Wu Bai cuts a self-confident and invincible figure on stage. The Taiwanese rocker, now more or less recognised as an institution on the island, oozes charisma and vigour, driving his fans into hysteria with his riff-driven numbers and heart-wrenching ballads.
However, away from the public domain Wu's self-assured demeanour slowly evaporates. He is a reluctant rock star. Once out of the limelight his brash, on-stage persona goes straight into the wardrobe. He is neither drawn by the glamour of showbiz nor does he enjoy delivering public relations rhetoric in interviews.
Wu is on a break from the studio. He looks refreshed, settled back into a sofa in his hotel suite in Taipei. He is in a good mood and, with good grace, delivers anecdotes and jokes to spice up the interview.
But he betrays a slight apprehension to baring his soul to a stranger.
Half-jokingly, he mocks music critics' analytical overkill: '[Critics] are special in a way that they always wanted to categorise things - like this part of the music sounds like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and so on.
'It's not like we have plans about what we are going to do. We just do as our hearts tell us, creating music to mirror the sentiments we feel at that very moment. As long as we feel happy about what we are doing we know we are not going to shame ourselves.' A titan in a genre that flourishes on spontaneity, Wu insists his music is all-organic in its nature. For example, he says his new, yet-untitled release comprises mostly material that is simple and stripped bare of production ritz. This is a departure from his last release, Lonely Bird On A Branch, which was a pastiche of rock riffs and trip-hop beats.