NakedBreath are a band with a mission – they’re agents for change and don’t mind talking about it.

“Today I sat in on the trial of a peeper who lurks around toilets and watches people shitting,” Tony, the outspoken, talkative young man says. “It was quite interesting.” And yet he is no lawyer, but a court reporter for a local newspaper. “I want to find out the truth and try to help others. I know my job is prescribed and it is not possible to do something like National Geographic; going to villages to reveal the life of the poor – but that’s what I want to do.” A hot-blooded young man? “I claim to be. I don’t care if others believe it,” he shrugs and looks away.

He may be a firebrand but Tony is also the lead singer of NakedBreath. He formed the band in May 2005 when, as vocalist and guitarist, he met and jammed with drummer Kit. Ming and Man joined later on lead guitar and bass, but both left when the band could not agree on a musical direction. New bassist Si joined a few months later and, though they are still looking for a guitarist, NakedBreath feel they are ready to go again with music that fuses all the members’ ideas and styles.

NakedBreath traces its origins to boredom and Deep Purple. Tony, who moved to Canada with his parents at 14, started watching footage of Nirvana as a listless teenager with nothing better to do. New York-born Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright once suggested boredom gave rise to many of Canada’s talented musicians – Leonard Cohen, Alanis Morissette and k.d. lang among others – and so it was with Tony. To fill in time, he picked up a guitar and started playing random riffs.
Meanwhile Kit had a cousin who loved Deep Purple. Remember what Brian Eno said about The Velvet Undergound? That though they had only sold 10, 000 records, everyone who bought one of those records went out and formed their own band. Influenced by his cousin, Kit followed the formula but substituted Deep Purple (though the band that made the classic Smoke on the Water sold many more records than VU) and started learning guitar as a homage to the English gods of heavy metal. A year later, he picked up a pair of drumsticks for the first time and the rest, as they say is history.

Though both Tony and Kit work full time and more, they still manage to squeeze in time to play. Kit recalls he once worked for 70 hours non-stop and then had to perform. “We force ourselves to find time,” he says. And Tony chimes in, “Sometimes if we need to play, I will speed up my writing and get off earlier.” He then smiles and says, “Now I get along with the bosses and may ask them to finish the article off for me.”

Not surprisingly, neither is a fan of Canto-pop. Kit jokes he shuts his ears when Canto-pop appears on the radio or TV and Tony derides the lack of creativity on the local scene. “Most pop songs are love songs,” he comments. “We try to sing more about the diversity and problems in life, and social issues.”

And he quotes their song Blue Door, about finding the key to an exit through which one can escape all the madness. “Some people just feel they don’t belong here and they don’t want to be here. They just want to leave,” Tony explains. Though the line ‘take me away’ endlessly repeated in the chorus doesn’t only refer to making music in Hong Kong: everyone, at some time, feels trapped in life, be it at work, in friendship or love. Which may sound miserable, though the song was not inspired by any particular incident. “Actually my whole life is like that,” Tony laughs. And so we understand – the way to deal with the pain is to laugh and challenge the world.