Taiwanese Heavy Metal Shouts Out Loud in U.S.
New America Media, 
, Eugenia Chien, Posted: Aug 16, 2007
Editor’s Note: Heavy metal is not typically associated with the Asian music scene, but Chthonic, Taiwan’s extreme metal band, is changing that perception as it tours the United States. NAM editor Eugenia Chien attended their concert in Mountain View, Calif. Chien monitors Chinese language media for NAM.
MP3MOUNTAIN VIEW – Their faces dripped in black and white paint, the band took the Ozzfest stage and immediately began an onslaught of death metal. Their sweaty fans with long manes nodded their heads in the front row to the quickening rhythm, their hair spinning faster and faster in the air.
Raising his arm triumphantly in the air, lead singer Freddy Lim growled into the microphone: “We are Chthonic, from Taiwan!” The crowd raised their arms in the air and cheered.
A death metal band from Taiwan?
Chthonic (pronounced THON-ic) is the first extreme metal band from Asia to perform at Ozzfest. The six-person group is traveling and performing with bands like Static X, Lamb of God, and of course, the tour’s founder, Ozzy Osbourne.
The Asian music scene is typified by saccharine love ballads and hip-hop. A heavy metal scene in Taiwan, much less the dark, melancholic death metal of Chthonic is, until recently, hard for many Asians to imagine. But the band’s dramatic face paint, lyrics based in Taiwanese folklore, and atmospheric, spiritual performing style has attracted thousands of Taiwanese – and now, American fans.
The band describes their music as “symphonic” and steeped in Taiwanese folklores. Their name derives from the Greek word for “spirit of the underworld.” On stage, the band creates an eerie and powerful presence as they plow through songs about ghost stories, Taiwan’s colonial history and tragic stories of Taiwan’s indigenous tribes.
One of the reasons why they are so famous is because their music is complex, using a variety of techniques not often heard in metal music, like performing with a classical Chinese symphony. The band also uses the traditional Chinese string instrument called erhu – or hanna in Taiwanese -- to add Eastern influence to their music.
“All of the concepts in our music are tragedies, so we need an instrument that can express this kind of emotion,” said lead singer Freddy Lim. The band’s erhu player, Su-nung Chao, had come from a Chinese classical music background and is a part-time funeral musician in Taiwan.
“The sound of the hanna is kind of like a woman crying,” Chao said.
Record stores in Taiwan began selling thrash metal and heavy metal music in the 1990s, but the Internet era has introduced more metal bands to Asian listeners.
“In Asia, young people have karaoke culture, but metal music is the total opposite. With metal music, the most important parts are drums and guitar,” Lim said.
The dramatic paint that the band dons onstage is visually stunning, with pale white faces and precisely-drawn lines of black paint that run from their foreheads to their chins. The band’s drummer, Dani Wang, wears a spiked leather mask that covers his nose and mouth. Doris Yeh, the band’s bass player, commands attention as one of the very few Asian women seen on the stages of metal music.
“We write about God, ghosts, spirits, and legends so we need something onstage that can strengthen ourselves,” Lim said. The band’s look is inspired by both Scandinavian mythology and the “Eight General” mythology of Taiwan, where characters negotiate and communicate with spirits.
The band is also known for its political activism – becoming a champion of Taiwan’s bid to join the United Nations. Its tour with Ozzfest is titled, “Unlimited Taiwan,” the title of a song that the band wrote about Taiwan’s exclusion from the United Nations. Taiwan has had 15 failed bids to join the United Nations due to China’s opposition. After the civil war in 1949 against the Chinese Communists, China considers Taiwan a renegade province despite the fact that Taiwan is self-ruled and has an elected government.
Ozzfest has allowed Chthonic to talk about their political message freely; the band has a bus splashed with the logo “Unlimited Taiwan” and receives partial sponsorship from the Taiwanese government for airfare and transportation, similar to the way other governments sponsor athletes and artists to perform abroad, according to Lim. Many older Taiwanese-Americans who never listen to metal music have come to the show to give the band support, even bringing them homemade Taiwanese snacks, bassist Yeh said. Increasingly their American fans are catching on.
“I didn’t know much about the political situation in Taiwan, but I know that China’s oppressing Taiwan,” said Abe Newman, 26, of Napa, as he nodded his head to Chthonic’s music at an Ozzfest concert in Mountain View, Calif.
“It’s cool that they have a stand,” his friend, Chris Keen, agreed. “It makes them stand out.”
Billy Juang, another fan at Ozzfest, said that he found the band on the Internet in 2003 but did not realize the band’s political message until a few months ago.
“They are the best ‘black metal’ band around. They are so original,” Juang said.
The degree to which their American fans have become more familiar with their cultural and political background is impressive, Lim admitted. When the band released the album "9th Empyrean" (Nightfall Records) in the United States in 2002, some fans had thought that they were from Japan.
“At our first show at Ozzfest, some fans brought our CD and wanted our autograph but they asked us to sign it in Japanese. I said, ‘No, we are from Taiwan,’” Lim said. “More and more I see fans on our Internet forums saying that they want to fight for Taiwan and they’re ready to guard this island.”
But to others, the band’s music is enough to keep them coming back. At Ozzfest, despite the harsh summer sun the gritty, pierced crowd pushed toward the stage as the band finished their last song. Minutes later, fans were already lining up to meet the band.
Lim said he hopes some of the band’s lyrics may inspire fans to become more educated about Taiwan. “Some fans enjoy the stage, and that’s it. But they will search on the Internet themselves to see what is going on in Taiwan,” he said. This way, “we can share and express our unlimited power to the world.”
Photos taken by Mark Carras
Related Links
Chthonic official website