Photo: Yang Yi

By Hao Ying

China's rock and roll answer to James Dean, Bian Yuan, says he is not an alcoholic.

"I don't drink the whole day," he says. "Sometimes I drink tea."

In an interview ahead of his first solo acoustic performance since the breakup of his band Joyside, Bian frequently stares out into space with a look of disaffected melancholy.

He is about to quit the only regular job he has ever had, as a bartender at his former band mate's new venue, School Bar.

"If you work in a bar, drinking becomes boring," he says, perhaps due to his obvi-ous shyness retreating to the conversational safety of the worn-worn cliché of his heavy drinking. "That's one reason I quit this job."

Bian sang for Joyside from 2001 until last year, sleeping on friends' couches when necessary, occasionally teaching Chinese, but never drawing a steady paycheck. The band nurtured a reputation for boozing, reflected in the name of their CDs Drunk is Beautiful and Booze at Neptune's Dawn, and a film documenting their first tour of China, Wasted Orient.

Last year, the band was riding high, making enough money to "almost make a living." They toured internationally, and Bian was named Beijing's coolest rock star by Time Out.

Then Joyside split up.

"I just feel very empty without the band," he explains, saying he's sad, but reckons it was for the best because of his band mates' diverging musical directions.

Reality blows

Before the breakup, he never had to worry about reality, but now, "so much reality comes out and blows up my mind."

He needs money, and working at School Bar, on the up and coming Wudaoying Hutong, was a fun way to get it - at first. But School Bar often features DJs playing electronic music, and Bian Yuan prefers to listen to much more diverse music, like Leonard Cohen, tango, and Chopin.

"BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. I can't stand it. Recently, it's OK because we're showing the World Cup."

Normally he drinks almost every day, but since working at School, it's been every day, to make the job bearable.

"I think I don't want to serve the people any more," he says. "If I have to, I want to sing for them to serve them."

When asked, he says that rock and roll singers "of course" meet more women than bartenders. But the 33-year-old notes he's had a girlfriend for a year.

Bian has a reputation for wearing cool clothes, and for his gig is exquisitely clad in a cuff-linked custom-tailored shimmering white patterned shirt and beige drainpipe pants.

At one point he bought a sewing machine to make his own clothes. But he gave up, saying, "I'm too lazy, so I gave the machine to a girl."

He won't give up the secret of who his tailor is, saying the last time he went she told him she is tired of making clothes, and just wants to do dry cleaning.

Introverted

He has a new band, Lone. They've only played two gigs, but he believes it could make a living for him. He is also looking for a keyboard player to do smaller gigs with. He says a radio station has asked him to do a radio program, although it's a little difficult to imagine the introverted singer coming up with enough words to fill the airtime between songs.

"I just feel I can speak less and less in my future life," he says, joking that he may eventually lose the ability to speak entirely.

An introvert by nature, he says he always becomes nervous before shows. So he drinks.

The heroes he has mentioned in the past - Jim Morrison, Johnny Thunders, Marc Bolan and Pete Doherty - have all been notorious substance abusers. Calling his mobile phone, you hear the music of Iggy Pop and the Pogues, whose lead singer was tossed out due to alcohol abuse, although they later reunited for some live dates.

Bian sidesteps a question about whether he has a romantic view of drinking, and says he chose the Pogues as a ring tone because he shares a birthday with McGowen, 20 years after to the day.

"When I listen to the Pogues, I always want to drink, because they are so happy and cheerful," he says.

During his half-hour set at 121 Bar, unfortunately starting at the same time as the US-Slovenia World Cup game, he performed his own songs and covers. The surprise was that Bian, more famous for getting in fights after shows than his vocal talent, has a good voice, when he drops his affected habit of letting voice rise and drop in pitch at the end of phrase, a habit perhaps picked up from the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

In fact, his covers of Cohen's "Suzanne" (sung in Chinese) and "So Long, Marianne" were among highlights of the set, perfectly suiting his deep, mournful voice. Some of his own love songs are also very effective acoustic numbers. During the first song, he sings over simple chords:

"You made everything all right

You took away my tears.

You gave me new ideas

But now you're gone,

Don't go away."

Although it was written three years ago, tonight it sounds like Bian could be singing about an old girlfriend, or an old band.

haoying@globaltimes.com.cn