Chinese Football - Interview
(Edited for clarity)
List out all the band members, what instrument do you play and your three favorite emo bands.
Xu Bo play guitar and sing，Li Lixing play bass and sing Wang Bo plays guitar，Xia Chao Play drums. For me my three favorite bands: Jimmy Eat World, Cap n’ Jazz (Including the promise ring and all the Kinsella projects), Envy, The Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, Mineral, The Gloria Record, Cursive, Bright Eyes and Fugazi.
How did you initially find out about emo bands? - Did you know what emo meant when you first heard it?
Back in 2000, I used to be a pop punk kids in high school playing skateboard, watching 411 videos, listening to Drive-Thru bands all the time. It was a little hard to discover new music in China at that time, so I bought a lot of Smuggling CDs by the band names listing on their favorite album’s thanks list. In that way I found many albums I like, Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity, Saves the Day ’s Through Being Cool and Brand New’s Your Favorite Weapon. I don’t really know what emo was at that time, I just thought they were new-school pop punk bands and they sounds cool to me. So I kept discovering more and more bands I liked thru internet (yes,I learned to use Internet.) Some of my favorite bands were tagged emo. That was how I got to know emo but then almost every new bands tagged themselves as emo at that time, most of them sounded boring, however, they died with MySpace (including my power-pop band Flipside formed in 2004) Ha ha! But Drive-Thru didn't let me down, they signed The Early November，which was one of my favorite bands at that time.
What did you enjoy most about the music?
Now it is already a part of my life. Wake up with Nujabes and fall asleep with Yo La Tengo. Listening to Bright Eyes when I am down，get some James Iha when feels happy.
When I watch a show, I care more about the emotion and the creation. In all these years, I think I enjoy the sincerity most about the music.
What do you think of the pop punk era bands that came after the 90s?
However, I think it is better for a teenager to listen to pop punk rather than Psychedelic Rock/noise rock, isn't it？We (Chinese Football) have shared the stage with The Ataris when they toured in China two years ago. Chris is so nice. The show reminds me of the old days in high school listening to them. Pop punk is important for me when I was a teenager. There is nothing wrong with pop punk、emo and other genres. Good music will survive. Finally. There are great bands that exist all the time, no matter new or old, waiting for you to discover.