. Americans didn't know there were rock bands in China. We were even more attractive than the European ones. But I suddenly realized that our music was no different from theirs and we could never compete with the real thing. We had to find our own style - with Chinese characteristics," Xie said.

He came to New York shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Even the local people could hardly find a job and Xie ended up in a Chinese restaurant washing dishes for 12 hours a day. "I told the boss I couldn't go on and went to sing in Chinatown the next day. I sang old Chinese folk songs such as Let's Go Boating and Why the Flowers Are So Red. Overseas Chinese loved the songs and gave me generous tips. I only worked 2 to 3 hours a day and then went to bars to listen to other music. It was a good time. But in the end I couldn't develop my career there." Xie returned to China in 2002.

Xie finally created his own Chinese sound by adding a guzheng, an ancient Chinese string instrument, to his second album Xie Tianxiao X.T.X, released in 2005. The result was a great success. Without any large scale promotion, the band sold 100,000 albums that year. And the band didn't have to worry about a lack of audiences any more. Almost every concert was packed to the rafters with fans. Xie gained the nickname "New Godfather of Chinese Rock."

"Actually I don't like the word 'godfather.' It doesn't suit my music," Xie Tianxiao said. As one of the most prolific rock artists in China these days, Xie is positive about the future of music. "There are many problems now. Companies are reluctant to invest in rock. Chinese rock singers don't write powerful songs and their work is distant from the life of the common people. But I still believe rock will revive and the worst times are behind us. I've met a lot of excellent young bands. But they need to find a way of being commercial while sticking to their own musical style."

Xie Tianxiao is recording a new album and plans to hold a concert in Beijing Workers' Stadium, a venue big enough to allow tens of thousands of fans.