Getting Down & Dirty 跟着音乐竖起你的脏手指

March 19, 2019 2019年3月19日

 

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To mark the launch of Skullcandy‘s wireless Push™ earphones, we teamed up with the brand to present a series of stories celebrating those in the creative community who push themselves to the limit and break boundaries.

In the first episode, we caught up with skateboarder Wang Di, while in the second we heard from tattoo artist Yao Meihui. In this third installment, we talk to Shanghai-based rock band Oh! Dirty Fingers about music, creativity, life, and persevering on this path.


为庆祝蓝牙无线耳机 Push™ 的重磅推出,Skullcandy 与 Neocha 正式携手合作,为你带来几位艺术家、运动员和音乐人,打破极限,自我出声的故事。

在本系列专题的第一期和第二期故事中,我们分别与职业滑手王玓、纹身艺术家姚美惠聊一聊他们对于突破界限的理解。而最后一位专题人物,我们找到了上海朋克摇滚乐队脏手指,和他们聊聊音乐、创作和生活,以及坚持走在这条路上的经历。

From left to right: Zhang Haiming, Alexandre Leal de Almeida, Bing Xiaohai, Guan Xiaotian / 左到右: 张海明、赵子龙、邴晓海、管啸天

On the very first listen of Oh! Dirty Fingers, you can tell that they’re not your average rock band. From the lead singer’s muddy voice to the breakneck drumbeat and distorted chords, they’ve thrown out the rules of songwriting with their brash, rowdy style. They have little regard for mainstream tastes, and their music constantly pushes the limits of the rock genre. That’s what makes them a presence you can’t ignore in today’s indie scene.

Founded in 2013 by frontman Guan Xiaotian, Oh! Dirty Fingers started out as a college band. After cycling through a roster of members, the group now features Guan on vocals, Bing Xiaohai on guitar, Zhang Haiming on bass, and Alexandre Leal de Almeida on drums.

“I never thought about whether it’d be hard,” says Guan. Music wasn’t a conscious choice after college—he just followed his heart and found himself on this path. “I’ve always liked music. I never gave much thought to life after graduation—all I knew was, I didn’t want to do anything else, and I’d never be satisfied unless I did something involving music. When I like something, I can’t give it up.”


脏手指的音乐,乍听之下是不合常理的。主唱含糊不清的呐喊,飞快地几乎像在赶拍的鼓点,失真的和弦……他们颠覆了许多普遍的编曲规则,曲风张扬而狂放不羁。不顾主流音乐品味,他们不断将摇滚乐的极限推向边际,也正是这一点,让脏手指立足于今天的独立乐界,成为一个无法忽视的存在。

脏手指乐队最初在 2013 年由主唱管啸天成立,当时还是一支学生乐队。之后经历几次团员的更迭,现在则加入了吉他手邴晓海、贝斯手张海明以及鼓手赵子龙。

“从没想过困不困难。”管啸天说,音乐对于当时大学刚刚毕业的他来说,并不是一个刻意的选择。他跟随着自己的心声,自然而然就踏上这条路。“我一直都很喜欢音乐,毕业后虽然对未来没有太多想法,但知道自己就是不想做别的事情。想到音乐,总觉得这事还是得做,不然会不甘心吧。我一旦喜欢一件事,就很难放下了。”

Listen to some of our favorite tracks from Oh! Dirty Fingers below / 点击即可试听脏手指的几首歌曲

In 2017, the band signed a deal with Maybe Mars to release How’d I Turn So Bad? On this raucously crude album, they don’t just talk about crushes and flings, they shout all their dirty secrets at the top of their lungs for everyone to hear. On the track, “I Like Your Girlfriend Too,” Guan sings,

I like your girlfriend too,
I want to see her when she sleeps.
I’ll talk to her when you’ve got nothing to say.
Bring flowers when you’ve given up on romance.

Or the song “Undercover Cop”:

From a righteous vantage, looking down at all this scum
Wipe them out, wipe them all out
Wipe out this whole generation
Wipe out the dancers with their smutty moves
Wipe out the books that lead them astray

“I imagined what it’d be like if I were an undercover officer at a club,” Guan recalls of his initial inspiration. “If I had to spend all night watching that depraved grinding, I probably couldn’t take it.” Often the explicit, raw lyrics are inspired by their own lives. The band has no deeper message, and they don’t pretend to offer the truth and insight that society expects of lyricists. They’ve always stuck to a simple artistic principle: make music about the world they know. In a music scene full of romantic ballads, only a group this unflinchingly frank can satisfy an audience’s thirst for the new and the real. Almeida notes, “We don’t stick to one style. But we always use the same formula: keep it simple.”


2017 年脏手指与独立音乐厂牌兵马司签约,发行专辑《我怎么学的那么坏》。这确实是一张“藏污纳垢”的专辑,生活本就不只有小情小爱值得一提,他们把平常躲在缝隙里的那些小奸小恶也抓出来,写成歌,呐喊给我们听。在一首俗称“用来破坏爱情”的《我也喜欢你的女朋友》里,他们是这样唱的:

你的女朋友我也很喜欢,她睡着的样子我也想看。我来陪她聊天当你无话可谈,我要送她鲜花当你忘记浪漫。

或是在另一首《便衣警察》里:

选择一个正义的角落,观察这里所有的人渣。枪毙枪毙通通都枪毙,枪毙这个时代如果可以。枪毙这些下流的舞步,枪毙教人学坏的教科书。

“我想像我是一个夜店的便衣警察,如果整天看着这些群魔乱舞的年轻人,应该会很无奈吧。”管啸天说。直白又辛辣的歌词,不过是生活中一个灵感的体现。背后并没有暗藏什么冠冕堂皇的大道理,用来讨好社会期待“作为音乐人”应该要有的真知灼见。他们始终遵循简单的创作原则:过什么样的生活,就做什么样的音乐。赵子龙说,“我们从不拘泥在一种风格之中,但我们总是用相同的模式去创作——保持简单。”在乐界一片歌颂浪漫的靡靡之音里,正是这样一支过分诚实的乐队,重击到时下听众渴望新事物的痛点。

Drummer: Alexandre Leal de Almeida / 鼓手: 赵子龙
Drummer: Alexandre Leal de Almeida / 鼓手: 赵子龙
Bassist: Zhang Haiming / 贝斯手: 张海明
Bassist: Zhang Haiming / 贝斯手: 张海明

A fan on their way to an Oh! Dirty Fingers show once received some good advice: don’t wear white shoes—they’ll get trampled and covered in dirt. But don’t worry if your shoes get smudged, because these live performances are the essence of Oh! Dirty Fingers: passion, chaos, and a need to push the envelope.

Their strings tend to break, their drumsticks split in two, their instruments take a beating at every show. On stage they always go all out—they never hold back. Guan describes the exhilaration of singing to a crowd. “You feel like you can touch the sky. There’s nothing in your way, there’s nothing you can’t do. You’re unstoppable, you can shatter boundaries. ” Their ground-thumping concerts make your eardrums feel like they’re going to burst, pushing listeners to their auditory limits.


不要穿白鞋去看脏手指的现场,会被踩脏的——记得有人这么告诫第一次去看脏手指表演的乐迷。但就算鞋子脏了,也不要紧,毕竟这就是脏手指的真谛——激情,混乱,无所顾忌。

琴弦常常弹断,鼓棒也常常裂开,脏手指演出时器材总是耗地特别厉害,因为台上的他们总是付出全力,毫不保留。演出到最尽兴的时候,他们是这样形容当下的感受:“那种感觉就好像摸到天一样。没有任何阻力,你感觉自己无所不能。那是一种没有束缚、突破了界限的感觉。”脏手指的每一场表演都震撼力十足,几乎要冲破你耳膜的音乐,仿佛在不断挑战你我的听觉极限。

Vocalist: Guan Xiaotian / 主唱: 管啸天
Vocalist: Guan Xiaotian / 主唱: 管啸天
Guitarist: Bing Xiaohai / 吉他手: 邴晓海
Guitarist: Bing Xiaohai / 吉他手: 邴晓海

Some people call them a punk band, some people call them punk’s bastard children. Guan laughs and says, “We’re just a rock band, it’s as simple as that. In music, I think it’s really important to stay free, stay fresh, and stay creative. And freedom doesn’t respect stylistic boundaries. You can’t limit your art.”

They take a pure and sincere approach to music, and this is their most important quality as artists. Oh! Dirty Fingers has never surrendered their own creativity to cater to the market or to other people’s tastes. Nor have they ever shied away from exposing the restless, reckless spirit of youth. They follow their own rhythm, and even though they’ve faced their share of doubt from the outside world, they stubbornly keep making their music. “It’s not that we don’t care at all what others think, we just care less than most people,” Guan notes. “If you worry too much about what everyone says, you won’t make it in this business.” It’s better to boldly express yourself than to keep quiet and go unnoticed.


有人说他们是一支朋克乐队,也有人把他们誉为“朋克私生子”。对此管啸天笑着说,“简单一点,就说我们是一支摇滚乐队吧。我认为保持音乐上的自由、新鲜感和创造力,是非常重要的。而这种自由,就是在类型上没有限制,不要局限住自己的创作。”

这样对待音乐的纯粹和真诚,正是身为创作人最重要的一种特质。脏手指从不为了迎合市场的需求或别人的喜好而轻易迁就自己的创作;也不避讳在音乐中将年轻人躁动不安的一面完全彰显出来。虽然与社会主旋律形成抵触,外界质疑的眼光不曾少过,但他们依然保持着自己的节奏,不可一世,只专注做自己喜欢的摇滚乐。管啸天说,“不是说完全不在意别人的看法,而是相较于其他人,在意得会少一些。况且如果你非常在意别人说什么,也就不会干这一行了。”与其为了融入群体,委屈地做一个噤声的人,不如就大胆地自我出声。

Music isn’t an easy path. In China, a lot of young artists find a day job to get by and just make music on the side. Oh! Dirty Fingers is a full-time band—music is their whole life. For all the members, this is probably the only way: their music and lives are inextricably bound together. “Songwriting is a calling for me,” says Bing, and Zhang feels the same, “Music is just an authentic response to life.”

Guan nods in agreement, “Finding another job and just doing music in my spare time would be a little strange, in my opinion. If you don’t give it your all, the things you write split off from your life. If you can’t convince yourself, how can you convince anyone else? Creating gives our lives meaning, so to speak. It means challenging restrictions. For us, pushing limits is about constantly creating, never stopping, and doing the unexpected.”


音乐这条路毕竟不轻松。在中国,许多年轻的乐手为了减轻生活的负担,会找一份正职工作,把音乐当作兴趣来经营。脏手指作为一支全职乐队,音乐等于他们全部的生活。而这也是其他团员看来唯一可行的方式,创作与生活始终是紧密连结,分不开的。“写歌就是我的事业。”邴晓海说。“音乐,是一种对生活的忠实反馈。”张海明这样说道。

管啸天也如此同意,“找一份其他工作,闲暇时再做做音乐,在我看来怎么说都有点奇怪。如果你不全心投入,写出来的东西和生活脱节,连自己都说服不了,该怎么说服别人?创作吧,可以说是我们一个重大的生命意义,本身就是一种对极限的挑战。Pushing Limits 对我们来说,就是不停地创造,不停地创作,和出人意料。”

Shop the Push™ wireless earphones at Skullcandy’s Tmall page or official website.


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Weibo: ~/脏手指武工队
Facebook: ~/thesefingersaresodirty

 

Contributor: Yang Yixuan
Videographer: Damien Louise, Paul Gardette, Yang Bingying 
Photographer: David Yen
English Translation: Allen Young


微博: ~/脏手指武工队
Facebook: ~/thesefingersaresodirty

 

供稿人: Yang Yixuan
摄像师: Damien Louise, Paul Gardette, Yang Bingying 
摄影师: David Yen
中翻英: Allen Young