Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 519 - How Did A Math Teacher Build Vietnam’s Most Iconic Indie Music Venue? - Duc-Anh Vo (Chú Đa)

Transcript

519 - How Did A Math Teacher Build Vietnam’s Most Iconic Indie Music Venue? - Duc-Anh Vo (Chú Đa) · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I have Vatican with me today from Hanoi.
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a founder of Hanoi Rock City.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a venue that I've been to a few years ago.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really excited to be here to talk about the rock scene, rock music scene that apparently I think you started around the 2010 year 2010.
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for inviting me.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I haven't heard anyone saying my full name.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that for a long time.
0:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's brilliant, because, yeah, to the Vietnamese, they give me a nickname, called Choudhara, and that, yes, that means.
0:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my full name is Dukang, right?
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So since I was in college, that was about 20 years ago, people called me DA.
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I came back to Vietnam, the Vietnamese Kormi Uncle Da, it's short for my name, D.I.N.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, so the Kormi Chul Da, and yeah.
1:11
[SPEAKER_01]: God, people rarely call me by my phone name, it's really interesting.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, invite me, anyway.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to come have a chat, yeah.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for doing this.
1:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that you studied math, though.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I did, yeah, my entire life.
1:29
[SPEAKER_00]: that is crazy to me, like somebody who's so into music and built such a legacy, I'm trying to wrap my mind around math and music.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I guess they're the same, but they're not, right?
1:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They're patterns.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe that's the thing that gravitate towards is, uh,
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the recognition and patterns that shopping math and music.
2:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if I was born in this time, probably won't be doing maths.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good at it, and I'm capable of doing it.
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But since there was a kid, I was always leaning towards art.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I love drawing.
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: playing listening to music and whatnot.
2:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I mean, I was wanting the 80s that unless your parents or your grandparents or musician and whatnot, you don't really think of it as a career.
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And
2:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I've probably thanks to my dad who gave me a lot of cassette tapes back in the early 90s when he came back from Poland because he did his undergrad and then his PhD in Poland.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So when he came back I listened to like Johnny Cash.
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, like since 1991 from the cassette tape and whatnot, I don't know what they were singing about.
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't know English, but I just mimicking what they were doing.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted boarded and talking, boarded and all of that.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: and then start to play in the piano a little bit in but 94 and guitar eventually but I've always thought of it and that's why my dad always told me that oh you love art and music and why not that's brilliant but like keep it as a hobby
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know, I mean, in the 90s, nobody's, oh, you try to be a professional musician.
3:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, nobody in my family is doing that.
3:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of them are teachers.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is why I am one now.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never meant to be, but for some reason, it just elites me here.
3:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But a music and art is always a huge part of my life.
3:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's probably why I was,
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: teaching maths full time during the day and like brunner music in the music venue at night for 15 years it's probably the reason yeah makes sense what gave you the idea to start this um
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: indie venue in the music venue right what happened was me and a couple of friends fool and her nails was in the same high school and then we fortunately had the opportunity to study in England together.
4:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were doing like maths and financial math and marketing and whatnot, you know, I mean, being the standard Vietnamese nerds.
4:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but we were playing a student gig in the UK for the Vietnamese
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: gigs in, in the venue for student.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Every university, every city, every town, will have a few venues, you know, we call the dinghy basement.
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That is pretty dirty and smelly, but you can fit in like 50 to 100 kids and mosh fit jumping around to rock music and whatnot.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was that was where the idea came from.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... because i stayed back and and and and did my master and and and work for a few more years for what i was actually the uh... came back to Vietnam before i did and uh... started a dance crew he's a choreographer teaching uh... dancing in London and what not before and who was doing
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's still doing some random gigs now and then in Vietnam.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I came back, we all came together and Lizzo as well, who is a friend of us who came back from London.
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So the four of us was like, I think.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: For when Liz was that, we travel around town and there's absolutely no sort of like
6:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and let's do something together and that was 2010.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I came back 2010 and December 2010 that's when we opened.
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I walked for a bank for three months.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I came back January, started working in March, quit my job in June and then we started building the venue from June and we opened in December 2010 and that's how it started.
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for that history.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: When you started, did you have a charter, a constitution to say this is what we're gonna promote?
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we're gonna work on because we see at the time what Vietnam needs or did you just put together a room with microphones and speakers and just started?
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have a sort of like a plan thing.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not super specific, but in the idea is in the long run.
7:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted to be a place that focus on art, music, and culture, the triangle, where we would provide a stage for the young artists to express themselves.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a matter of what, especially our original materials, because back in those days,
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: you either superfamous and playing opera house or stadium or you play covers in a coffee house there's no in between it's very difficult you have like one or two super small place
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like a cafe, but not a venue, you know?
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and people go in there and sit down.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where I used to play at when I came back 2010.
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, we want to build a mosh pit.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the plan we built around art, music and culture, anything, any genre of music, variety is what we aim for and pretty much providing a stage to anyone that was the goal.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you say anyone you don't mean anyone because you have to have some sort of standard, some sort of metric, some sort of minimal, not really, not really, not really, not really, not really, not really, no.
9:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we have is an open mic on Wednesday, right, office day, that's already for anyone.
9:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, only kind of kids, like we have a band said, what not, then what's the scenario?
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I put them on a Monday night, you know what I mean?
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously, we have to think about how much crowd they can be controlling or whatnot, but like, all the young students, if they want to use the venue and they've got no money, that sure, if you don't have money to rent, that's fine.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can bring a few friends in to buy some drinks, sure, I can put you on on a Monday night, Tuesday night, you know what I mean?
9:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing about I know is people don't go out.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: maximum twice a week.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And they don't drink either.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like a pretty difficult task for us to stay alive because if it was in Hachimese then people go out the entire week.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They just pop in and this life music somewhere they would come and you know
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But the coach is not the same.
10:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, why do you think the coach is different like that in Hanoi and Huchman City?
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I think probably because of the weather as well and is the long history.
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: of, it's just the weather in, in, in, in, in, instruments is usually warm and nice, you know, I mean, people tend to always tend to, to pop out and then, you know, have fun and party.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's just the, the people.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine if you're somewhere cold, like, I, I usually just compare it the north to the south or like,
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: England, imagine cold England and like happy California, you know what I mean, what you live, people tends to go to the beach and they will want to have a drink every day because it's beautiful, you know what I mean?
11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But here is raining and it's like, you know, dirty, you have to wait for the weekend, most of the time.
11:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we're going to compare England and California, I can probably make a crazy case for, I mean, if you think about it, there's more pubs in London than there is in LA for sure.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the music culture, the live music culture in London probably is way bigger than the live music culture in sunny California.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, yeah.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it's, I mean, I usually compare London to California and Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City because London people are grumpy, they're pretty picky, there's a lot of pubs, but I think British people go out way much more, 10 times more, only on the weekend, they work their ass off the entire weekend and get super smash on the weekend, right?
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But the music scenes as well, you create something quite creative and new and cool and London and if you want to go into national and go big and make a lot of money, you move to California.
12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's been a lot of bands and it's the same here.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Like every artist that I know that I've made it from a high note, move to the Ho Chi Minh C.
12:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's interesting, it's kind of similar to the fact, yeah, like the Arctic monkeys they live in California now, like a lot of big bands
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I do have a question that I think about all the time and you know, maybe the obvious answer to this question is because they're English and English is the language, right?
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: My question is, why do so many good bands come out of England?
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it probably is because they all speak English and that's the motherland of English.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The actual music that comes out of this tiny place in the world that dominates the airwaves of radios All over Asia all over America all over North America all over Europe coming out of this tiny dot on the map
13:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's because the artist, and this is my opinion, right?
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The artist in the crowd is so open to new things.
13:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't happen everywhere in the world.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in England, you can be experimenting with random stuff.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Glitchhop, it literally came from people scratching vinyl in the late 80s, 90s, right?
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then massive attack and polish head.
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: use it in their song and then they do that and then drum and bass and then duff set comes out of it and you have, you know, even Tom Yaw, radio had to just super random and have their weird stuff all the time.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: His solo stuff is also weird and you know what I mean?
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the crowd is very open to any
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: stuff that could be weird, you know what I mean, and then, and then out of a hundred weird stuff, there's something to get super famous and comes out, you know what I mean?
14:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's why it's somewhere else in the world.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You might be less willing to improvise to go mental and experiment.
14:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say England and the probably the north's Scandinavians are super experimental.
14:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I have never, uh, would imagine somebody would answer.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the people, and the openness and the willingness of the people to consume, you know, weirdness.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
15:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Even time is you as an artist to go to go mentor, right?
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of culture happening in Hanoi, too.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
15:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
15:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And are you saying that the people of Hanoi are, God, this is, we're going into a very sensitive territory.
15:35
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot more, how I feel when I listen to music, it just feels like a lot more northerners are coming out of Vietnam's rap scene.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: wordsmith and people that are coming out with a culture I'm maybe I'm wrong.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I maybe I don't follow it enough But it just feels that way that when I'm listening to a lot of music it just feels like a lot comes out from the north I think is exactly the same point that I was making There's a probably a relationship because I've been you know, I've been out in about both in Halloween and and Hodgemings see right and
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I feel like is, in Hanoi, like it's grumpy, people are very judgey when they go out and listen to music and everything else, the way that people accept music in Hanoi, it's slightly different.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: they do go out for the for the music and the content of the music more than Ho Chi Minh C. Whereas in Ho Chi Minh C, people would go out to have fun with their friend and the content of that night is probably not important.
17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: as important.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why in Ho Chi Minh City, you might see a lot more bars and pubs and clubs and just the probably just play cover music for 10 years, just play Britney Spears, you know, I mean in a fun way.
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's still a lot of people coming out and they're just having beers and have fun with their friend, not necessarily for the artist.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The artist is there to accommodate
17:29
[SPEAKER_01]: the having fun.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas in in I know I would say people are grumpy.
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't drink.
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't come out to like I'm just gonna have a few drinks and have fun with my friend.
17:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They literally actually come out and say I'm gonna check out this this artist, this singer song writers and whatnot.
17:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And again like I know it's it's we have a super cold winter not and whatnot.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: People are depressed
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Creative and depressing is just cool stuff.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually comes out from the from the cold country.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't see all the beach and being all happy and being like, oh my God, my life is so horrible.
18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's just my, that's just my deck.
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't see crazy literature coming out of Miami.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's having media having fun.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't being too artistic when it's like super sunny.
18:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You just go out, play football, have a drink.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just my opinion.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: With your, um, with Hanoi, ah, Hanoi city rock closing down.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What is we're going to replace this?
18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think, I mean, it does hurt us and the scene quite a bit.
18:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think it hurt that much, because I think we've done what we came to do.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean,
19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: 15 years in existence we offered thousands and thousands of gigs to young artists and bands and we did batch of the bands a few years and literally created that idea in the head of young kids as that, oh, just write anything and there will be a stage for us to perform on whether
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's do that.
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So we helped encourage that idea and trust me, if you've been in my position, you'll see the crazy changes in 15 years.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen any, I mean to be fair because we way behind for the rest of the war in terms of the music scene.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So we catch up real quick, but 15 years is insane.
20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We offer a stage, we encourage kids to write alongside other venues and promoters in town.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We also teach the kids that may, if you go to live gig, you got to pay because, you know, we promote starving and the art is also as well.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So we try to educate the people that.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did build a habit of kids going to gigs
20:35
[SPEAKER_01]: paying for entry because before we do not have that it's just like music is just that to accommodate the drinking and the going out you don't pay for entrance you don't pay to come to see an artist artist is literally there for you to drink your beer so that takes a while
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: to build that habit.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So after 15 years, the scene is blooming now.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only thing they need is the place to play.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And right now, they have a few options in town.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think it's such a crazy, such a crazy problem to the scene.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: However, yeah, we do have a team of super cool people.
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: invite a lot of act around South East Asia as well as as well as other bands in the country.
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So that might hurt a little bit as well in terms of touring artists.
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I don't have so many questions for you.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, you got.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a lot of time, I've got a lot of questions, so many questions.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me get a few questions out, and hopefully we can remember them to go back to it.
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: First question is, you know, the most memorable bands I want to hear, you tell them the most memorable ones.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, how much is it?
22:04
[SPEAKER_00]: can the state, the government, the older folks that are in control of our destiny and Vietnam, can they help?
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like the Korean government, they were able to really nurture the industry and they had a vision that we needed so hard work, we needed so LG, Samsung, products that can carry our live entertainers into the public.
22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Those two are like the biggest, you know,
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: what what what big bands what what what people what bands made it a real big impression on you and ever to could can this seeing be be propped up and and helped by government and
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Really, the third is, why did you say that we're behind?
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I know that to be true, but for you to say that we're behind, I'm curious to hear, is there a way for us to speed up this progress in music?
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So there were three questions, right?
23:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, not the first one you ask was what band of that is, you should not ask that.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I've figured it out, but that's to be fair.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's so difficult.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, I hear you.
23:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear you.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would give you a couple.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But the first one is 100% I have to mention, which is a ban called Tiny Monster, or Guivaldi Hon.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That was probably they only have one album because they sort of like a bunch of friend who are from different ban to pop in for this project for a friend of mine.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: is his an older guy called Highboard Thruv and his band is called Tiny Monster Okai Venti Horde.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to mention them because that was the first time they packed our venue as a Vietnamese original band.
24:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And you were done.
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That was 2012, January 2012.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: two years after we opened.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I never knew how to sell ticket beforehand because we don't have that many customer So we just so we just advertise the event and the date and time and whatnot and they pops in
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's like 500, 600 people showed up at the venue.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was completely packed.
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so hard.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like two persons pass out that we have to carry them out.
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the first step.
25:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and to me that their album is still one of the best Vietnamese music album of all time that I've ever heard.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So I come back to them.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That is huge.
25:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 15 years.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the last gig as well.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They they operate for one year.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: They recorded the album.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They tore their play a few times.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that's it.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They disband because everyone's in different band and they have like,
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: proper jobs and whatnot because they were born in the 70s.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were, you know, in the 50s and some of them, I guess.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, they definitely, to me, is top three Vietnamese album of all time.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And the music was just so, so good.
25:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so different than what I've heard before from the Vietnamese band.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was I would have to mention them once and secondly would be too many bands but it has to be our 7th birthday 2017.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: because even though, you know, tiny monster and all quite worth the hunt, did that in 2012.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the first six years, the thing that kept us alive, so we can provide a stage to everyone was the expats in Hanoi.
26:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when this is something, whoa, this looks like a pop in England.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we got a mosh bit.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, we got an open mic.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: they were the first to keep us alive because in the play music they drink and they that's where we have the money.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We have for the first six year we literally never make money on any of the Vietnamese gig.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We sell ticket of like 50,000 dong, that's like $2
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But like I said, people in Hanoi, especially kids who go out to music, they don't drink.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is beautiful.
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's super healthy.
27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like they go out there and get a smash.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They go to see their music.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They might just have one beer, one cocoa.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean like a poor water and one not.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But they don't go out to drink too much.
27:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So we never make money off of any Vietnamese act.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: for the entire first six years of our existence.
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Until the birthday of 2017, as we have tons of ban and we do like every year in December, we do the entire month like a...
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: tribute to all the bands that always been playing and being with us and it's sort of like a conclusion of the entire year, right?
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a big thing in Hanoi every year, the December Hanoi Roxy.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We invite bands from Hottiming City and touring bands, if possible,
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: in Hanoi to play together for entire December.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And 2017 was the first time we sold out all the tickets for the two Vietnamese night where it was headlining by Vau, like a singer-songwriter.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and what which is a which is a band like a sort of like a blur or acting monkeys if you if you will.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was that was the second time that I was like me.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very good news.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is a very good sign of what's coming up next.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Could I actually break you, or make a little bit of profit of the Vietnamese band in 2017?
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are some of the, and obviously there's brilliant touring international bands, but I mean like, I don't think they need to my praise or anything, you know, I mean, but I think I wanted to focus more on the Vietnamese original scene, because that's, that was the, the whole point of us, yeah.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: intervention government help it's I think it's very difficult and that applies to every country and every scenes that I've I've been to and I've been talking to because this indie creative rocks in and whatnot you barely have any attention from the government you know I mean they usually
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: on the mainstream kind of thing.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to export the Vietnamese act outside and bring in like a big international act.
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And to be fair, that has not much to do with the indie, then the underground sea.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the same everywhere.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: She all means England, if you go to Bristol and see, oh, if the government have any support
30:41
[SPEAKER_01]: the guy who doing some crazy stuff in his basement, you know, I'm in Bristol.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess not.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, the government has spent a lot of effort, obviously, to help festival happening in Saigon.
30:58
[SPEAKER_01]: and Hanoi as well and um yeah but it's it's not big money for big international thing for the for the small scenes and the young kids uh i wouldn't i wouldn't say this there's much help for us anyway but yeah it applies everywhere anyone who does indie music knows there's not much of a surprise there
31:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But now without the help of your venue, does that mean that you're done with the indie music world?
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you finished and ready to write to the sunset?
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, now I'm not, I don't think I'm ever done to be honest.
31:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just here sitting behind all of the kids that I've been working with for the past 15 years.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... groups of kids and they're doing the same thing they promote in and they they invite children's daughters into a lot of them and they are most of them well my staff before that work at the venue but when i told them that it's finished because you know the contract is running out and there's like huge rent raising once the contract is out and whatnot so
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And they still love the scene and they still young, you know what I mean so they do know all that
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just always here supporting them, giving them advice and contact and anything that they would need to make those gate happen.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's just a little advice or give them someone to talk to.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think for now, I'm done with like really taking charge of running
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to just, you know, see those kids doing those thing and help them out and then come to see the show that's that's the dream come true.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: After 15 years of running like 3,000 shows.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Just in the back of history.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: With that kind of history, with that kind of perspective, I'm sure you could see
33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: the different periods of even going back to England, right?
33:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like your time in England, your development, all your formative years in England, and then the 15 years at this venue, I don't know, rock city, and where you sit today, when you aggregate all of this information is data in your mind,
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can see the different waves of, you know, original songwriters, both that your time studying music and spending time at the pubs and maybe live music and studying music from being in England.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And you add it all up.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an ebbin flow about artistry and beautiful periods of England and beautiful periods in Vietnam and American rock history.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think effects a time periods
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh my god, we got the lead zeppelin's and we got the Robert Plants of the world and we got the scorpions that really took off or the modern talking era where there was like, all this new wave, like, what do you think affects these waves of music and now specifically for Vietnam?
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say, again, back to the point that it depends a lot on the listener.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
34:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: because I think it creates a lot of encouragement for the people to create, you know, I mean, and whether you can live off of it.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So the scene in Vietnam and Hanoi, I would say in the early
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: classic rock music covers.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all people play.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: They were playing there.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They played their highway star, their stairway to heaven, their A.C.G.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the kids start writing song in the early mid-90s and early 2000s and heavily inspired by like, you know, Lincoln Park and Metallica's and whatnot.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's still loads of covers mainly covers, but on the side they'll write a few songs but only rock back.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's when we came back in 2010, I would say most of the original indie artists.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: are rock band.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of them.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Because those are the people who go out to listen to, they just listen to rock music and rock covers.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So people do that.
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we started, alongside with a couple of other other venues, they started right
36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: more creative stuff, I would say, because they'd be like, hey, we can play anything now.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can do out stuff that we normally do, but now, maybe on a Wednesday, we can play some weird stuff that we thought of.
36:50
[SPEAKER_01]: just for fun, right?
36:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you offered more options to them, then they would do, they would more willing to experiment and also at the age of internet blooming than the mid-2000, it kind of
37:17
[SPEAKER_01]: different genre of music.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So the kids would be like, oh, mate, outside of rock music.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We have so many more.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And that sort of inspired them to write more and listen to different time.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So this this growth is insane because of the internet.
37:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So now
37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: you can see and it was it's a pricey a lot like 2012 there's a Vietnamese guy who's super famous now, but he wrote Vietnamese Reggae
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what?
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You've never heard his station name was DJ Kid.
38:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But his part of a hip hop rap band call Delap.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: but his solo project was called JJ Kid and I was like 12 years ago, he just gets a ragged beat randomly right and then sing in Vietnamese, my Vietnamese ragged.
38:27
[SPEAKER_00]: at any different performance.
38:28
[SPEAKER_00]: He does.
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But his persona, his solo project, has always been something super cool to me and I always booked him for the expat crowd because Vietnamese probably doesn't even know the Vietnamese reggae exists but it's just to tell you that when there's internet age and then there's
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: to write and perform random stuff.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you do it enough and with the huge database and there will be a few gems coming out of them somewhere.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And nowadays, you can have so many
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: super interesting stuff that comes out of the scene.
39:44
[SPEAKER_01]: If you really into music, you know, I mean, I mean, the general crowds still probably don't know when they don't care, but you can find anything.
39:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like so many producer singers, songwriter, that comes out with some contemporary experiment to stuff that combining traditional music
40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: are some super weird time signature ones and you know it just blows your mind and you know probably only they actually signed to a Japanese label so you know I mean it's only weird stuff but there's so many interesting things happening but again like the commercial scene would
40:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, at listening to you talk about Hanoi Rock City is so inspiring because, you know, I, you know, this is my, I'm going into my seventh year after, uh, by the by October, I'm going to my seventh year.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I've been asked, um, at dinner dinners before like, do you,
41:02
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you pick your guess that come on and I'm like, I don't know there's a guy that did this venue doing indie music and you know, he's got a long legacy I mean, there's like so many types of people like you that
41:17
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many types of people like you that are all over Vietnam, that are doing really amazing things in Vietnam.
41:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And you inspire me because you give voice to the things and the people that, otherwise we wouldn't be listening to.
41:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We wouldn't know about.
41:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been to your venue, but I didn't know about you until somebody told me, I have a friend named NAMM from the FLAB and told me about you and people.
41:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and here I am and I get to talk to you about the history and the music of this period of Vietnam and I, and I'm somehow like dying for more of this, you know, sitting from my CDR NLA, I am, I'm actually very sad that the venue has closed down, but
42:07
[SPEAKER_00]: there is so much history inside of you that can talk to so much of the variety of the musicians that come out of Hanoi Rock City.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, you just cut out a little bit there.
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't get that question, did you ask me what?
42:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you're basically, there's so much variety that came out of Hanoi Rock City, you know?
42:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so inspired by what you've done that it makes me validate the work that I do.
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm all over the place.
42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I pick up Vietnamese people from all over the globe and I'm trying to figure out what their stories are because it inspires me so much to hear
42:47
[SPEAKER_00]: what we all do in the world.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And Hunter Rock City is definitely sounds like a model for me to, you know, you did it for 15 years.
42:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm halfway at that halfway mark.
42:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully I can extend what we all do is to push Vietnamese culture to go into the far future.
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely right.
43:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's brilliant.
43:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to be fair, it was really lucky because all of us, the founders, we we had jobs, you know, I mean, and I was a full-time math teacher for 13 years now, so that we, we could afford to use HRC as a platform for us to perform and support other people, but not have to worry about.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: making profit, you know, I mean, so it's pretty, pretty fortunate there, but yeah, fun.
43:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you, um, do you, um, still follow the music scene closely?
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
43:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the amount of friends and people that you've made over the last 15 years is nothing goes under the radar, you know, I mean, everything happening in the scene, you would see it right away, everyone's on social media and then they would invite me or, you know, I mean, I will come out and support and whatnot, but yeah, it's, it's blooming insanely, insanely quick.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, if I were to, um, then I'm probably some very small sort of like a jazz bar, you know, I mean, because I'm getting old now and I would probably prefer the 30 people sitting down listening to some sort of jazz fusion.
44:44
[SPEAKER_01]: instead of, you know, 300, 500 mosh-pish jumping in the mosh-pitch to metal.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it comes with age, but like a little vinyl jazz bar thing will be my vibe next, maybe.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But that wouldn't serve like a bigger projection of the nature.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I'm always 100% behind my kids, you know.
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they run gigs that do show, then I was supporting them as much as I possibly can.
45:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm never out of the scene, you know, I mean, but if I were to run anything myself again, then it would be, you know, like, a little living room where you and I can come and listen to a vinyl with a glass of whiskey, and that's it, like, 10, 20 people and I'll be happy.
45:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my little, you know, high-to-way corner, I'd say.
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And what did your parents think during those years that you were operating this, uh,
45:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they were mental man, they were super upset because I didn't match my entire life the whole time.
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean the first two years.
46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: 15 years?
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, the first two years.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know what I mean?
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like a crazy math nerd in Vietnam and I went like medals since the age of nine.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I do math and entire life.
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a scholarship to math in London in England and then I did my master degree in financial math and then I came back to Vietnam.
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a job at a bank.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's happy.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Three months in, I drop my job and say, I'm running a indie music venue in 2010.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents are like, what the fuck?
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you thinking?
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, that was like, why don't you just take the easy road?
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, me, I'm 26, 27.
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want it easy yet.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually everybody wants it easy at some point.
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But you would 26, 27.
46:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, just let me do this and see what happened.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently after a year and a half, I'm like, no, this is not gonna work.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So using my maths and then my degree in whatnot, and I found a full-time teaching job at a high school.
47:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I teach high school maths, full-time, and then that's when my parents are more happy.
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, okay, at least you got a job now.
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: not, you know, I mean, I used to do 5 p.m. 4 a.m. every day, you know, that's how you run a value.
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: 5 p.m. you come in, you do sound check, then what, not the gig started seven eight, and then you finish it about 12, one, two a.m. you clean up, maybe take the artists out for some sort of, you know,
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, far at night in some dingy place and then you go home at three, four, I am and then wake up like 2 p.m. the next day.
47:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And the the first two years running the venue, my parents was like, What are you doing with your life spending like 15 years doing math?
48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said you to England for all of this thing.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You come back here and you being a freaking bomb.
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a bomb for about two years.
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But then after two years, everyone in the team, all of us found us new that if we were to continue this road and the direction and whatever we plan out for this place, there won't be any proper money at all.
48:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone got a job and then we took it in a more like chill way would be like every and then high and full eventually moved to Ho Chi Minh CE after like four years to follow to to pursue their artistic career.
48:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Lisa went back to London to do her film studies and I was there.
48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: me shoot in Hanoi the other three just left out but because the point was to keep it alive and not have to make money so yeah and the team was the team was super cool so we managed to
49:20
[SPEAKER_00]: on all these years, what are some of the things that you would have done differently?
49:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there things that you would have done differently?
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very good question, huh?
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: What I would have done, yeah, minor details here and there, but nothing, nothing, nothing huge.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know now that even if I want to,
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: make it more successful financially, then it would be something that I have to trade off.
50:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's very difficult, you know what I mean?
50:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it took 15 years to educate the crowd, educate the artists that may, we have a, you have a stage to perform on, write anything, and you have to educate the crowd that may, comes on in by a, by a beer, pay the $2 at the door, so that the artists can pay for their next practices and whatnot.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think I could have done it much better
50:32
[SPEAKER_01]: because that was the best we could have done in terms of support and the Vietnamese artists.
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We take nothing from them, but just 100% support.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And
50:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Financially, yeah, minor details.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I could have made something better for sure and improve tiny bit, but I'm super happy with the way that it turns out and the way it ends after 15 years because it was a community.
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a company, it's not a venue alone, it was the staff, it was the crowd and it was the artists that comes together to keep this place alive.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Every December, every band doesn't matter how big they made it.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: they will come back in December to play that entire month of sort of like a festival every weekend for the entire month.
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They would play for free even though they have made it big, right?
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I would get those money to pay for all the debt that we would accumulate throughout the year.
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and then during COVID as well, like we have crowdfunding, we have friends who came back to the state, people like you and then they would just like sending money over during COVID, just pay for rent because I literally had to pay 12 months rent in total.
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: for the two years of COVID without opening.
52:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was crazy.
52:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I couldn't believe that I still managed to.
52:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the last bit that I did, it was December, December 2022.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did a crowdfunding for three months rent.
52:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's somewhere about there.
52:30
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 grand 12 grand 12 thousand dollars is 12 yeah something like that and we and then I said this is the three-month rent that we are raising for and in the next three months if we are still close due to COVID then we will close forever.
52:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I could not, you know, I mean, just pay for rent and not open for any more.
53:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was my salary from, from my full-time teaching job, jumping to the landlady account every month for like a year.
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do that fundraising and everyone in the world at friends and artists.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And they all came together and donated about $12,000, $13,000.
53:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say, and then I try to pay for that three months.
53:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But fortunately, exactly three months, it was March 23.
53:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when we were allowed to open again.
53:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So we reopened after COVID in 23.
53:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It was blooming 24.
53:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was brilliant.
53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, yeah, 25.
53:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when the contract is running out.
53:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But then this huge renovation is happening around the area with a venue is.
53:53
[SPEAKER_01]: gentrification has been happening for the next 15 years so everything is the price and everything is getting driven way too high and the contract is running out and I knew the landlady is gonna sort of like double the rent and whatnot
54:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the number 15 was a very good one to close out on as well.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's when the team did like a series of we did 15.
54:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We did 15 episodes for the 15 years.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: We were there for
54:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Stick with us throughout the years for 15 years and we do like each episode is like a live session think of it like a tiny desk but there's that 15s before we close and that was the sum of 25 exactly this time last year that's when we as when we wrapped it up
54:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I noticed outliers Malcolm Gladwell being displayed on the back of my Jew, and I think about, you know, you're definitely created a lot of
55:09
[SPEAKER_00]: situations for outliers to potentially happen, you know, when you think about the framework and you think about the environment that you've created, the legacy that you've created, I can't help myself to be very proud of the work that you do just by extension of being a Vietnamese person.
55:30
[SPEAKER_00]: it's amazing the work that you've done and i i really appreciate you sharing uh... your story with me today and i i really do look forward to
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: to you continuing, whatever you do, whatever you touch, the vision of your next project that is in the creative world.
55:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I look forward to it.
55:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're a visionary in your own world.
56:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You're somebody who creates opportunity
56:05
[SPEAKER_00]: to really put their imprint out there.
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, but to be fair, it was created for us in the first place, you know what I mean?
56:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, oh, we're going to do something to change the scene and it was, it started because we wanted to play it.
56:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as young kids, there was like, we wanted a mosh pit and one not.
56:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, eventually it does bring out a lot of cool friends and it did have loads of super weird stuff over the 15 years at the venue, super weird and cool stuff.
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have some awesome project that I'm super proud of.
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, like,
56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We had the support of British council where we managed to invite it.
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a connection between Hano and Sheffield, which is like a super artistic music city in England.
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We managed somehow to invite Ross Orton, who was the producer for the Arctic Monkeys, to come to Hano-Roxie and do a recording session
57:13
[SPEAKER_01]: and produced a track for Vietnamese artist, Kourtang, who is a part of the main writer and vocal for luck, which is like probably the most famous Vietnamese indie band.
57:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like some sort of word fusion that happened there.
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean even now when I'm sitting behind, there's so many young kids
57:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm continuing my doing so there's I don't feel I don't feel bad at all now literally I'm just sitting back and I'm like maybe we did start to something now you guys is there's 10s, 20s of them in Hanoi doing different kind of work promoting all of the of the cool creative and weird stuff that we started so it's not like
58:07
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're still very young, you know, and I can imagine, you know, there's so on a good three more decades in you to really go out there and fuck shit up.
58:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to be fair, yeah, I'm 43 now and I have 15 years of hundreds of thousands of nights where we jump in around in a mosh pit.
58:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I mean, my mental probably older than what I am right now.
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I said, if I have a place to myself, I would prefer hideaway in a sort of
58:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I think that's the plan for now.
58:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And last, in a couple of years, I get bored and I, you know, I mean, it's not doing random shit again.
59:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, Vatican, for coming on the podcast.
59:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very lovely experience to get to talk about the world of Hanoi Rock City.
59:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
59:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for inviting me.
59:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my pleasure to have you.
59:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
59:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
59:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
59:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.