Freddy Lim (Chthonic) [READ THIS INTERVIEW]

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Freddy Lim is not a normal politician. While his contemporaries are satisfied serving their own self-interests, Freddy Lim has made his name by helping others. As well as fronting Taiwanese extreme metal band Chthonic (pronounced “Thonic”), Lim has acted as chair of Amnesty International Taiwan for four years, organised a pair of Free Tibet concerts, met the Dalai Lama three times, formed Taiwan’s New Power Party in 2015, and been elected as a Taiwanese Member of Parliament in January this year.

This guy’s CV is impressive, to say the least.

Where the average politician is closed-minded, Freddy Lim is open. Where his opponents oppress, he aims to free. Most of all, where the average autocrat clings greedily to power and wealth and bullies others into surrendering their own, Freddy Lim is giving and generous.

As proof, I offer the above list of achievements, and this interview. Enjoy, and fight the good fight.

To a lot of people, metal is a very negative or even evil thing. How can it be used as a positive force for change?

For me, metal is just a style of music. So I think most people, they don’t understand metal. Most people think only strange people will like metal; they don’t consider it a serious business.

But for me, and especially in Taiwan, it’s just something cool! Something that can represent the young generation, something different. It’s not that easy to convince people that a metalhead can be their congressman as well – but we just have to try to balance it, because especially in Taiwan people have been looking for changes in recent years.

So to have something cool, to have something new, to have something from the younger generation is an opportunity to convince people to open up the conversation. And metal can be a very good tool when you want to open up some different conversations, especially in a society like Taiwan where we can help people to expand their imagination about politics.

Makes sense! So how did you first get into metal?

When I was young, in junior high school, I was getting tired of the normal kind of Taiwanese pop music. All those songs about love and romance…so I started to see if I could find something different, from outside of Taiwan. But back then, Western music was not that popular – especially since martial law had not been lifted yet.

So the music business was controlled by the government as well, and there were not many ways to find new music back then. But I remember a guy from a record shop who saw I was not a regular teenager, and I was looking for something different. He introduced me to some cassette tapes, made some copies, like Guns ‘N Roses and LA metal, that kind of thing, 80s stuff.

I started listening to those pirate copies, cassettes, and moved on to heavier and heavier stuff. From 80s metal to Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, to death metal and more extreme music. Years and years.

How did your band Chthonic get together?

I graduated from high school around 1994, and that was the very beginning of the internet era. So I started to explore even more different kinds of metal in the 1990s; black metal, symphonic black metal, all the very extreme stuff from Scandinavia, melodic death metal.

I started to think that there are many materials that we share [with those Western bands] in Taiwan. We share the same anger, the same kind of emotions that [you need] to write this kind of big metal stuff, [expressing] huge complicated emotions, complicated concepts, in metal albums.

Before Chthonic, I’d played in some bands in high school, playing normal rock and metal music – but I couldn’t find a way to share the strong feeling in my heart that I felt from Taiwanese history. I could feel the strong emotion inside me, and I needed some kind of music that could express those kinds of feelings.

After high school, when I found out about black metal, symphonic black metal, melodic death metal, I felt like that was the right kind of music for me to play. There was a lot of material and inspiration inside me. So I decided to form Chthonic and find some friends to to do it with me.

Cool! You’re now also a member of the Taiwanese parliament, and the co-founder of the New Power Party. Before your party existed, what was the political situation like in Taiwan?

It’s kind of complicated! I’ll see if I can explain it easily.

Taiwan has been a two-party system for about twenty years. But the two-party system in Taiwan is not like the two-party system in other countries, because the biggest party, called KMT, which means “Chinese Nationalist Party,” are not from China or Taiwan. They were sent by the Allies after World War Two from China to Taiwan. So the KMT party are not localised, organised, in Taiwan; they are originally from China.

The other party, that formed thirty years ago, are called DPP. They’re a local party. So basically KMT and DPP are the two-party system in Taiwan’s political arena for over twenty years. So because it’s been twenty years, it’s very difficult to get citizens to open the conversations about different issues. People have decided to support the party they want to support, so they don’t really want to communicate with each other. It’s very difficult to open up the conversation between the supporters of the two major parties.

The New Power Party was formed by us last year. I should say that because the two-party system has been there for so many years, as I just said, it’s very difficult to help the citizens to open up the conversation. The last two or three years, the NGOs and the civil society started a lot of movements to try and change the situation. They want to open up more debates, they want to open up more conversations.

In the last two or three years, there have been many major movements. The most famous one, the Sunflower Movement in 2014, has been covered by the international media. That’s the one where the students occupied Congress.

Basically, that’s the movement that shocked the whole society and showed we actually could change the situation, and we actually can open up the conversation by ourselves. Not controlled by the politicians. Not controlled by the old two-party system.

We can change something. We, the social movements, the people can actually do something.

So after that, me and my friends formed the NPP, the New Power Party. In the last year, we’ve been following the trend and together the young people, the students are coming into the new party to try to make the changes that people have tried to [make] for so many years. We can put all these issues into the political arena and the parliament.

I hope you get it!

Yeah – that does make a lot of sense. Thank you for that!

Thanks.

So you were the chair of Amnesty International Taiwan for four years. How did you first become involved in the global human rights movement?

Actually, through the music industry. I can remember in the 90s, especially from the rock industry, there were so many bands getting involved in human rights movements. Björk, Rage Against The Machine, System Of A Down…rock and metal bands, most of them didn’t hide their points of view.

We stand for the same values as them, and they just don’t want to hide their views. I think that’s a very good attitude for me, a very important attitude. And that attitude is why I like rock music, why I like metal, because those people don’t hide their views.

When I found out that there have been so many bands supporting human rights movements, especially a lot of movements organised by Amnesty International, I decided to become a member of Amnesty International Taiwan in about 2007. Since Chthonic was getting bigger and bigger, and supported by more and more people, and the Taiwan section wanted to make some changes, their members decided to vote for me to become their chair. It was to do something different, because Amnesty International Taiwan have been here for about twenty-five years and in Taiwan it’s an old association already. But the members do want change and hope that the section can be modernised.

After I was elected as chair, I started to organise the people and liberties and organise singers and artists to support Amnesty International Taiwan and raise awareness amongst young people.

You’ve promoted two Free Tibet concerts in Taiwan as well. For people in the UK and America who might not know that much about the situation in Tibet, how would you explain it?

Tibet is a country with a 3,000-year history. So it’s an old country; it’s not a new one. But it has been occupied by Communist China since the 1950s.

The original Tibetan government went into exile in India. Most of the people know about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Most people know that he’s one of the most important spiritual leaders in the world – but maybe people don’t know that after 1959, His Holiness never had a chance to go back to his home in Tibet.

More and more Tibetans tried to escape from Tibet because of the human rights situation there, and the environmental pollution, as well as the cultural and religious I would say homicide that’s continually happened in Tibet, oppressed by Communist China.

So I think it’s very important, especially as I’m Taiwanese, because Taiwanese and Tibetans, we both face the same huge authoritarian regime. But Taiwan is an independent country; we have a free world, a free society in Taiwan. So we should let the Tibetans feel that they have a lot of friends in Taiwan; they can find many supportive and friendly people in Taiwan who are followers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and also support Tibet. We’re also willing to make more people across the world [aware of] the situation in Tibet.

Especially, I want to say that there are so many Chinese tourists and Chinese businessmen coming to Taiwan. So if the people in Taiwan try to make the cause of Tibet [better known] in Taiwan, all this news and information might [in turn spread to, be heard by, and] be known by the Chinese people, the Chinese tourists or Chinese businessmen in Taiwan. And that’s a good thing, because China block the information, they block the internet [in their own country] – so we can make more people aware of the truth of Tibet through Taiwan.

It’s a good way to make more people aware of what’s going on in Tibet.

Definitely. You’ve met the Dalai Lama three times now; how would you say those meetings have influenced you?

[Laughs] I listen to black metal. I like metal a lot, so I have been…I don’t want to say anti-Christ because that’s not the Taiwanese culture here, but I don’t think I’m a very religious person. I’m not very religious, and I didn’t believe in religions…before I met him.

So I can remember in 2008, the first time I met him, I could really feel some spiritual thing with him. I don’t know if it’s religious or spiritual or supernatural or philosophical…it’s just not an ordinary thing.

So I could feel after I met him in 2008…I started to think that sometimes we train ourselves to be strong on the outside. We train our body. We train how we talk. We train ourselves to be tough. But after I met him, I found out that it’s very important to train your heart and your mind, to open up your mind all the time, and to be curious about everything, and to be positive about things. To be calm when something bad happens.

So I just opened my mind after I met him, and started to read a lot of his books to know more about him. I got inspired by him a lot. His whole life, he has faced so many difficulties. He carried the burden of six million people and faced the strongest authoritarian regime in the world in the modern era. But he still remains positive and calm – and still stays compassionate.

I think he’s really somebody very different and inspiring.

Sounds fantastic! Do you consider it dangerous to voice your political views?

Sometimes I can feel it’s dangerous. I can remember a few years ago, when Chthonic toured the US and announced our tour dates in North America, we got some emails from people calling themselves Chinese students in North America. They said they’d kill us if we talked about Taiwan and Tibet onstage.

So these kinds of things happen now and then. But nothing really dangerous happened, although we get a lot of threats by email sometimes. Of course, we have to be careful and watch our backs, but also remain calm and not think [about it] too much.

Sure. That’s a similar situation being faced by different people around the world, where they’re being oppressed by different groups.

Yeah.

So when you’re in those kinds of situations, being threatened, how do you personally handle it?

In the first place, of course, we feel very nervous about that. But we never discussed amongst the band members whether we should quit talking about politics or talking about what we believe. That’s the one thing we never discussed.

We would be nervous in the first place, but also try to stay calm. Then we discussed with our security and staff in the touring team to find the safest way to make sure everybody stays safe. But we never discussed stopping talking about what we believe.

You’re currently campaigning for Taiwan to be added to the UN. What obstacles currently stand in the way of achieving that goal?

I think it’s still very difficult, because China and the Chinese government is still very strong, very powerful in the international community. But we just have to be optimistic, all the time. We have to be on one hand realistic, but on the other hand we have to stay optimistic.

For now, we should just try to [raise awareness], through the international media, about what’s going on here. Because if Taiwan cannot participate in the international community, we don’t have the opportunity to fight for our rights in the international community and we cannot provide what we can do to help our friends internationally.

So we do want to do that, especially when it’s a global world right now. It’s a global society, and everything is international. If we cannot have a voice in the international community, it’s just not right – it’s just not equal. It’s very difficult to have Taiwan join the UN and other international communities, but we have to be optimistic and keep campaigning year by year.

If we become too pessimistic, then what about the people in Hong Kong? What about the people in Tibet? I think the Taiwanese people, there are so many regions and countries that face the authoritarian regime, China. They suffer from the authoritarian regime – but the Taiwanese, our country, we have our free society, we vote for our president, we have our elections, we don’t pay tax to the Beijing government; I think it’s very important we stay optimistic, because there are so many friends with us like people in Hong Kong, Tibetans, who look up to us and we should just keep fighting and fight the good fight to let them be optimistic with us.

So I think it’s very important for the Taiwanese to stay optimistic!

Definitely! So how do you balance life in politics with life as a musician?

I try to not balance it; I try to just be who I am. Like when I have some materials and inspiration, I still try to record with my phone and share it with my band members all the time, to stay in the mood of writing songs. And when I want to share some political views, like on my political Facebook page, I don’t do what the original politicians do.

They might write a very long announcement, a very long article, to explain their points of view. But sometimes I just post a song. Sometimes I post my feelings. Sometimes I share some lyrics. And that’s my way, and I want to stay that way and not divide myself into two different personalities, where one is a musician and the other is a politician.

I don’t want to do that; I want to stay as one person and do what I feel is natural. I think that’s a good thing.

Certainly. What is the future of Chthonic?

We are writing songs at the moment – and next year, there will be a movie. A dramatic comedy movie. So hopefully next year we will have a new movie with a new soundtrack album, and then hopefully we can play some festivals, because I don’t have time for the two or three month touring now. So hopefully we can play some festivals, along with the new movie.

I was actually about to ask about the movie – can you tell us a bit more about that? Randy Blythe’s in it, right?

The main character is Chthonic’s driver. So the members of Chthonic, we play ourselves in the movie, and Randy Blythe [also] plays himself.

The driver used to be our fan, in the countryside, and there are some huge construction [works] going on in his home town – and a lot of justice issues happen in his home town. He goes to the city, to Taipei, to find Chthonic – his heroes – because he feels like Chthonic will fight for him because we’ve always been very supportive of all the social movements. Coincidentally, he becomes Chthonic’s driver and discovers that Chthonic’s members are not like he thought.

Some of Chthonic’s members are not that supportive of the social issues – some members sometimes have to discuss a lot of serious things and stupid things about girls, about money, the image of the band…they’re not like he thought! But Randy Blythe, he is more into the social issues. So the driver felt disappointed with Chthonic, but at the same time he became good friends with Randy.

So that’s basically a comedy, and a lot of ironic things happen. This driver can only speak in Taiwanese, but Randy Blythe can only speak in English. So there are some stupid things happening between them and between Chthonic and people.

Sounds great! You’ve done a TED talk as well, but there’s no English translation online. So I was wondering – what points were you making in that talk?

It’s about decisions people make, and how people should cherish every moment when they make decisions. Each decision matters, and even small decisions can make a huge difference. So you should cherish each decision you make, and then you can make something different, something big.

So I tried to share how I stayed disciplined, and always stay aware of that while making decisions now. I’m making decisions every moment, and trying to make the right decision.

That’s about it!

Makes sense! Final question: A lot of people are suffering in different situations across the world. If you could speak directly to them right now, what would you say?

Do not give up hope. Please know that there are many people supporting your rights and making your voices heard all around the world. Keep the faith, and justice shall prevail!

What did you think of this interview? Get in touch via Twitter here, and let me know!

Freddy Lim official website.

Chthonic official website.

Free Tibet official website.

Amnesty International official website.

The Dalai Lama official website.

Posted on 19 October 2016

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