Susie Wilkins is not oblivious to the fact that Hong Kong, with its dreary live music scene and Canto-pop-dominated charts, is not the perfect place to kick off an English-only singing career. Nor is it a place that offers great musical inspiration. 'I love Hong Kong but I also realise that there is not enough market for the music I am doing. The big record companies here are all interested in making money, which is in Canto-pop,' said the 19-year-old blues, rock and soul singer. 'But you can see that the live scene in Hong Kong is so small that you can get a lot of gigs quite easily and get a reputation quite quickly.' The former Island School student, who left England at the age of eight to come to the territory with her parents, does not think that the limited music arena is a hindrance to her. Instead, it has opened more doors for her than would have been possible in other parts of the world. 'I have more opportunities to play live in Hong Kong than I would have in London. Over there, I would never dream of making a living out of music at the age of 19. Hong Kong is so small that I can meet a lot of people who can be my springboard to other places.' At the age of five Wilkins began learning to read and write music. She took gruelling after-school piano lessons in her teens. 'I had lessons for a year and then gave up. I did not like [practising] scales and it became quite boring and stressful. I was not enjoying it and it was not helping my playing. I wanted to play blues and jazz. So I taught myself,' she said. Breaking one of her fingers while playing volleyball gave her the perfect excuse to stop the lessons altogether. The then 14-year-old tried her hand at songwriting and put her performing prowess to the test at numerous school functions. When the Fringe Club launched Saturday Night Open Mike a few years ago - at which performers of all sorts can make use of the stage for their 15 minutes of fame - Wilkins thought it was a godsend. 'The Open Mike was my public debut. I was 16 and I sang with some guys that night. The response was pretty good and [the Fringe] invited us to be a proper billed band on Friday night,' Wilkins said. Music, however, is not her only artistic passion. A desire to act led her to appear in many plays, including Gymnopedy, written by award-winning Hong Kong-based playwright and lecturer Dino Mahoney. 'Dino was a good friend of my mother [Pauline Burton], so I asked her to ask him to write a play for me,' she explains. Even though the play - which centred on child abuse - did get her a slice of stage limelight and her subsequent play The Last Garden in which she played daughter to her real mother on stage, she found it hard to put her music behind her. After exams last summer, she realised the fun she was having writing and performing music made university less of an appealing option. In the end she has deferred her tertiary education for two consecutive years. 'I wasn't ready to leave because I was so involved in Hong Kong. I am having fun and university can wait. I call university my safety net but if I can make a living out of my music and record an album that would be great.' Even though she is now an accomplished pianist which gives her room to play the instrument and sing simultaneously, she has had trouble keeping a band together to back her up. Her solution was to forget about the band and put more emphasis on her solo career. 'The reason I am doing a lot of solo gigs is that I can do my original numbers. But when I play with a band, we have to rehearse, and we don't usually have time for that. So what happened with the band is that we would get to the stage and play the blues and improvise.' She confessed that that was how she became stuck with the trade name 'Susie the blues singer'. However, she feels she wants to explore new areas. 'I need a break from that,' she said. Her break came recently when her musical merits brought to her door several record labels interested in signing her up for an album. Negotiations are still ongoing, but she admitted that she wants her debut to be produced in Hong Kong. But regardless of where and what studio she walks into, ultimately she would like it to be released in London so that she can challenge herself even more. At the moment, if folks find it hard to track her down at night-spots in Lan Kwai Fong or Wan Chai, try expatriates' promised land Lamma Island. 'At the moment I am performing in a pub there two or three times a week. It's quite a nice break for me to get away from organising gigs and rehearsals for the band,' she said. She is going to give the band one more try, though, tonight at the Fringe Club. 'It will be my first proper rehearsed original set with the band,' she promised. Susie Wilkins Band, the Fringe Club, Tel: 2521-7251
