Due to the popularity of karaoke and nightly TV dramas, the genre of epic pop songs will probably always find a guilty place in our hearts. But let’s be fair; F.I.R. is a quality band despite being in this easy-to-dismiss genre.

The Taiwanese band’s name is made up of the initials of its three members: lead singer Faye Chan, keyboardist Ian Chen, and guitarist Real Huang. And as the pop star formula goes, it only works if they’re decent at what they do. Chan’s voice isn’t giggly girls stuff – she really belts it. And she’s been known to cry on stage while delivering powerful ballads.
“Personally I’m quite emotional. I’ll cry when I’m touched and I believe many do so. I’m a straight-forward kind of person, so I’ll just let my emotions take over when I’m in that kind of situation,” explains Chan in an email interview.

“Music is rather subjective. Everybody has their own preferences… and different styles of music bring different feelings. I think for those who love our music, they can comprehend what we’re trying to convey.”

And just what is F.I.R.’s music about? Love mostly. Their music videos involve tragic love stories, deserts, slow motion, chairs being dramatically thrown at windows, and lots of fanfare of lead singer Faye. For their live shows, you expect to hear all the hits – including Lydia and Our Love – with signature crazy costumes and the smoke machine working overtime.
“For a band, what makes us love performing live is that we can interact with our fans and not just through sound and visuals. It really depends I guess, some people like listening to music at home but some like the excitement of a live performance. We’d like to believe we’re good in both instances,” says Chan.

And since Chan and guitarist Huang started dating and making the gossip pages with their quaint love story of band mates turned lovers, maybe there’s a little more reality to their songs than just words and TV dramas.

“I’m very happy to work with Ian and Real because we all love music so much that we share the same dreams and objectives. Our personalities are different but we complement each other well. We can all benefit from our discussions on music, which makes me feel lucky. I think we’ve all grown so much in the past five years.”

It’s like a whole night of music and melodrama all melted into one. It’s going to be epic.

Bourree Lam