We were lucky to catch up with Junru Zhai recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Junru thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My most meaningful project is the single “Turns” which was released back in 2021. This song has accumulated over 50 million streams in Chinese DSP, and it’s undoubtedly my most known single.
The song is also used in a Chinese TV show “Let’s Meet Now” as the OP of every episode. This has led to audience from Taiwan to follow this song on Spotify, which gave this song some streams on Spotify as well.

These achievements I’ve listen shows that why it’s a meaningful song for my career. However, other than that, it’s also meaningful to me personally for the message and the process of making it.

In 2021, the year of Covid, the world was feeling a little out of it, and I went back to China since that year China had the virus contained(this is before Omicron obviously.) Everyone who enters in China has to quarantine for 14 days. The hotel are all randomly selected. Me, unfortunately, was selected to a not so ideal hotel. During my quarantine, I had nothing to do other than eat, play games, and sleep. It was at the last night of the quarantine, I felt the sense of freedom, and I was excited to finally move out of this little room that I can’t even find a space to do a push up. I heard the beat of Turns, and I wrote out the whole song in like 30 minutes, and I went to bought the beat exclusively.

The story doesn’t end here.

Because it’s a song about my childhood, a song that’s reminiscing of my past, I had a plan in my mind. I wanted to create a studio in the apartment where I grew up in, and I want to finish the song there. So I did, after I got back to Beijing, I moved to our family’s old apartment, and I built a studio in there.

The studio took about a month to built, and after it’s finished, this was my first project in the studio. I thought everything was all meant to be.

It’s also meaningful to me because this is a song I appreciate and people liked it as well. This is one that’s gonna last stand through the test of time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Lionzed, and I’m an artist from China. I came to the US for high school education and ever since then, I’ve been in the States.

I finished my graduate study in Berklee College of Music NYC this year in June, and now I’m working as a freelance songwriter, producer, and content creator. I can write songs, produce a track, mix and master, and also make video content to promote music.

I started making music in 2017.9.17. It was an ordinary afternoon, and I was bored in my room. This was back in Michigan. As I was playing with the Macbook Pro I just bought, I found a software that’s called garage band. Because it had a guitar on it so I clicked on it, and that click was like opening the gate to my destiny. I sat there for 7 hours straight, doesn’t want to eat or do anything else. That was the first time I felt that kind of feeling and energy in my life. Here I am now, still playing with music, still have that kind of passion.

As far as my brand, I think branding has a lot to do with visual elements. I suck at those, so it’s quite hard for me to create a brand when my aesthetic are not unified with the music I made. My style of music keeps changing as well, which makes it even harder. To description myself I can only say I’m positive, funny, and energetic. This is definitely something I’m working on right now.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me is to influencing other people’s life and make it better. I was fortunate that my music was heard quickly after I start to release them back in China. Then I start to get a lot of DMs from my audiences telling me how much they appreciate my music, and about how my music gave them strength. I would keep receiving these DMs throughout these years, and some of them is really heart warming. I think this is the meaning of my music, to have an influence in this world, and to make it better.

Now because I’m in New York, when I perform, or when I meet new friends. Quite a few of them actually either heard my songs before or watched my content before. I met a couple the other day in my building’s elevator who asked me if I am a content creator on Little Red Book. These encounters always lighten up my days and it’s surely rewarding.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

There’s re two biggest pivot in my career, and I am facing one of them right now.

At first it was my identity pivot. I was in high school when I first released music. I was a producer and an artist at the same time. People liked my beats at first, and I was making some money through selling beats. However, when my songs start to get popular as well, I had to make a decision to whether be an artist or keep selling beats. Many people will say you can be both. Well yes, but I really can’t. I was being a full time student, so I don’t have time to work two things at the same time if I want to get good quality result. Moreover, making music or beats are both consuming my creative energy, and I would want to save it to use on either making beats or writing songs.

At that time I decided to be an artist and songwriter. So I stopped uploading beats, and I only released my music. I didn’t stop producing but it’s just I will no longer market it as my main identity. Honestly looking back at it, if I sticked with making beats, I would’ve probably made a lot of money by now since the producer friend I had back then now are all working with the top rappers in the industry. However, I don’t regret my decision because I think to say what I want to say, and perform it out really matters to me. Also, I made a couple hit here and there as well. So after all not so bad.

Another pivot which I am facing now is to whether I should transition to making Christian music. I try to avoid this theme earlier because my journey of faith is totally another wonderful story for another time. But long story short, I felt God has been calling me to make Christian music. However, I was thinking about moving back to China. after this year. Christian music will be hard to thrive in China. To make Christian music means I would have to stay in the US proboblsy, which means really start to market myself in non-Chinese market. I haven’t done it before, and I don’t know how it will go. However, I believe if it’s God’s calling, he will provide for me. So I’ve pretty much made the decision to make Christian music. It’s just I have some songs I have to release before I really commit myself into becoming a Christian Artist. Well I am Christian artist already, i meant branding around my faith.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Linktr.ee/Lionzeddd
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionzeddd/profilecard/?igsh=aDY2OXk2OXA1bHYw
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@icookmusic?si=ULCPilqAihcJbkBy
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/DMPK5nkh5b8rEfvb6
• Other: Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/artist/54xv86C8J3xaUnT7jTLMys?si=T8KyoJ23RBKDLnRQGjGC-g

Image Credits

Image 2/3 taken by @Onlyabowl