Devon, Yuhao, language barriers, and my screwy brain
The problem with having an obsession with a band that's on the other side of the world and sings in a language that isn't even in the Indo-European family is not the trouble translating lyrics. Even if you can't find a translation, you can sometimes find a music video or a summary that, combined with the title, gives you the general idea of what it's about. The problem is the extreme shortage of reliable information. I like knowing things like where the idea for a song comes from, what kind of lives the singers lead, what influences they've had, etc. I guess that makes me act a little stalkerish. I can live with that. Anyways, that urge to find out stuff leads to a lot of frustration.
Anyways, there's the lovely band Nan Quan Mama. There's Devon as rapper/DJ (I've seen him called the drummer, but in videos of live performances I've never seen him drum, so, shrug), Yuhao on piano, Zhang Jie on guitar, and Lara on vocals (all members sing from time to time, and all of them can and do compose songs). Devon and Yuhao have always been members, Zhang Jie and Lara replaced two others (Gary and G-power) who left a while ago, because they found they preferred production work to actual performance.
Devon and Yuhao are physically pretty similar. They have similar voices. They have a similar face shape. They have the same height and build. Several times I've seen one of them sing and had trouble figuring out which one it was. I wondered if there was any chance that they were related, so I looked online for information on that.
First, I tried to work out family names. That's pretty much a bust. I think Devon's full, given name is Song Jian Zhang. I don't know whether that's in Western order or not, but I've seen him credited as Devon Song, so I guess Song is his family name. That's no help at all really, because I haven't the faintest idea what Yuhao's family name is. I've seen him called Yuhao Zhan, but that's also sometimes written Yuhao-Zhan and the dash makes me think Zhan is something other than a surname. I'm pretty new to the Taiwanese world, no idea what naming traditions are, so I moved on to looking for biographies and such.
The Wikipedia article for Devon has eight poorly written sentences. Yuhao's has six. All the information I've found elsewhere is reviews of their music or gossip. No family information. All I know about Devon and Yuhao's families are that both of them come from single parent households (intriguing coincidence), and neither of them are only children. Devon's Wikipedia article says he has a younger brother, which is a bit of information that burrows into my brain and laughs at it. "You think that if the younger brother was Yuhao that would have been mentioned, but it's Wikipedia, you can imagine a ignorant/lazy/forgetful fan," it says. "And the fact that the brother is a younger brother, and Yuhao is 22 months younger than Devon is an annoying coincidence." 22 months, such an annoyingly plausible age for a younger sibling, so annoyingly not proving anything.
Other information; Yuhao's Wikipedia article states that he wrote the song "Disappear" for his sister, who died young. "Disappear" actually has lyrics by Devon and is composed by Yuhao. The two sing it as a duet. That makes the most sense if they are brothers, mourning their sister together. It might also make sense if Devon had some other kind of close relationship with Yuhao's sister, say boyfriend, but that doesn't fit the music video that well. I won't say that's an impossible interpretation, though.
I also found a quote where Devon does call Yuhao "brother Yuhao." That's another bit of evidence that burrows into my brain, and it says, "I'm an awfully attractive looking bit of evidence but I'm not actual proof." It says that with a silly sing-song voice, and occasionally lets out a "Bwahahahaha!"
At this point I'm a little biased in favor of the idea of Devon and Yuhao being brothers, or otherwise related, because I've spent literally days on this. It would be so much more satisfying to discover that they are related than that they aren't. Plus they look and sound so freaking similar. Two guys in the same band looking and sounding so much alike, totally coincidentally, that's just wrong.
I definitely care about this way more than I should.
Anyways, there's the lovely band Nan Quan Mama. There's Devon as rapper/DJ (I've seen him called the drummer, but in videos of live performances I've never seen him drum, so, shrug), Yuhao on piano, Zhang Jie on guitar, and Lara on vocals (all members sing from time to time, and all of them can and do compose songs). Devon and Yuhao have always been members, Zhang Jie and Lara replaced two others (Gary and G-power) who left a while ago, because they found they preferred production work to actual performance.
Devon and Yuhao are physically pretty similar. They have similar voices. They have a similar face shape. They have the same height and build. Several times I've seen one of them sing and had trouble figuring out which one it was. I wondered if there was any chance that they were related, so I looked online for information on that.
First, I tried to work out family names. That's pretty much a bust. I think Devon's full, given name is Song Jian Zhang. I don't know whether that's in Western order or not, but I've seen him credited as Devon Song, so I guess Song is his family name. That's no help at all really, because I haven't the faintest idea what Yuhao's family name is. I've seen him called Yuhao Zhan, but that's also sometimes written Yuhao-Zhan and the dash makes me think Zhan is something other than a surname. I'm pretty new to the Taiwanese world, no idea what naming traditions are, so I moved on to looking for biographies and such.
The Wikipedia article for Devon has eight poorly written sentences. Yuhao's has six. All the information I've found elsewhere is reviews of their music or gossip. No family information. All I know about Devon and Yuhao's families are that both of them come from single parent households (intriguing coincidence), and neither of them are only children. Devon's Wikipedia article says he has a younger brother, which is a bit of information that burrows into my brain and laughs at it. "You think that if the younger brother was Yuhao that would have been mentioned, but it's Wikipedia, you can imagine a ignorant/lazy/forgetful fan," it says. "And the fact that the brother is a younger brother, and Yuhao is 22 months younger than Devon is an annoying coincidence." 22 months, such an annoyingly plausible age for a younger sibling, so annoyingly not proving anything.
Other information; Yuhao's Wikipedia article states that he wrote the song "Disappear" for his sister, who died young. "Disappear" actually has lyrics by Devon and is composed by Yuhao. The two sing it as a duet. That makes the most sense if they are brothers, mourning their sister together. It might also make sense if Devon had some other kind of close relationship with Yuhao's sister, say boyfriend, but that doesn't fit the music video that well. I won't say that's an impossible interpretation, though.
I also found a quote where Devon does call Yuhao "brother Yuhao." That's another bit of evidence that burrows into my brain, and it says, "I'm an awfully attractive looking bit of evidence but I'm not actual proof." It says that with a silly sing-song voice, and occasionally lets out a "Bwahahahaha!"
At this point I'm a little biased in favor of the idea of Devon and Yuhao being brothers, or otherwise related, because I've spent literally days on this. It would be so much more satisfying to discover that they are related than that they aren't. Plus they look and sound so freaking similar. Two guys in the same band looking and sounding so much alike, totally coincidentally, that's just wrong.
I definitely care about this way more than I should.