It is never easy to refute a generalisation. To say music is not a universal language, therefore, would be as difficult as arguing one plus one is not two.
But it would be wrong to assume that King Ly Chee are saying it to initiate a philosophical debate. The local punk act has found out that, even in the supposedly border-free world of music, language barriers do get in the way.
While records of foreign artists are top sellers the three-man band, who perform solely in English, think the local music market is not as versatile as it may seem.
'It's virtually impossible for bands to survive, especially when you don't sing in Chinese,' says Riz Farooqi, King Ly Chee's lead singer and guitarist. 'I think English-speaking bands will not get anywhere in Hong Kong.
'When we are playing on stage, I'll say something like 'hello everybody!' and the audience will just stand still and stare at me.' Language aside, the band is facing other difficulties. Although they do not like specific labels such as punk or hardcore, they are by no means a mainstream act and this is making it hard for them to strike a record deal.
'Hong Kong's music scene definitely goes deeper than Canto-pop, but as pop music sells well, that's what the record companies are looking for,' says Farooqi, who also runs a bilingual underground music magazine called Start From Scratch.
He says King Ly Chee took part in a recent band competition in which the winner would get a cash prize as well as a possible deal from a record company. They won, but the record company never approached them.
