Within a week Wall was in a recording studio and two weeks after that his debut album, It Takes a Long Time to Remember My Name
The relationship with the record company was not quite what Wall had initially envisioned. The contract he had signed meant that he would earn less than NT$3 per album sold and he found the manner in which the label had marketed their newfound foreign sax player offensive.
"The contract was total garbage. The label marketed me as if I was some kind of wandering saxophone bimbo they found busking in the subway and then they told me that the album had sold only 29,000 copies and that they'd lost money on it," said Wall. "I'd had enough of the music business by then and decided to return to school in the US."
Wall's stay in the US proved brief. Within a couple of weeks his label had tracked him down and was begging for him to return and release another album. This time, however, Wall decided to go it alone.
The resulting album sold more copies than his debut, which, according to Wall sold in excess of 200,000 copies, and the label realized that it was on to a good thing.
While Wall wasn't being paid his dues by the record company he was a household name in Taiwan. He played the national anthem at baseball games, he released more albums of easy listening vibes, all of which sold exceptionally well, he played to packed houses at venues throughout Taiwan and was a regular on TV chat and variety shows. It was only when he made his TV commercial debut, however, that Wall was to realize just how famous he had become.
"I think it finally dawned on me that I had become a star when I found myself working alongside a beautiful model and sitting on a horse wearing a US$2,000 suit in a
commercial for San Yang," he said. "I felt like, 'ha, I must be pretty famous'."
Already a household name as a sax player in Taiwan by the mid-1990s, in 1996 Wall made his debut on the world stage for very different reasons. Teaming up with his Elite Records boss once again, Wall was asked to produce a series of classical albums featuring well-known orchestras. His work with the London Symphony Orchestra on an album of Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes was nominated for a Grammy that year in the `Best Instrumental' category.
The album didn't win, but Wall took the opportunity to work on the other side of the microphone. Instead of performing he got involved in the business side of the industry and for the next two years traveled the world living the highlife. An incident on one of those trips changed Wall's outlook on the music business forever and made him pine for the days when he could simply enjoy playing the saxophone.
Wall walked away from the industry after 13 years and 10 albums and is now more than happy to pour beer at his bar and perform occasionally.
"The [music] business is a lonely place and does fuck people up, but I think partly because of the [naive] way in which I entered it I survived pretty much in one piece," he said.
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