Responsibility and rock: Together at last

It’s unbelievable that Johnny HiFi is unsigned. The band has already had extensive tours in Asia and America, released a double album, and produced two music videos. Usually a band needs a label to provide the cash for those projects. Not HiFi. A scrupulously efficient band, they’ve done everything themselves, from the band’s professional Web site (www.johnnyhifi.com) to their immacuately crafted Brit-pop songs.

But isn’t their ultra efficiency too corporate?

Not so, says band frontman Johnny HiFi: “Times [have] changed … . What used to work in the past — sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll — doesn’t work anymore.” What a band needs, instead, is “a little bit of ambition and a lot of entrepreneurship spirit to move forward.”

That, and passion. Bands are corporate if they only want to write hits and get rich, Johnny HiFi said. “But [we] write and play because we love it. Just because we run the operation a little differently doesn’t mean we’re ... ready to sell our souls to the devil. [We want to] to become self sufficient, so we have a choice when someone wants to throw a record deal at us.”

The band laments that it’s business responsibilities mean less time for creative endeavors. But rather than taking away from their inspiration, those commitments fuel the band’s desire. “It’s a great cycle. We get motivated from the result[s] we get, and the harder we work, the better the result,” Johnny HiFi said.

Their efforts, if fruitful, won’t pay dividends for just them, either, as the band hopes to create interest for other Asian-American bands in the US. Johnny has been “turned away from clubs just because they saw an Asian face on the press photo.”

It may be frustrating, but they stay confident that “it’s only a matter of time before an Asian front person take[s] center stage and show[s] the entire industry that ‘we’ can rock too.” In time, people won’t see Asian-Americans as “nerdy, classical-piano playing geeks” but recognize that “when it comes to rock music, [everybody is] the same.”

Indeed, the band is known to fans as the “American Coldplay,” with ballads like This is the Song recalling the British superstars’ creative best. Their latest Asian tour, where the band will hit four countries (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and China) in eight days, brings their sound to a wider audience. Taiwan will be one of the highlights for them. Johnny’s parents live in Taipei and the band toured here last year. “At our [2005] tour, we sold everything we had. “[We’re] already getting emails from fans about our showtime, where the after party is, [etc.]. That’s a good sign isn’t it?”

— ROB NEAR