CHONG LIM
Australian Musician Issue 14 Winter 98Chong Lim had never touched a keyboard until he was twenty years old. He began playing with James Valentine (The Models) at Melbourne Uni, and then joined Vanetta Field's Gospel Band where he first met one of Australia's great bassists, Joe Creighton, a friendship and professional relationship which blossomed to this day. He toured with the Eurogliders, Germaine Jackson, WJAZ, and many more culminating in getting the seat in John Farnham's band. Add in Tina Arena, MD for the George Martin Tour, MD for the ground breaking aboriginal musical "Bran Nu Day" and various TV Shows, and an impressive career takes shape.. He has through all these years also been a principal clinician and consultant for the Roland Corporation. 1998 has seen him produce Tommy Emmanuel's new album, and most recently an appointment as MD for the huge Kylie Minogue tour sees Chong's career flying. Rob Walker spoke to him during rehearsals for Kylie's tour.
You've been able to make a career out of this. Was this always your goal?
Actually I never started out to be a musician. At university I was studying something some thing else and I just got asked to play in bands. I had to really scrounge to buy my first keyboard which was a DX-7. But it was a good keyboard to learn on because it was so hard to program and from then on I caught the bug and I really wanted to play and then it was a matter of hoping that I got asked to do the right gigs.
What are the key turning points in your career as a professional?
I was asked to join a couple of bands and then I got asked to do sessions which was another turning point because I started learning the studio craft. Joining John Farnham's band was a good key gig to have and then I guess the other bits I've done such as TV things, The Logies, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush.
Was that your first TV gig?
Yes as a Musical Director, "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" was my debut I'd say and then I've done the last three Logie Awards for Channel 9 and then being asked to do the Crown Casino Atrium Music was great because it was an Orchestral pieceand a significant turning point. I guess every time you get asked to do something in this business it's a turning point and nowadays people also know me as a keyboard player/Musical Director - I get asked to do a lot of Musical Director type jobs like the Kylie Minogue tour and then before that I did a little thing for Boz Scaggs at the opening of the Hard Rock Cafe, , and so on.
So to get to this stage of being able to make a good living out of it you've had to diversify - Have you concentrated on that?
Yes I think in Australia you have to diversify. I was also a clinician for Roland Corporation. I was a struggling musician then, tyring to just have gear let alone get gigs and it was a good period of my life because I was forced to really know the gear world and perform as a one man show and interact and I learnt a lot and met a lot of people. There were a few people who were instrumental in helping me get started. I'd done some work with Melbourne retailer, Barry Croll through schools and courses. He'd seen me hanging around in shops and he recommended me to Roland and then Manny of Manny's in Collingwood and the guys at Allans also put in a good word for me and after a couple of months Roland asked me to do some clinics with them and all this gear arrived one Friday and was I asked to do the following Thursday and I was forced to learn it all. It was a start of a very fruitful relationship between Roland and I that culminated in my being involved in the research and development team in Japan.
I think in this country you have to diversify unless you're an original band and can specialise in what you believe in and in a particular style and direction. But for those people who aren't in an original band you have to. You have to be able to go from playing in different kinds of bands to TV and be able to do an ad or film score, whatever - you have to diversify.
There appears to be a shortage of high profile of keyboard players in Australia. Why do you think that is?
I think because Australia is not a Keyboard type of place like America is. Even in America gone are the days of Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman from England. That era which we tend to refer to as dinosaur rock is gone. These days people are looking at grooves and the keyboard player has become a different beast. Today's keyboard player has become like a Producer, Mixe. He's not just this flashy guy with 900 keyboards on stage, he's now a producer who delves into production techniques, delves into sounds and is part of the fabric of a piece rather than this kind of amazing, fast licked player.
Keyboards are also intrinsically linked to technology now.
I think you still have to get your music education together and understand music - besides that the keyboard player has to be able to program sounds, synths and sequencers - the keyboard player is someone who has to have arrangement and production skills. I guess a keyboard player has to have playing skills, theoretical skills, music skills together with a good knowledge of technology. You don't have to have it all but it's good to have that grounding.
What do you think is the future role of the keyboard in music?
I think that there'll always be a place for it - there's always this back lash from who people don't want to have anything to do with keyboards. But the cycle turns. One time there'll be a lot of work for keyboard players and other times there'll be nothing. Keyboards are now intrinsically linked to loops and stuff like that - so if you hear a record and there's no keyboard in it but there's loops, usually there's a keyboard player involved.
Where do you think music technology is headed?
I don't think there's a lot of incredible innovation going on at the moment as compared to the break throughs of the Prophet-5 and DX 7 and the D-50 days but on the other hand, I think it'll be in the feel of quality - you know the higher sample rates and higher memories will make keyboards more powerful but whether they'll be innovatively different will depend upon some other technological break through. You know, next year you'll buy keyboard X and it'll have 9000 more sounds that the last one and 3,000 more effects and two years later there'll be one with a hard disc recorder and everything else in it so I think technology will always improve what you can get for your bucks.
Does keyboard remain a key performance tool or do you think its applications are moving more towards composition and production?
I think you'll always need keyboards in bands except for the specialised bands which are guitar orientated. But keyboards are always intrinsically a very important production tool in studios in all styles of music. You still always need keyboards live and in the studio, because they can give textures, samples, and a lot of the time people turn to the keyboard player for the chords and the structure of the songs and they're usually the ones who run the computer and whatever, so the keyboard player will always have a place.
What's consumed you in the last year or two?
I was involved with Crown Casino's atrium music - the 100 minutes of orchestral music that I composed (I also got David Herschfelder and Guy Gross to do it with me). That was a mammoth job that took a very long time because while I was doing that I had to go on tour with John Farnham's Jack of Hearts Tour. But it was a very difficult period because I had to prepare for the Crown Casino concert opening as well as writing the Crown Casino ad - a huge Orchestral ad and then straight after that I had to do the Logies. This year I've busy producing Tommy Emmanuel's solo album and for the last couple of months I've been in LA mixing it and then I've rushed back to Australia to start rehearsal for Kylie Monogue's upcoming tour which we're doing right now and we'll soon start touring both locally and overseas.
I also do some occasional work with Roland - I've still got a fantastic relationship with them. I was involved in the sound design and sound patch programming as well as waveform selection for the JV10-80 series
What gear are you using and what applications are you using it for? The Kylie tour is a good example. - what equipment do you have around you?
For the Kylie tour I'm using 2 Roland XP80 series, fully laden with the vintage synth keyboard/orchestral sounds and then I've got 2 Roland JV 10-80's on a rack as well and S7-60 sampler on the rack and an A-90 mother keyboard for pianos and some midi stuff and that's also basically my home studio set up. I use the XP-80 as the central command and a Mac computer with Q base audio. I've got a Super Jupiter, Mini Moog, O2R Desk, DA-88, Pro Tools, Logic and Performa software. The reason why I have so many modules is that you have to get at these patches as quickly as you can and also for polyphony purposes you need the numbers. Q base audio which I love using - it's my main engine.
So what's actually involved in being a Musical Director for say Kylie Minogue?
I'm the guy that the management contacts to put together the band and then with the band I'm always forever using my friends who I've been playing with for a long time and I'm like the overseer who makes sure the grooves are right and everyone remembers their parts and also the arrangements of songs. I make sure the arrangements are faithfully followed and the live versions are cutting it, and the tempos are right and really you have to have the eye and ear to dissect pieces and to take them apart if there are problems. With this band it's a band of fantastic musicians with whom I've been working for so long. It's almost an automatic process. But I guess the Musical Director takes on a lot of responsibilities of making sure that the overall show is okay - but I've got the added responsibility of making sure that things are working and flowing smoothly, and of course added to that responsibility I've still got to play keyboards and program them. The band usually rehearses until 6 and I have to stay back until midnight to do my bits.
What sort of relationship do you tend to have with the artist in this sort of set up? You know one on one?
It changes from artist to artist. Some artists rely on you more than others, but artists are like any human being and musician - they need not so much guidance, but they need to consult with someone else whose got a musical ear in terms of arrangement and song order/set lists and personnel and what's working and what isn't. I guess a Musical Director is sort of like a sounding board. But again it depends upon the artist because some don't need as much help as others. Some tell you what they want and some ask for advice.
How was it working with such a legendary producer George Martin on the Beatles gig?
That was an unbelievable experience. I was a little nervous because again, besides being the Musical Director of the band and trying to get all the music side together and learning the songs, I actually had to help arrange certain tracks like "Got to Get You Into My Life, Strawberry Fields and so on, orchestrate them and just making sure everything was in order. But it was just a fantastic experience working with George Martin and a pleasant surprise. He was a very easy going guy, very, very musical and I guess when things don't go right which happened once or twice, he can be pretty tough, but he's a fantastic human being, very easy to work with and all round great guy and you can see why he's where he is - it was just an absolute joy. I must say that that must be one of the highlights of my career and I can say that it's probably the same with Glenn Shorrock, Tommy Emmanuel and all the musicians involved on the tour with us, we just loved working with the guy, we're waiting for him to call us back for more.
Are you classically trained?
Yes I had classical piano lessons. I'd never touched a keyboard until I was 20 years old when I first came to Australia. I remember first seeing bands and listening to keys, and saving to buy a Rhodes. But I had a classical background but it's been so long now that I'm not so good though. Recently I bought an whole pile of Mozarts and Beethovens because I wanted to have a regiment of practising by getting up at five in the morning and practising for two hours and of course it never happened. I've got the books on top of the piano but I haven't actually practised yet!
What would you say to a musician who's looking to be a keyboard player?
Most importantly I think you've got to work on the music side of things and learn your music, the theory and the chops, your scales and on top of that you need to understand your keyboards, understand what they do, it's not really as daunting as it seems. It does what you ask it to do, but you just have to open the box and try and press as many buttons as you can and stuff around. How I learnt to program was I listened to each sound and I dissected it and understood what was going on, why a sound did a certain thing and tried to really know every bit of what the keyboard did. Now I don't do that any more because I'm so busy, but in the old days I would know about everything that a keyboard did. Actually a lot of the times you don't even need many of the things, but it's good to know it all because you never know when you'll need to use it and history is graced by people who know nothing about music but have made it and become very great musicians without learning or knowing anything about music or technology for that matter. However, if you want to know it, it'll make you a better musician and widen your horizons to be a professional musician.