Peng Lei bought his first western bootleg cassette tape on the way home from school in Beijing one day in 1990. It was Bon Jovi. 'It was great to hear foreign music,' he says. 'But I didn't really like it.'
Next was Nirvana. 'I wasn't keen on that, either.' Then he bought the Ramones. 'Now that was more like it,' he says, excitedly. 'Punk tapes were also cheaper, only 5 yuan (HK$5.58) compared with 50 or 60 for heavy metal.'
Fast forward 18 years and Peng helms one of China's biggest and most successful alternative bands, New Pants, with which he has won a garage full of awards, released four albums and recently took on a 45-stop tour of Australia.
He formed the group in the mid-1990s with three misfit schoolmates who bonded by bucking the mainland musical trend for heavy metal and grunge that dominated the Chinese capital in the 90s as its culture began to be pervaded by overseas sounds.
After some lineup changes, the trio - Peng, keyboardist-bassist Pang Kuan and drummer De Heng - have evolved a more electro sound reminiscent of 80s British synth-pop bands and nu-rave than that of the anarchic 70s punk pioneers, yet their birth was typical of the original 'can-do' punk ethos.
'There was nothing to do but hang around,' the singer-guitarist says of his teenage years. 'That's how we met.' At the time Peng was being fed a diet of Canto-pop and commercial western music such as Michael Jackson and Prince by mainland radio.