Interview #130 — Quang Dinh
by Yeo
Moonlover is the recording project of DIY multi-instrumentalist Quang Dinh, former bassist of Little Red. After independently releasing his third solo EP in 2016, Quang conceived, performed and recorded the entirety of his debut album Thou Shall Be Free in his bedroom studio, Pink Slime.
He has since signed to Our Golden Friend (Island Records) and released the album in March 2018.
Quang speaks to Yeo about his relationship with his father, the history of Asian men in western media and creating music alone ultimately to share it with other people.
You’ve seen a lot of what happens behind the scenes in the music industry. At the most commercial level, what challenges have you faced?
The main challenge is to stay true to yourself artistically. One can often be tempted to anticipate what might work with audiences, what might be cool, what might work on radio and what might become that popular algorithm that people seem to lust after. It’s best not to think about that stuff as you make the art.
Asian-Australian creative professionals with any level of success are often seen as role models by aspiring Asian-Australian artists. Though there are plenty of Asian people working as session musicians and in administrative roles in the Australian music scene, an Asian person leading a successful band or solo act continues to be a rarity. What do you think contributes to the lack of representation?
Several things. I think Asian parents often have a tight hold on their children, which often discourages their children from artistic pursuits. Understandably, they want their children to have security—this is especially so for immigrant parents who often put everything into their children’s education, and they expect results and some kind of return. I guess having a job as a musician is often considered a fresh and somewhat disturbing idea for Asian parents, so young Asian kids with a creative hankering probably don’t feel well supported, and therefore not as confident to lead the charge. However, the risk is huge for anybody entering an artistic career—you are putting yourself on the line if you are leading a band . There isn’t much money flying around, you have to struggle for a long time, you have to accept that the future is murky, you have to believe in yourself, you have to keep trying to get better over a long period of time and perhaps eventually you might get a break. Or, you may never get a break. That’s the gamble. You really have to love it.
I also think that Asian males aren’t commonly (or currently) regarded as lucrative and marketable. We’re just not a thing in the entertainment industry; in the western world. I can understand there are economic reasons for that—as in, the majority of the market is white—but there are other reasons too. In western media, the Asian male has been desexualised, typecast, devalued and made two-dimensional. There has been a long history of this. I hope my voice can change that.
The road in the music industry is tough. But I feel at the end of the day it’s about connecting with people. Some people with certain identity markers may have more support around them. But I feel that if you make strong art, pathways will inevitably open.
I also think that Asian males aren’t commonly (or currently) regarded as lucrative and marketable. We’re just not a thing in the entertainment industry; in the western world.
Can you discuss a time when you've noticed being treated differently from your white peers by other white people in the industry?
Interesting question. I don’t really have the ‘spider sense’ for this, but if I had different identity markers, then perhaps I would be perceived differently and different doors would have opened and perhaps more of them. Maybe less. It’s hard to say.
That said, I can tell a story relating to race coming to the forefront. A band I was previously in, played at Meredith Music Festival in 2007. On the drive back, we were celebrating and sinking the drinks that we had left over from the rider. Shortly after we ran out, we stopped at a country pub to get some more drinks for the road. At one end of the room there was a goatee’d white Aussie guy wearing a wife beater, singing Beatles covers in an Australian accent and entertaining the folk in the pub.
We were pissed so we danced and sang along. Pretty soon the women were all up off their seats dancing in the pub as well and they were having a great time with us. Not so for the men, who were left befuddled on their barstools watching us dance with their wives and sisters. Eventually, some of the men made their way to the dance floor and started to dance kind of roughly, jostling and lightly pushing us around trying to intimidate us. We were pissed so we didn’t care. We sung louder and danced harder, laughing and frolicking with the women.
Then, the men started elbowing and shoving us around forcefully, and one of the guys agitated, ran up to me, like he was in a footy game and I had the ball and hip-and-shouldered me to the floor. I slid across the floorboards on my back and knocked over the musician’s monitors. He stopped singing Hey Jude, looked at me furiously and screamed into the mic, “I didn’t come here to have no Asian knocking over my PA!” The Little Red guys and I were fuming—we started swearing at the singer, the whole pub and condemned the whole town to hell. We cussed and cussed, stuck our fingers up at them and didn't want to get in a scuffle with the whole pub so we left. Hectic.
Why did you choose to sign to the cutest record label of all time, Our Golden Friend?
I signed to Our Golden Friend because they believed in me from the get-go. Lorrae McKenna, the label head, really got into the album, with its kooks and kinks and all. That was a good sign. You want to work with people who genuinely love the work and want to help you along. The label feels generous in allowing me a lot more of the creative reins than what I’m used to with labels and that suits me.
It sounds like you share a great mutual trust, which is valuable in areas where the line blurs between creativity and business. How do you define “creative control”?
Creative control is being able to make the music you want to make, working with people you want to work with, being in control of your image and having the flexibility to release things the way you want to. I think it’s vitally important to have creative control, so your ideas can flutter about and go where they want to go without having to second-guess yourself too much. That being said considerate feedback and different perspectives can be really helpful too.
Thou Shall Be Free is the sprawling culmination of 9 months of do-it-yourself recording at Pink Slime, your home studio. What was planned, and what came naturally?
As soon as I figured out that the name of my project was called Moonlover, I had a form to work with and some kind of conceptual target.
It’s really hard to explain the process. I wrote about thirty songs and whittled them down to the 10 that I thought could tell a story, fit with the theme, and could be experienced as a trip. So much was unplanned. You can kind of tell through the diversity of the songs. One of the songs came from a dream I had where David Bowie was singing to me. A couple of songs came from jams with friends and some were just happy wandering accidents. It’s like a collage piece of a thousand Quangs. Bits and pieces of me arranged, rearranged, distorted, manipulated, discarded and shifted. I just kept chipping away at it until I felt the vibe was right. A lot of the time I was just letting the music tell me what to do. I can’t say much was planned except that I knew I was setting out on a long path to making an album.
It’s like a collage piece of a thousand Quangs.
Having played all the instruments yourself in the studio, how do you go about realising your artistic vision on the live stage?
I think this will change as time goes on for future output. But for Thou Shall Be Free, I sent word out to some talented musicians I knew around town and I was fortunate enough to receive mostly positive responses. I was very lucky to be playing with the people in my band. We couldn’t replicate the recordings exactly when playing live because there are just so many tracks on the recordings, but the band helped the spirit of the songs comes through strongly. There’s always a sense of excitement with band gigs because I try to mix things up in terms of set-lists and the ways we might play songs. And I always try to put something on the line.
I also play a hell of a lot of solo shows and I really do enjoy the vulnerability, the fear and the challenge. I enjoy “troubadour-ing” at solo shows, often not knowing a soul, meeting people and making things happen. At these shows, the vocals and the lyrics are at the forefront and I can kind of go about things more delicately, sing in different ways and experiment playing different instruments and trying underdeveloped songs. It’s always an adventure playing solo.
I can’t wait to release new stuff and play with a full band again. I’m very excited that that’s gonna start up again soon.
On The Day That I Was Born cruises steadily through themes of life, death, resurrection and the subsequent freedom from self-inflicted troubles. Can you tell of a specific experience that inspired this song?
I believe I was sitting on a couch in a house that I lived in with my ex. I was alone and had some kind of pent-up feeling that things were slowly falling apart, but my memory is foggy. I actually don’t know how this song was written—it just came.
Mekong Delta Blues weaves a beautiful narrative and opens with your father’s poetry. You’ve also previously spoken about The Wait which was a non-album song about his courageous exodus from Vietnam. What’s your relationship like with your father and how has it influenced your work?
It’s actually not my father’s poetry. It’s an excerpt from a conversation that I had with him. I began secretly recording our conversations because his stories of Vietnam are so precious to me and I don’t want to forget them. I was born here, but learning directly about my father’s life in 1940s to 1970s Vietnam is such an important part of understanding who I am and who he is.
My father was much more distant when I was growing up, but in his old age and my maturity, we’ve found lots of common ground. I find great pleasure in seeing the old man’s eyes sparkle and the tone in his voice sharpen when he opens up about his past. I am involved in an eternal investigation of my background. There is no end to it and there is no direction home. There’s just me, trying to understand.
He has done some of the bravest things that I know of any man, gambling with his life on several occasions as a boat person, facing tremendous fear and starting life again in Australia with nothing. I have never had to face fear like he has and probably never will. Without him, I wouldn’t be here in such a country doing such a wonderfully luxurious thing as making music. I think my parents’ refugee background has given me a humble grounding. It’s helped me deeply appreciate my position as an artist.
There’s always a sense of excitement with band gigs because I try to mix things up in terms of set-lists and the ways we might play songs. And I always try to put something on the line.
In the context of your enduring career, what motivates you to continue?
The long, endless exploration. I have no idea what might reveal itself in the art and that’s exciting. Music has always helped me process things and grow so I’m married to it and there will be no divorce.
I know I’m getting better at what I do in ways and as long as there’s growth, there are new ways to express things and new things to express. Making things is the coolest thing to do.
Do you have any advice for emerging musicians?
Don’t expect things. Just work hard. Try and see through ideas to the finish, immediately when they spring to mind.
Speak from your heart, not from your intellect. Take risks. Be open to experience. Experiment. Always try to keep improving. Believe in yourself, as often you will be the only one that does. Think about the business side, but don't let it disturb the muse. Don’t expect things—just work hard. Be kind. Make up your own advice.
Who inspires you?
My father, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Carl Jung, weird people, people I love and yearn for, strangers, poets of yore and anybody with a sparkle in their eyes.
Don’t expect things. Just work hard. Try and see through ideas to the finish, immediately when they spring to mind.
How do you practice self-care?
I guess self-care for me is knowing when to stop the madness. It’s very easy as a musician to position yourself in excess and Dionysian hedonism. Self-care for me is just working hard on the music, shifting, by sometimes being alone for long periods of time and then being in touch with the people I love, having conversations and sharing some laughs. Those are the things that make me happy. I like gardening too.
What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?
I think about Vietnam a lot. Even saying this I feel a certain watery pang. I love the place, the people and the culture. I feel like I get the pang because I know it’s my place, my people and my culture, but being born in Australia and not having a great grasp of the Vietnamese language leaves me separated from it—in purgatory and slightly melancholy, like a question unanswered. I’m too far gone Australian to ever truly be Vietnamese again. But I am born out of this country and I guess that makes me Australian. But what does being Australian even mean? It’s such a wound up complex ball of contradictions and tangles and rough colonial history and bad patriotism and false perceptions and shoddy foundations and uneasy feelings. I don’t own it. I don’t disown it. But I don’t feel out of place here. I don’t often see myself through an Asian-Australian lens; I don’t see myself through an Asian lens or an Australian lens either. I’m just someone making music and that’s the most important thing. My community is the community of artists and the community of artists is always made up of all sorts of people.
I think about Vietnam a lot. Even saying this I feel a certain watery pang.
Find out more
Interview by Yeo
Photographs by Leah Jing McIntosh