SLUMPED IN HIS chair, Eason Chan Yik-shun is struggling to stay awake. It may be only 8pm but Chan is unable to suppress his yawns. He's been working non-stop for nearly 12 hours, his publicist says. 'And most of the time it was posing in furniture shops for interior design magazines,' Chan says. 'Isn't it ... interesting?' he adds sarcastically.
Chan's foray into furniture is apparently a cunning ploy to market the singer to a wider audience. He's 30 years old and a new recruit to parenthood - he became a father late last year when his long-term partner, Hilary Tsui Ho-ying, gave birth to a daughter, Constance.
And with a record to push, Chan is probably seen by his new employers as ripe for reinvention. Out goes the vivacious, angst-driven young man, to be replaced by the more urbane image of a settled middle-class yuppie.
But Chan seems uncomfortable with attempts to mould a new image for him. 'I don't really like how people are made into stereotypes,' he says. Plastering his face across the pages of lifestyle magazines is an attempt to package him as a family man, he says. 'You can be a lot of things even if you're a father,' Chan says. 'There's more than one way to go about it.' He cites Mel Gibson and Johnny Depp as examples of model parents.
Chan confesses freely to having a sarcastic take on life. Instead of oozing urbanity, he resembles a boisterous child being thrust into adulthood. Although courteous to a tee - he insists on shaking hands in greeting and farewell - Chan radiates a sense of cynicism towards anyone whom he considers to be judgmental. Before my tape recorder is even switched on he asks: 'What other artists have you interviewed? Have you actually ever heard any of my songs?'
He may tire of talking about his personal life, but there's no stopping him once he gets on to his recordings. Eager to explain the lyrics on his new record, U87, Chan launches into numbers that he found artistically fulfilling and personally illuminating. The opening track, The Beauty of the Sunset, talks about the ephemerality of the good things in life. 'It's like, don't wait for what you think is the right moment,' he says. 'Now is always the right moment, so do it.'