Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau. [Photo provided to China Daily]

That was at the Starlight Live, now called the Tango club, in Beijing. All tickets, 1,600 of them, were sold, he says, and as the band walked to the front of the stage, the curtain fell and those in the audience waved red or green plastic fans at them crazily.

"It was the first time I had played before so many people," Groenewegen-Lau says, in a cafe on the south gate of Chaoyang Park in Beijing.

Groenewegen-Lau, who has just been swimming when he speaks with China Daily, orders a smoothie and then proceeds to ruminate, in slowly delivered standard Mandarin, about his musical career and the early days of Beijing rock..

In the two years to the end of last year he was drummer in the band Second Hand Rose, but he quit this year, he says, and drumming is more of a hobby now.

"Second Hand Rose is a very professional rock band, and I was having to give so much time to it that I could find no time to write anymore. I identify myself more as an intellectual, more adept at thinking and writing."

Besides writing and drumming, he teaches American students Chinese culture at a school in Wudaokou, Beijing. In doing that he leans heavily on Chinese pop music, including local rock, the Taiwan pop star Jay Chou, and hit songs such as My Skateboard Shoes and The Song of Fifth Ring.