Zhan Pan
Male, early post-1980 generation,
Genuine northerner,
Hair length changes all the time,
Lots of ideas and lots of action.
Tell us about yourself.
I was born in 1982. My father is a soldier and we came to Beijing. I first set my sights on being a football player. I got in touch with rock music when I was in middle school. I also liked design so I applied for art colleges. Then I started to build a band. After graduation I started working in art and kept my hobbies. I’m an idealist.
What’s your schedule now?
The alarm clock wakes me up, I take the subway, work, play guitar, draw, surf the Internet, eat something with my friends, go home, play guitar, read magazines, draw, watch movies, sleep. I have band practice twice a week. I have crazy thoughts all the time.
When did you start loving music and decide to start a band? What has been the most interesting or hardest experience?
I’ve liked music since I was a child but my music teacher broke my confidence. I got in touch with rock music and taught myself guitar in middle school. I had my first band ‘Ne Zha’ close to when I graduated and later started ‘Gar’. The most interesting and also the hardest thing is the clashing of the band members and the collision of our minds, the sparks, the novelty, the excitement, the unknown and the surprises. Then insisting to go beyond myself. Then more surprises and the unknowns come back again.
Zhan Pan in performance
Do you have any suggestions for kids who want to play music?
Just have fun.
What’s your favorite musical style? Is there any musician who inspired you? Why?
I like and I listen to many musical styles. But my favorite is still the music I heard when I was young. I remember the first cracked CDs I got, it seems like I was chosen to hear that music and I was deeply influenced by it.
Your job is an magazine designer, at the same time you draw illustrations and play in a band. How do you describe yourself?
I think I just try to be close to “freedom”, I try to find a balance in my life according to my ability and status.
Zhan Pan’s design for self entertainment – - – Zhan Pan’s graphic design for his band tee
Do you think you express the same things in your illustrations as you do in your music? Do they mean something different for you?
There must be something similar. They both express my mind just in different mediums. I think for me music expresses it more directly because it includes melodies and singing, an expression of lyrics. It also has the interaction from band members, while painting is something more individual.
Previous work by Zhan Pan. He can draw everything no matter how small the space is.
For you, what is creativity?
Discovering essential connections between things and expressing them or showing them in some way.
What inspires you? Any special people or things?
Just life and experience, I think. Some person or thing will impact my life, sometimes maybe only a little thing, so I continuously observe and experience the environment around me. Then I ask, “why?”
How do you feel about the city you live in and the kids here? Anything you especially like or hate?
Because I live in this city, maybe what I see is more of a blur. I feel like there is always some kind of information or ideas that get thrown around and most people will follow them. But I don’t know where it comes from. Beijing is a place that received outside information early. It is a cradle; an inclusive city, it has enough culture and history to nurture everything. But it is also a severe mother, it will punish you if you are out of line or too naughty. I like its mix of old and new, its chaos, I like that it’s full of the unknown and the noisy. The people are what annoy me. But having no people is no good either, what a contradiction!
What is the most impulsive/crazy/abnormal thing you’ve ever done?
I stayed overnight in an old beacon tower in Simatai, the old great wall, with two friends. We heard a lot of strange sounds. We don’t know what they were.
What’s your plan for the future?
I want to experiment with different kinds of rock music, keep practicing basic painting skills, designing, and go skating in Beihai before next spring.
Is there anything you want to do but haven’t started yet?
Build the blocks high and beautiful. Then knock them down before people come to see.
If there is an afterlife, what do you hope to be?
No idea, I want to be a better ME first.
