Taiwanese singer-songwriter David Tao Zee in 2005 announced his dream of making a musical. After five years battling with his record label and undertaking extended tours, he is close to realising it. Next month, Tao, 40, will hold two concerts in Hong Kong as part of his six-month tour. These shows will probably be his last before he takes a extended break from music to make his debut film. The LAPD policeman-turned-godfather of Chinese R&B spoke about his roots in rock music and what drives him into filmmaking.
Many people see you as an R&B artist, but rock tunes have dominated this concert tour. Why is that?
Rock is something that's been in me probably since I was 12. If you ask me what is in my MP3 player, what I play at home or in my car, it's rock, especially stuff from the 60s and 70s. Although I'm not condoning the 'sex, drugs and rock'n'roll' thing, that was what made the music. It's an attitude and it reflects the culture during that era. Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose, but that was his lifestyle and what made his music. But that iconoclastic attitude is lost now; I hear a lot of angst that the stuff now is all manufactured. That's why I love rock from that era. So for this concert, I'm getting back to my roots; my guitar is back and my connection with rock is back.
Who introduced you to rock music?
My dad did. He likes the Beatles a lot, but it's usually their lighter stuff, such as Yesterday and Let It Be. I started to know their later stuff such as Revolver (1966), The White Album (1968) and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and this was the springboard for heavier stuff such as Led Zeppelin, and later, the mod, punk, new wave kind of music and then British glam rock like David Bowie. My favourites from that era are probably Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.
Why didn't you start playing rock music to begin with?