Taipei — Things have not always been easy for Taiwanese band F.I.R’s Real Huang, 41. He recently shared about his rough early days in showbiz when he was appointed as a judge of the ChillNoW Original Music Award.
The ChillNoW Original Music Award hopes to discover budding songwriters and the winner will win NT$200K (SGD9,680) in cash and 1 million yuan (SGD210k) in cryptocurrency. Huang, who also goes by Ah Qing highlighted the importance of having a supportive environment for up-and-coming musicians as he knows how tough life can be when one is just starting out in the music industry, as reported by 8days.sg.
“I used to sing at music cafés and at Ximending and was paid NT$150 (SGD7.30) for every show,” said Huang. “I did it because I needed money to buy a guitar. Without a guitar, it wouldn’t be possible for me to write songs.”
The musician was so passionate about making music that he invested all his time and money in it and had to drop out of university. Unfortunately, record companies would not give him the time of the day when he knocked on their doors with his demos in hand. Huang finally tasted success in 2003 after Angela Chang recorded his song The Lost Happiness. At that time Huang had already written close to 100 songs.
Encouraged by that, Huang signed up for a songwriting competition, where he was scouted by F.I.R founder Ian Chen. Vocalist Faye, Ian and Real then formed F.I.R together, and the band shot to fame in 2004 when their song ‘Lydia’ became a massive hit.
“It was only much later when people got to know about my music,” said Huang. “It was really difficult for me to find my way to the right path (…) It’s because of what I went through that makes me treasure aspiring musicians. You never know when you’ll find a diamond in the rough.”/TISG