A labor of love:
Hong Kong pop singer Eason Chan shares the B-side story of his latest album L.O.V.E. during his recent visit to Beijing,
Hong Kong pop singer Eason Chan shares the B-side story of his latest album L.O.V.E. during his recent visit to Beijing.
Hong Kong pop singer Eason Chan put up 66 shows for his Duo World Tour which spanned from March 2010 to December 2012. During the tour, he came up with the idea of having each of his 13 band members, including drummer Jun Kung, guitarist Firman So and vocalist Cheung Kit-bong, write their own songs.
The result of this idea is Chan’s latest album, entitled L.O.V.E. Comprising a diversity of music styles, including love ballads, blues, reggae and jazz, the energy of the songs in L.O.V.E. is different from those in Chan’s other albums.
But the band members did not merely write the songs — they also performed their creations together.
Chan is now scheduled to put up a live concert with the band in Hong Kong where they would perform songs from the new album. The date has yet to be announced. “We spent so much time together during the tour. There is so much love amongst all of us. We became a family,” says Chan during an interview in Beijing. “Some of them have never written songs before so it was quite a challenge for them. Each of the songs has a unique character and the whole album celebrates the wonderful times we have spent together.”
Chan and the band members first recorded the songs when they were in London in 2012 for a performance at the O2 Arena. They had initially wanted to do the recordings at Abbey Road Studios, which is famous for its association with The Beatles. As the space was unavailable, they decided to put together their songs at Metropolis Studios instead.
The album was planned for release in 2013, but Chan postponed the launch as he was bogged down by his tours and other recording commitments.
“After the Duo World Tour, I felt slightly depressed and couldn’t get used to life off the tour. I found myself doing nothing at home but watching videos of my previous concerts. I was not in the right mood for another new album then. I decided to leave the album aside for a while,” explains Chan.
On April 22, 2018, exactly six years since that fateful recording session in London, the musicians recorded the final song The Album in Hong Kong. Chan had personally designed the cover for the album, which features 13 stars encircling the word “love”.
Born in Hong Kong, Chan, 44, graduated from Kingston University with a degree in architecture and later trained as a singer at the Royal Academy of Music in the United Kingdom.
He started his music career as a singer in 1995 by winning Hong Kong’s New Talent Singing Awards Competition, and has since released 89 records, sales of which have totaled in excess of 20 million copies. Chan has performed more than 300 solo concerts in over 80 cities worldwide, and has received 170 Best Male Singer awards as well as three prestigious Golden Melody Awards. The singer also has his own music label EAS Music — it was launched this August — that aims to groom young musical talents.