words rachel mok

He might have been a football star if not for a high school misadventure, or he could have been a pop idol if he had the face of Edison Chan. He could even have been a biker, if he had given up music and an album release. But there are no ifs in the life of Hei Wong – destiny has other plans for him.

Many label Hei Wong a folk singer, but he disagrees. He says he is just a guy playing with an acoustic guitar, because he has no other options – all his band mates have quit the music scene. With all those piercings and tattoos, you would hardly imagine him as a Bob Dylan wannabe anyway. Ironically though, Wong actually wanted to be something else when younger. “I love going to karaoke box,” he says, “and thought I may be a pop idol one day.” He can’t help but laugh when recalling that teenage dream, smashed when a friend in the music industry gave him a spot of rather cold – but constructive – advice. “He said I am not good looking enough. So if I wanted to sing, I had better play with a band.” And that’s how he formed his band – and made it to the final stage of the Carlsberg Music Festival in 1997.

Behind those tattoos, there is also a story. Wong released his debut album Begins… in 2002, which means his latest record, Time Machine, has been dragging its feet for five long years. “There was a time when I wanted to give up music, [thinking] that I couldn’t write at all,” he recalls. “So I had these tattoos [done] to remind me that I must do [the album] right this time.” But if you think the needle is painful enough, how about also selling the love of your life for music?

Wong has loved motorcycles since he was a child, but it wasn’t until two years ago that he finally owned one. “My mum always said that if I was to ride a motorcycle, I should never call her ‘mum’ again,” he explains. “Now I think of it, maybe she was right. I was so young and I drove very fast actually. If I had a motorcycle when I was that young, I would have had a lot of accidents.” Though he enjoyed the freedom he found from riding the bike, he traded his baby last year – for a Time Machine.

Over the years, Wong has actually been approached by a number of record labels to release his album but it has never panned out. So he finally ended up investing the money from the sale of his motorbike in guitars, recording equipment and mastering, etc for the record. Was it a difficult decision to make? “Well, I think I did the right thing and I don’t regret it,’ he says. “I can buy another motorcycle later, but this album has been dragging on for five years already.”

Talkative and upbeat, Wong is convinced that everything is destined. If he hadn’t suffered a serious injury in a football match in secondary school, he still believes he would have been a football player instead of a singer-songwriter now. But he is glad to have found his ‘other love’ – his music, and every song, he says is “a story with musical notes”. For instance, during the three months he worked on the title track of Time Machine, he wrote eight different versions. “I wrote it during the period when I was lost to music and couldn’t compose,” he says. It represents a transformation of musical style for him – which becomes obvious when you compare that title track to the final cut in the album, the song as Wong originally penned it.

Blind in the Dark, a tune about a friend’s love story was written in 10 minutes during a black-out in his building, while If One Day, featuring Chet Lam on flute, was inspired by images he saw on TV of people desperately waiting for help on rooftops after the tsunami in 2004. Po Po, meaning ‘old ladies’ in Cantonese, reflects the memories of life during the Second World War for some of the elderly in Wong’s neighbourhood.

Having put so much effort into the album, does he expect it to make money – perhaps enough for him to buy another motorbike? “I haven’t had even one thought of that,’ he shakes his head. “I am happy enough if more people like listening to my music. It is already good enough if I can support myself by making
music, because it is so difficult in Hong Kong.”

Hei Wong will play at the Time Machine launch party on March 28 at Fringe Club’s Fringe Gallery. Showtime is at 10:30pm. Tickets cost $125 (with one drink) from the Fringe Club (2521 7251), Zoo Records (3188 2303) and Lab Yellow (2331 3220).