Beijing Punk is a feature length documentary film by Australian writer and director, Shaun Jefford. A testament to the raw energy of Chinese Punks, it was filmed in 2008 when Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics.

The movie’s tagline asks, “What happens when 1.3 billion Chinese discover punk?” What occurs is the emergence of an underground music scene leading the nation’s youth through a type of musical rebellion. What the world will soon discover is modern day China is presently incubating a new breed of punk rockers and a subculture that’s worth discovering, again. Through musical experimentation and lyrics taken from life experience, this new generation of rockers are finding personal freedom and shaping a new Beijing sound—Punk rock is being reborn in a place you would least expect for it to take root and grow yet the perfect environment for such a movement to thrive.

In an exclusive interview, Jefford gave SPIN Earth the backstory to his film.

So what is the story behind you and China? Were you there because of Beijing Punk or did the movie come about through some sort of natural progression?

I was in the middle of raising money for my film (Get Huge) and was in Las Vegas with an investor and musician Paul Turner. We had backstage passes to a punk festival. There I ended up on stage filming Flava Flav and Public Enemy and met Brian Hardgroove. Through that association I heard about the punk scene in Beijing and decided to fly to there to take a look for myself. With the help of producers Paul Turner, Mike Kramer and Alex Scollay, I took two trips and met the bands Demerit, Misandao, Hedgehog and PK14.

Nevin Domer, of Maybe Mars in Beijing, was my local hook-up for all these bands and he was my guide to getting access. After the introductions and the weird formality of interviews, I ate with them, hung out with them, lived with them and really bonded with the bands. It's the fact we all became friends that allowed for such extraordinary access. I was also able to collaborate with Matthew Niederhauser whose iconic portraits of the bands added another artistic layer to the film. Eventually I came back to Beijing with a second cameraman, Alex Kyriakidis, and we followed them into gigs, down dark alleys, into all kinds of Punk madness and more often than not, we partied with them too. We became part of the scene to shoot it.

Watching the clips it’s clear you became buddies with the bands and musicians you followed—something that adds charm to the film—and you didn’t have issues including footage alluding to this.

I am a filmmaker, not a journalist, and I approached Beijing Punk as a narrative, not a documentary. I was there to make a movie about punk, not teddy bears. So we got into the scene and really lived it. I ended up featuring in the film because the interaction with the bands was so funny. I didn't want to be in my movie and I didn’t want to put my camera man in, but because of the friendship we developed, the shared feeling of struggle—punk troubles are similar to those of the independent filmmaker—we became part of the movie naturally and I decided to leave it in. They all knew I loved what I was seeing and that I got the grim humor of their situation.

How did you go about choosing the bands and music scene experts interviewed in the film?

A Punk in China? Not the first association you make so a lot of it was me charmed by the punks and them laughing at me laughing at them. But what really cemented the friendship, I think, is that I am a writer and I am a lyric person. I chose bands whose lyrics I was interested in and who said things that rang true to my sense of truth. And there is a lot of strident truth being sung in Beijing, let me tell you.

Demerit particularly is saying some heavy things, positive but heavy, punk and deep. The lead singer Spike has a hard core opinion in a police state. Songs like "Fight your Apathy", "Voice of the People" and particularly "Live or Die" really make you think; "would I be singing this song and putting this CD out in China?" That takes brass balls. I really dig that Spike and Demerit are living the punk life and not just wearing it.

Misandao may be the NWA of Beijing and lead singer Leijun is shouting things that no one says in the West, let alone in Beijing. Shouting at police and taking a stand on things like poverty and quality of life for the working class. He's doing this while being a Skinhead in China—kind of a vulnerable position to start from!

Atom of Hedgehog, a tiny girl and surely the smallest drummer in Beijing, is POUNDING the drums harder than any man can and the audience loves her for it. I've watched Hedgehog, live with tight lyrics and superb arrangements, transform a mob of blind by whiskey drunks into a transfixed, cheering and dancing throng.

Then there is PK14 (the thinking man's Punk band) whose lyrics will stand the hairs up on the back of your neck when you really understand what they are saying about conformity, love and life in an environment of state control. Nights when they perform, like the ones we caught on film, make me certain these bands would be huge if they toured the West. Especially if people felt what I felt in the crowd of a tiny, smokey club like D-22 in the Haidian district of Beijing.

The term “communist” doesn’t always come to mind when thinking about China even though it is under communist government rule. Were you ever freaked or worried you might get mixed up in trouble because you were filming citizens and specifically the “undesirable” subculture of punks?

It's true China's brand of communism is not as serious as Russia in the 70's! But for me, what I found alarming is the rigid mental control of people. Sure you can think what you want but growing up in that environment must limit your view of the possible. I saw a lot of people doing "busy work" jobs like guards standing around wasting their lives guarding nothing, clerks filling in paper work to satisfy a voracious bureaucracy. It made me wonder about the collateral damage of wasted lives and the conclusion that this re-branded communism was not so cool.

I was never worried about my own safety. I was pretty certain we would just get ejected if we REALLY upset the police, and we had a couple of police run ins. Though my Mandarin is a little rusty, there were a few instances of heated shouting from police and some of what I assume was "you can't film here anymore" but we moved along and kept the more extreme expressions of our punk experience indoors and amongst friends.

As for the people we filmed, I've worried a lot about their safety. There is a lot of sensational stuff I've had to drop from the film for fear someone might end up in trouble. These are good, good people who have an opinion in a place where having an opinion can be dangerous. The thing is, these people are not political. They are human. They want people to be free to think; they want to laugh, drink, screw, fight and love life. They aren't interested in overthrowing anything, but they do want people to be free and for a man’s thinking to be free and unfettered. They know there is an absolute line you don't cross. These punks know that line and they like to dance on it.

Bet you have some wild drinking stories to share. Codeine cough syrup party time?

We certainly drank with the bands after the shooting was done every day and yes we even tried the local specialty getting drunk on codeine cough syrup with Beijing skinheads Misandao. They drank us under the table and my cameraman went into some kind of diabetic shock at one point.

We got the poor guy to a doctor and he lived. He is French and of pretty tough character, but "Chinese Hardcore" (the term for serious liquor) experimentation got the best of us. We lived through it, loved it all, and laugh about those drunken nights now. Plenty of projectile vomiting—some caught in the film and indeed on the camera. Beijing remains for me the land of great music, kindred spirits and unspeakable hangovers.

Punks in China kick ass. What do you think is their allure?

They are as serious about Punk as I am about film making. I will never complain about how hard film making is again. It's tough to make films, but its tougher being a punk in China.

There's a lot of excited emotion attached to the underground/indie music scene in China. Maybe I think this because it's young, raw, experimental and honestly, I don’t have any expectations and am always surprised.

I get excited about what I saw in Beijing because the people are excited and you connect with the rawness of the expression. With the world attention on China and the meltdown of the world economy, China could end up a cultural leader in the way America is now. With the rebirth of punk in Beijing we may be witnessing the modern London and New York of the 1970's in these smoky little clubs of Beijing. A club like D-22 could be the new CBGB.

Last words...what you really want audiences to know about your film, China’s scene, the punks, the culture....

I wanted to make a movie about rebellion. Then I fell in love with the punks of Beijing, the passion they have for punk music and the inherent comedy of their situation. These bands—Demerit, Misandao, PK14, Hedgehog and manager Nevin Domer—are an inspiration to me as a filmmaker.

Try gigging in China, where the whole weight of the political culture is lined up against you. They get up every day and sing their truths living the life of the underground musician despite state suspicion and public apathy. This film was made to celebrate that rebellious spirit and to help them get the attention of the world. ⓢ

Jefford is currently in London working on tying up distribution for Beijing Punk. He also just worked on Upaj, which is about a dance guru in India, is looking forward to directing and shooting his film Get Huge (a comedy about weightlifting) in New Mexico, and intends to continue making films and getting on with "the work." Jefford still keeps in touch with the bands from Beijing and he and Domer (Maybe Mars) hope to make a US tour happen for them in the future.

Official site for Beijing Punk
Click here to see more sample footage of the feature length film.
More film information here.

Demerit MySpace
Misandao MySpace
PK14 MySpace
Maybe Mars MySpace
More of Hedgehog on SPIN Earth

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