【INTERVIEW】Theseus Marks Friendship and a Decade’s Investment with an All-Taiwanese Album/ 忒修斯全臺語專輯 未擇之路上的友情與定存
- Dylan Tang
- Aug 12
- 4 min read
Under the studio lights, Theseus members Yu-Hsiang and Jeffery Liu settled into their seats, laughing and teasing each other. Even before the interview officially began, the atmosphere was more like a reunion of old friends. Their new album, Be With Us, is not only their second release but also their first complete attempt at an all-Taiwanese-language production, a project Yu-Hsiang had been waiting years to realise.
“I’ve always wanted to release an all-Taiwanese album,” Yu-Hsiang said matter-of-factly. “After the first album came out, I told everyone my plan and they all turned me down: ‘One song here and there is fine, but who’s going to listen to a whole album?’” It was not until they were invited to work on the soundtrack for a television drama that he finally got the green light, what he calls “the licence to open fire”, to bring the album to life.
From a Poem to Ten Years of Self-Reflection
The title Be With Us takes its inspiration from Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. In a deserted wood, two paths diverge and you choose one, yet cannot help but wonder what sights the other might have offered.
“I think all the songs on this album are about the emotional journey that follows a choice,” Yu-Hsiang explained. “Using this title for our tenth anniversary feels like having a conversation with our younger selves from ten years ago.”
Only the day before, he had been settling digital royalty payments and sending shares to former bandmates from years past. “One of them, who now works in sales for a semiconductor company, said to me, ‘I have to thank my younger self for setting up a savings account.’” Yu-Hsiang shook his head with a smile. That “savings account” was more than just money; it was their shared youth.
Over the past decade, more than forty members have come and gone from Theseus. When asked why they keep going, Yu-Hsiang shrugged: “Something’s always happening, so we just keep at it.” As for losing money? “That’s just how it is.”
Jeffery painted a picture of their different life rhythms: “I used to be busy running a restaurant; now I get more sleep.” Yu-Hsiang, by contrast, only takes half a day off each week. “He only works half a day a week!” Yu-Hsiang shot back, and the banter between them only made them more endearing.
Reflecting on how they have changed, Yu-Hsiang said he has become “more tactful” and shoulders greater responsibility. “To support the trust others place in you, you have to give more.” Jeffery’s answer was straightforward: “I’ve gained weight and lost weight; my triglycerides are down and my HbA1c is lower.”
Building an Album by Poll
The making of Be With Us was distinctly democratic. Fifty musician friends and fifty non-musician friends were invited to vote on the album’s direction. The top ten songs went into further discussion, with the rest of the tracklist filled in to balance styles and moods.
“If both groups picked the same three songs, that meant they had real potential,” Yu-Hsiang said. In the end, Kids Return, Reply 2015 and A Moment of Romance topped the polls.
Kids Return, which was not included in the drama soundtrack, became the album’s opening track. Its inspiration came from the contrast between leaving home and staying behind: one person goes away to study, another stays in the hometown. Yu-Hsiang wove in the image of the casuarina tree, “the most common plant used as a windbreak along Taiwan’s motorways, like a friend back home who is always there waiting for you.”
Alongside its all-Taiwanese core, the album also experiments with mixing languages. The chorus of Little Song was originally going to be rewritten in Mandarin but ultimately remained in English. Yu-Hsiang is fascinated by tonal rhythm. “Taiwanese, Cantonese and Korean have rich tonal variation and so much to play with. Mandarin’s tonal pattern is more limited, but different languages can be used to distinguish sections in a song, adding depth.”
Looking ahead, he hopes to try blending Taiwanese, Japanese, Cantonese and English, using language itself as another instrument.
The Song That Feels Most Like Themselves
At the end of the interview, they were asked which song from the album felt most like them. Jeffery chose Reply 2015, saying he is the kind of person who does not overthink things. “When friends come to me with their troubles, I always tell them, ‘Don’t think too much, it’ll be fine, I’ll take you out for some fun later.’”
Yu-Hsiang could not choose between Little Song and Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Little Song is about “being able to find your friend no matter where in the world they are,” inspired by his late-night video calls with friends overseas. Before the Coffee Gets Cold reflects the happiness of long conversations. “The key to talking is listening. Once you’ve listened and understood, then you can really talk. To have friends you can talk to endlessly, without conditions, is one of the great blessings of my life.”
Be With Us is more than just a musical theme; it is also a starting point for self-reflection. Yu-Hsiang laughed that he has “something to regret every month”, the latest being a rescheduling that threw a project into disarray. Jeffery’s regret was “eating too much fine food in the past, now having to work to lose the weight”.
In the next five years, Yu-Hsiang hopes to keep exploring linguistic possibilities, blending sounds from different cultures into their music. As for the line between mainstream and indie, they smiled. “If more people listen, it’s mainstream. But music has always been a way of making friends, and the more people who hear it, the more friends we make.”
On Theseus’s own “road not taken”, every choice has been etched into their songs and music remains their most enduring conversation with the world.
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