Hong Kong actress/lead singer Josie Ho of Josie & The Uni Boys produced a documentary film, «Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice» as part of 10th Anniversary Tour «Go Berzerka». The documentary aims to explore the pathway to finding happiness, through learning from two diverse cultures of Iceland and Hong Kong on finding bliss. The documentary is co-produced by the AMTD Group and the AMTD Foundation and donated to FilmAid Asia to support work with refugees.
Josie Ho, the queen of Hong Kong’s indie rock/metal scene has had a long artistic career in film, TV and music as well as collaborations with cult directors Roger Avary, Steven Soderbergh, Takeshi Mike and Johnny To.
L’Officiel caught up with Josie for One on One Interview to discover more about her world and upcoming projects.
You have an impressive band – Josie & The Uni Boys. Who inspires you and your band?
Metallica really inspires everyone from my band, also Grateful Dead. My lead guitarist Don is inspired by a lot of heavier music. They all listen to all kinds of rock songs and metal songs. My drummer Kevin came from a heavy metal band. So he’s very heavy. He has a heavy touch. Myself, I’m into The Kills, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Wolfmother.
There’s this band that I really like Klaxons. I was influenced by Klaxons’ earlier music from the Millennium. Because I’m a late bloomer. Before then, I was really into Acid Jazz. I felt Rock and Roll was a bit hard for me at that time. Then after I met my band members and we slowly eased into new metal. We eased some 10 – 15 years ago. My producer slowly found a new way for me to sing, which is the new metal way. Then I slowly started from there. My band and I slowly went from softer rock songs to harder ones. Harder and harder.
Tell us more about 3D Projection during your performance.
Yes, it involved a lot of 3D projections. They call it a pepper screen. It’s actually two screens. It was handmade in Europe. I think on behalf of the visuals, both myself and the visual director really like Nine Inch Nails. So we really wanted to make something like that happen in Hong Kong. The concert was about this art installation. The visual director Jimmy Lee, along with multimedia designer John Wong treated it as an art installation more than a concert.
Do you prefer to write original songs in the native language or in English? Which one do you think your fans like more?
It really depends if we perform in Hong Kong, Taiwan or in China, we have very different dialects. People in Hong Kong prefer us to play in Cantonese. People in general in Hong Kong like to listen to English and Cantonese music and sometimes Mandarin songs as well. In the 1980s, Japanese music was huge here.
Really?
Yes. We didn’t understand a word, but it was so trendy. Everybody went to buy their favorite artist’s albums. Japanese music was huge in Hong Kong in the ’80s. We used to buy Japanese albums and translate them into Chinese to sing them. Yeah. That’s my generation, we all know a lot of Japanese singers and stars.
What’re your thoughts on Japan and the culture?
Japan is so good. If you ask anyone in Hong Kong, we all look up to Japanese culture, because we think that they’re very neat and polite. Everywhere you go in Japan, you don’t have to worry about anything. Everywhere is clean and tidy plus people always smile at you. You get to see very interesting things and they’re very creative. We do admire a lot of Japanese art.
You had a number of costume changes and you were doing it right on the stage.
I have to tell you this one. One of the looks, the kimono, it was made by DH. She sang a duet with me during the concert. She is from DH & Chinese Hellcats band from Beijing. They do rockabilly.
She’s also a fashion designer. She has this brand called Bouquet Fever. When I said to her that I wanted to wear this kimono because of those songs, she went out and found something that really made sense. She found this piece of fabric that is an exact copy of the fabric made in the Tang dynasty. When China was in the Tang dynasty, we were great friends with Japan. Actually, Japanese got most of their fabrics from the Silk Road. The Empress of China decided to gift Japanese some fabrics. Thats why they had all those different colors in silk and lace.
So your costumes and the visuals were specifically designed for each song?
They are designed for each song according to the message.
You had your hairstyle done specifically as a tribute to David Bowie, is it correct?
Yeah. I had a more normal kind of haircut before, and told my hairstylist to do something which is way more extreme, no turning back haircut. I wanted something extreme because it would help my performance.
And your makeup was inspired by Kabuki style?
Yeah. It’s was inspired by Kabuki, and David Bowie. The Kabuki has a similar hairstyle, but like in a very traditional Japanese way. The makeup artist Zing is very exotic. He’s originally from Singapore and we consider him as a painter, he’s that good at using people’s faces as a canvas. He did a lot of exhibitions and I’ve even done a few with him. I was his model for some of them. And yeah, you really trust him with whatever he does on your face, no doubt.
Tell us about your trip to Iceland to film the Documentary.
It’s not just a traveling documentary, it’s deeper, it’s about self-discovery. We were trying to help people to find Bliss energy. We invited a coach with us. He’s like a comedian coach – Jim Chim, a long time student of Philippe Gaulier. I took The Uni Boys and some of our bandmates that we always jam with. We took those guys altogether, I think about 12 of us and went to Iceland.
Every day before we go out and explore we went to Jim Chim’s class for four hours. We learned how to find Bliss. The coach would use theatre games to teach us about simple pleasures. Simplicity in life that makes you happy. It was really common games but when you play those games with a big group of people, you do find out about how you react. Sometimes we don’t even know ourselves unless we act it out. In the process you discover the side of you didn’t know about. Mainly the games are about making fun of yourself and making fun of others. Embracing it all. The truth is what we have to deal with.
We have really good boys in the band, so I was hoping we all go to Iceland and experience this journey together before our tour so that we get… as we call it open the third eye, Jim Chim helped us to open our third eye and we can take ourselves less seriously. I just hope that my band doesn’t take themselves too seriously. (laughs)
When you were in Iceland did you meet a lot of musicians?
Yeah. We did a mega jam session with a few Icelandic bands… There are some very good musicians from Iceland. Actually, the European people are very hot blooded. We did a Chinese song together and matched it with an Iceland National Anthem.
That was a really cool experience because it was a theme song for a very iconic kung-fu film in Hong Kong. It’s about this character, Wong Fei-hung. It’s all about righteousness and all that.
When are you planning to release the Documentary?
In early 2019.
You have an impressive resume as an actress and producer. A lot them from your own production company 852 Films. Do you prefer to be your own producer?
You can control the quality a lot more and the happiest thing for any performer is to be able to control the promotion because you know where things are going, it’s not going into a completely different zone where it doesn’t belong because we’re at the front of the promotion. The actors and musicians are always out there promoting films, TV series or promoting music and if it doesn’t get across in the correct way, you just have to bend your back and try to tell people, no it’s actually like that. It’s so difficult, so why not produce it myself if I can? And do it in the right way, so we can save a lot of manpower and money.
You mentioned that you were scouting locations in New Zealand for one of your projects?
New Zealand is so beautiful, it’s pretty much unreal to me. My husband Conroy is writing a screenplay and we want to shoot it in New Zealand, it’s about the Silk Road. We can’t find the location like that in Hong Kong, it’s all gone, taken away by concrete.
Tell us about your film with Rodger Avary – Lucky Day.
I’m very proud to be in his film. Roger Avary is definitely one of the legends. I can’t give it away too much but I’m playing a badass character. We just have to wait until it comes out.
On a more personal note, you have four dogs…
They’re our babies. I used to have seven dogs in a large estate.
Seven?
Seven dogs, two little rats, and a lizard. We had animals running around in the house all my life, we were really happy back there because they make the house so much cozier. They speak to you when you come home and chase after you. They warm your heart.