Hi, everyone! A few weeks back, I sat down with Alex Zhang Hungtai, the former brain behind projects like Dirty Beaches and Last Lizard. The Taiwanese-Candian musician is currently based in Los Angeles and making music under his own name. Hungtai began his music career in 2005 as Dirty Beaches and consistently released music until his big break with Badlands in 2011. It's a wonderfully crafted record, and one I suggest all of you listen to! He released another critically-acclaimed record, Drifters, in 2013, but retired the moniker after one more outing in 2014. He has since hopped around and worked on various projects and continues to work diligently on his solo music. Read about his improbable journey as a musician and constantly living in the moment instead of dwelling on the past!
bazzreviews: Which artists or albums inspired you to start a music career in the first place?
Alex Zhang Hungtai: Influences can be anything, mine were very different back then. When you’re young, you’re always thinking about how you can escape your current predicament. Whether it’s being from a small town, stuck in minimum wage jobs like I was, whatever the case may be. There are bands I admire, but if anything, it was more of one person that changed my whole thinking about life in my early twenties. His name was Vincent Gallo. He was really crazy. He did everything from act, make music, direct films, he even tried his hand at modeling and racing motorcycles. I thought that was really inspiring, not only because he was willing to take multiple career paths, but he was also self-made and didn’t come from a rich family.
br: Before you “blew up” in the indie scene, you were working more menial jobs and balancing a music career. What were your reactions to having such success with projects like Badlands and Drifters almost overnight?
AZH: I never really had a “career” with Dirty Beaches before I blew up, it was like any other band that an average joe could play in. You play with your friends, you record in your bedroom on a laptop, then you might go on tour for a week or two and play for audiences from sizes of five to fifty people. You don’t go into it thinking you’re going to have a career out of it. As sad as it seems, you either end up maxing out your credit card, sleep in your car or rely on the kindness of strangers that give you a place to stay. This went on for about five years of my life from 2005 to 2010. For me, I was still washing dishes, working in different restaurants and balancing that with that one thing that makes you happy. When I-- as you said-- “blew up”, I was already thirty. I was ready for it because I had an extensive background in DIY touring. It’s like famous bass player Mike Watt put it, “econo-style”. When you’re used to touring on a shoestring, you do save a lot of money. However, it’s hard work for many. Instead of having to drive myself to each show and have, maybe, one friend or my girlfriend along to help run merch tables, I finally had luxuries that I’d never had before. All those small things you take for granted, like an audio engineer or tour manager, you finally have a budget to keep a bigger staff when you tour.
br: You’ve lived in so many different cities over the years, including Queens, San Francisco, Berlin, Vancouver, and even your old home city of Taipei. Which cities have meant the most to you?
AZH: When it’s read on paper, they make it seem like I’m some adventurous guy because I’ve lived in so many places, but I’m not. Each city forms an integral part of your character when you grow up, but when you get older, they fade to memories. Sure, Taipei and Honolulu were quite formative, but it just goes back to what I said earlier about escaping predicaments to make a better life for yourself. Every city I’ve lived in was purely circumstantial. When I was a kid, my parents said they couldn’t take care of me, so that’s why I moved to Queens and lived with my uncle. You get so used to having to move between city and city because you have a mindset where “Oh, it’s not working out here, so let’s start over and move somewhere else to be successful.” I’ve moved so many times that it doesn’t even phase me.
br: I know you left the Dirty Beaches moniker behind back in 2014, what specifically made you want to shift genres and aliases?
AZH: The end of Dirty Beaches came when I didn’t want to be stuck in the same realm musically. I wanted to make new music instead of playing a song live that I already played thousands of times before. If you keep a project name alive, people will keep you accountable and keep asking to play one song or another. I don’t ever want to be an asshole and say, “F--k you, I’m not playing that”. I had zero interest in staying that way musically, so I had no choice but to just drop the name. It wasn’t smart financially, but it was probably the greatest creative decision I ever made. I think of Dirty Beaches as a company. I started out as an intern, and I climbed the ranks and became a comfy office job. After a while, I learned a lot from Dirty Beaches and I no longer want to work for someone else. I want to start my own business.
br: What is the significance behind both of your stage names, Dirty Beaches and Last Lizard?
AZH: Dirty Beaches was named after lyrics by a French band in Montreal. I don’t know if they’re still around, but they’re a duo, one guy was Greek and the other Polish. They had this beautiful song about visiting their homeland and he’s walking on this “dirty beach”. All his life, his father told him, “you’re Greek, you’re Greek”. However, when he’s finally there, he realizes that beach is not like the home he imagined.. It’s brilliant, and I’ve always loved that story so much. For Last Lizard, it came from a story by Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. I’m paraphrasing here, but it basically talks about how a lizard wakes up alone, realizes that his family, friends and enemies are gone. As he looks over to the sunset, he thinks to himself, it’s much better to be surrounded by people who hate you rather than live by yourself. That thought doesn’t matter if you’re the last lizard.
br: Can you describe your process for making songs?
AZH: These days, it’s pretty different. If you look at Dirty Beaches, it’s based on escapism and elements of fiction mixed with non-fiction. It has to do with my socioeconomic status at the time, which was working minimum wage jobs. You think every day about how to get out of that, so it helps to think of characters and stories to help with that. The music comes later. Now, I’m almost forty and I still don’t make much money. What’s different from ten or fifteen years ago, I now live a comfortable life where I’m able to strictly focus on music without having to pick up a part-time job to supplement that. I’m living in the moment, figuring out how I can consolidate my entire existence and break narratives I have written for myself.
br: Do you have any memorable recording stories from over the years?
AZH: Where I am now and looking back at it all, pretty much every session that I did was just really f-----g unpleasant. When I was doing Dirty Beaches, I was always doing DIY, recording with friends, or in friends’ studios for free or discounted prices. It was always a rush-job because I never had a set budget. Every decision I had to make in the past was all based on finances. You can tell if you re-listen to it now, it sounds like s--t. It’s incredibly lo-fi, and there were no actual producers on any of the tracks.. I know that it sounds grim, but if I could approach music differently knowing what I know now, I would in a heartbeat.
br: What songs are you most proud of across your entire career?
AZH: I don’t really dwell on songs or specific moments, I’m always looking at what’s ahead. The way I see it, there’s just so much that happens in your life that you can’t really give a clear and concise answer for this type of question. Let’s say you’re in elementary school and you win a speech contest. Fast-forward to middle school where you get a medal for track and field, then to high school where you won “Class Clown”. Maybe you went off to college and got some scholarships, or you get “Employee of the Month” at your first job or something. If I were to ask you, “What’s your favorite out of all these things?”, you’d probably be like, “I don’t give a f--k, man, I’m just doing what I can”. If you can pick one, two or three accomplishments out of your life, it just seems like your life is over, man. You still have so much more to experience, so are you that a unhappy with life that you’re living back in your glory days? I just don't get that.
br: I know you released in album last year, but do you have any upcoming projects in the works?
AZH: There’s a lot for me, actually. There’s this drummer that I’ve been working with over the last few years named Gabriel Ferrandini from Portugal, and we have some live recordings that we want to compile. I’m also working on two movie soundtracks at the moment, too. I also started my own business with a dear old friend, Pierre Guerineau from Montreal. I also am hoping to release a solo project of my own with what I’ve learned on sax improvisation over the last few years. I want it to be a documentation of my progress rather than an “album” of sorts.
br: What music goals do you have for the future?
AZH: This is a message to my future self right here: I no longer want to be afraid when I’m playing.
LIGHTNING ROUND:
What was the first album you ever bought? Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation
Who was the first artist you saw live? Red Hot Chili Peppers
If you could put a band together with any four musicians, who would be in it? Alvin Jones (drums), Klause Schulze (bass), Jimi Hendrix (guitar), Ted Curson (trumpet)
I'd like to thank Alex for giving me his time to do an interview. I took in a lot of perspectives that I didn't think about before, and he offers a very profound take on many of the interview questions I ask artists. Thanks so much to you guys for reading this, and more awesome bazzreviews content is coming soon!
To hear Alex's music, go to https://alexzhanghungtai.bandcamp.com
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