Jam Hsiao Forges On With His Brand Of Rock Music

Eleven years after his breakout performance on One Million Star, singer Jam Hsiao forges on with his brand of rock music that cemented him as a legend in the Taiwanese music hall of fame.

- Bryan Goh

The first thing the Men’s Folio crew notices about Jam Hsiao is how incredibly focused the 32-year-old is – as he gets on set, he changes out of his sweater and jeans to slip into the various looks. Throughout the shoot, he is contemplative and quiet as the camera’s shutter clicks and the lights flash. This is not a bad trait; in fact, it propelled him to fame in the 2007 television reality singing show, One Million Star.

Back in the early noughties, when variety shows encouraged one to constantly wear a smile while appeasing an audience with antics, Hsiao stood out with his bad-boy, brooding demeanour and powerhouse vocals, which got the audience to sit up straighter and brand him as one of the nation’s new rising stars. This is a man who knows his personal favourites since the beginning, and this faithfulness is what his fans appreciate in turn – an artiste who has not succumbed to the era’s trend of mumble rap or pulsating EDM beats.

The interview section of the shoot is where Hsiao starts to warm up, and his tone takes on a friendly disposition when he is talking about a topic that is close to his heart – music.

“Tired, frequent, and repetitive” are the three words that Hsiao uses to describe the music of today. He continues, “This is the trend of pop music, but this is slowly changing as listeners are getting more demanding as they seek out their own preferred genres.” These are also qualities that Hsiao equated to the death of classic instrumentation, but he hopes to see their comeback despite living in the digital age – a rebirth where music sounds come from a musical instrument but of course, played with deft hands.