Q: Who are your influences?
A: My parents’ record collection: Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Mozart and Beethoven, 60s Mandarin pop. That’s what I started with and it’ll never leave me. Later on, pianist-songwriters: Elton John, Billy Joel, Tori Amos. These days I’m influenced by whoever intimidates me. I hear them, I’m astounded by them, I think daily about quitting music because I’ll never be able to do it as well as they do. Then I try to steal from them without imitating. A tricky thing.
Q: How would you characterize your music?
A: Oh man, I don’t know. I’ve taken to saying “chamber folk” or “singer-songwriter” most of the time. “Somewhere between folk and pop, with a bit of classical and jazz,” if people look confused after that. It’s frustrating that I have no succinct phrase to offer; at the same time, I think it also means I’m doing something right.
Q: How long have you been playing piano?
A: Since I was five.
Q: Did you study at a conservatory?
A: No, just one-on-one piano lessons until I was seventeen. Changed my life, though.
Q: How did you learn to sing?
A: In the shower and in school choirs when I was younger, but mostly from playing gigs—that was when I really how I got the hang of using my voice as an instrument. I took some lessons here and there, which amounted to paying $40-150 a week to be told that I was doing it all wrong. I don’t think we fixed anything. So maybe I haven’t learned to sing, actually.
Q: When did you start writing songs?
A: I think I was six when I decided I could cobble my own piano piece together. As for songs that I still play in public, the earliest ones are from high school.
Q: How long does it take for you to write songs?
A: A long time. Sometimes months. Occasionally over a year. I don’t revise all that much; it just takes that long for all the pieces to form and assemble.
Q: Who arranges the songs for live performance?
A: It’s a collaborative process. My bandmates generally compose their own parts as we work through a song in rehearsal—sometimes they’re based on the studio recordings, oftentimes not. Sometimes they have cool ideas for my parts, too.
Q: What’s your ethnic background?
A: My parents are Chinese and grew up in Taiwan. I was born and grew up in California. Rumor has it that I am also Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and/or hapa. Rumors are amusing, especially when they get me booked to perform for Korea Day at a university.
Q: How old are you?
Q: Is Vienna the name your parents gave you?
Q: How do you write your name in Chinese?
A: Wikipedia knows all. And is reasonably accurate, though I don’t know why it has photos of me wearing a knit hat and playing guitar onstage, two things I almost never do.
Q: Is it true that you used to be a software engineer?
A: Yes. I got my bachelor’s in Computer Science at Stanford University, and worked at Cisco Systems for two years as a programmer. These days I remember exactly enough to crash whatever computer I’m working on.
Q: Is it true that you went to/dropped out of medical school?
A: No. Can’t imagine paying off med school loans and funding an album…
Q: What was it like being on Letterman?
A: Surreal. Pretty much like how it’d be for you if you got called to play on the Late Show. I still think I dreamt the whole thing. Except the studio was very, very cold, and my dreams aren’t often cold.
Q: Which of your albums is the best one, in your opinion?
A: Like anyone, I’d hope that the most recent is always the strongest. I think I’m getting better as I go…
Q: Does constantly talking about yourself ever make you feel like an egomaniac?
A: Yes, yes it does. Makes me wish I were in a band sometimes.
Q: Are you ever going to release a live album?
A: Why yes. We recorded
a live DVD in January 2007, and are planning to record a live CD in December 2009. In the meantime, there’s always the
Internet Audio Archive.
Q: Is there sheet music of your songs?
A: Some of it, yes. There’s a piano-and-vocal
songbook for Waking Hour now, as well as for the song “Harbor” from
Warm Strangers. Songbooks for the other albums are in the works. Eventually, we hope to release them simultaneously with the albums themselves.
Q: Do you ever reply to emails?
A: Very rarely. My apologies. It’s not a policy or anything; I’m just not good at staying on top of it. I promise that I do read everything, and that I’m grateful. Useful information always gets forwarded on to people who can do something with it.