TWO years after the release of AD 3000, Big Bag are back following the release of their fifth album, Telepunk, on June 20. Last week Timeout caught up with Big Bag’s lead singer, Han Htoo Lwin (better known as Kyar Pauk), and asked him about the new album, singing in English and writing songs about his family.

Timeout: What’s different about Telepunk?

Han Htoo Lwin: It’s more like a Big Bag album than just my own work. On previous albums, I had a lot of influence on the whole music production process. But Telepunk is produced by mixing the ideas of all the band members. Though I did still compose most of the songs, some of them were changed completely because of input from the other band members. And we have a new bassist, Ye Zaw Myo, and his style has also changed Big Bag, I think.

What influenced you while you were making the album?

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club! I listened to their songs a lot and that made me want to create more of a rock ’n’ roll album. Originally, I wanted to make Telepunk similar to AD 3000 but I know only a few people liked the songs on AD 3000, they were really to my own taste. So on Telepunk, I also put some songs which I guess you could say are more to the audience’s taste.

How was it writing about your wife, Zone Zone, on the song “Kyanoke Ei Achar Tawet” (My Better Half)?

As you know, A Yoe (a composer and singer) also writes about his wife jokingly and I wanted to do like this. Of course, I married her because I love her. But it’s a bit over the top if I write about our relationship and how much I love her. So, I decided to compose a song to remember our funny moments together.

What was Zone Zone’s reaction when she heard the song?

She told me not to put it in the album because she’s shy. I had to convince her!

Do you also plan to compose a song about your daughter?

I have tried but it’s a little difficult, I often find it difficult to write about someone I share a deep relationship with. Usually I just write about events.

What do you see for her in the future?

I can’t imagine. We mainly let her do what she wants — I want her to play freely in her childhood and become mature by herself.

In future, will we see more English songs like Telepunk’s “See Green”?

Yeah, I want to release an English album. But I think only a few fans would listen to the whole thing. As you know, some local fans don’t like us even saying a few Eng-lish words on stage, they shout ‘Hey, talk in [Myan-mar],’ to us. I’m not that crazy about English but I would like other nationalities to under-stand our music.

How about your future music styles?

Telepunk is like a fusion of the music we are influenced by right now. So what we produce depends on the time, our experiences and the music we listen to. Still, I’m quite satisfied with Telepunk as it totally represents Big Bag. As we get older, we don’t want to make such aggressive music anymore.

Do you have any other news for fans?

We plan to perform a one band show and will arrange an unplugged section in the middle of the show.

It’s going to take quite a while to release our next album because we all feel really tired after Telepunk. It took two years for us to make an album after AD 3000. We rehearsed a lot and sometimes we didn’t even want to look at each other. But we will be keeping in touch because we are going to play on my father’s (singer Ringo) new album.