Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

We were shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the sudden and inexplicable passing of Wayne ‘Thunder’ Seah of the rock group The Suns (formerly the Boredphucks).

Wayne, San and J-Boss have been great friends and supporters of TalkingCock and Singapore Dreaming over the years.

They composed and performed the hit song, ‘It’s a Beautiful Day’ for TalkingCock the Movie and for Singapore Dreaming, Wayne also helped us do some of the background audio, including some hilarious fake radio ads and programmes such as ‘The Deadly Chicken Wings of Wen Chou Chou’ (we hope to upload some of these soon).

Just a few months before he passed, we also discussed collaborating on future projects together.

Wayne was an extremely talented and incredibly friendly person and we will miss him dearly. We were honoured to have known him. Singapore is poorer for his loss.

Of course, we’re not alone in our grief and love for this very special Singaporean. There’s a benefit/tribute concert THIS SATURDAY, 23 JUNE 2007 at 3 pm at FAR EAST SQUARE, and we urge you to go.

There are great acts like Electrico, Force Vomit and a specially-reunited Humpback Oak - all playing to remember Wayne, with proceeds going to Music for Good, a non-profit arts group. It’s only $10, it’s for a really good cause, so GO!!!

Wayne, we miss you! Remember the Thunder!
Meanwhile, I wrote the following piece which was published in the Sunday Times on 3 June 2006:

Sunday Times 3 June 2006
Rock in Peace, Wayne
by Colin Goh in New York

I was shocked and saddened to learn of the recent passing of Wayne ‘Thunder’ Seah.

Wayne played drums for the rock band, The Suns, the artists formerly known as the Boredphucks (and occasionally, to appease the prudes, the ‘Boredpucks’). He was also a friend.

I got to know Wayne when he emailed me in 2001. He said he was a fan of TalkingCock.com, and if I ever needed music, not to feel pai seh to ask. I was already a big fan of their hit ‘Zoe Tay’ – an irreverent, raucous and unapologetically Singaporean composition unlike anything the country had produced at that point – and coincidentally, I also needed a song for the soundtrack to TalkingCock the Movie.

After viewing a rough cut in my living room, Wayne, Sanjeev and Justin obliged by composing a deliriously cheesy ditty called ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’, which I can only describe as a Bollywood romp through Syed Alwi Road.

I still remember the night we recorded it, in a small, dimly-lit studio deep in the recesses of Prinsep Street. We were convulsed with giggles the entire time, and it’s no wonder, with lyrics like, “I voke up early in the morning today, and took a valk to the mama shop!” It was one of the happiest memories I have of making TalkingCock the Movie. The film had famously attracted all sorts of problems (this was during Singapore’s decidedly less liberal era of film censorship) and there were many times when I considered throwing in the towel and returning to my former career as a lawyer. However, the pleasure of collaborating with likeminded fellows made me realize I could never truly make that u-turn.

Wayne was especially inspirational. For someone so young, he’d developed a cheerfully stoic attitude to adversity – the kind we associate with monks or wizened bluesmen. The band had been facing their fair share of setbacks at the time too, but Wayne always saw them as roadbumps that simply made their inexorable rise to stardom more colourful. As it turned out, ‘Beautiful Day’ was probably the most successful thing about the movie. It garnered an impressive amount of airplay, and I was very grateful.

Wayne and I kept in touch. He’d occasionally send me contributions for the Coxford Singlish Dictionary (he’s responsible for ‘Ping Peh Lang Kio’ and ‘Ba Long Long’), and I was very impressed when he informed me that the Boredphucks had changed their names to ‘The Suns’ and were now working the Australian indie band circuit. Again, I was impressed – this was a terribly hardgoing route, but Wayne saw it as “kungfu training”.

Wayne helped us again with Singapore Dreaming. We wanted authentically Singaporean sounds to form the aural backdrop of the film – trucks reversing, the sigh and whine of buses stopping and leaving, distant karaoke – and Wayne and Sanjeev, back on holiday, popped by to help us compose fake jingles and programmes which were ostensibly leaking into the protagonists’ HDB flat from their neighbour’s TV. Since no one could really hear exactly what was being said, we decided to have fun.

Wayne was responsible for two particularly inspired jingles. The first was for the fictitious ‘Auntie-Auntie Beer’, which went, “Auntie-Auntie pijiu, Auntie-Auntie pijiu, he le ke yi zuo jiu jiu!” (“Auntie Auntie Beer – drink it and you can do it all night long!”) The second was a spoof of the Beijing 101 hair loss product ads, whose slogan ran: “Dalian san ling san, yong le tou fa xiang Tai San!” (“Dalian 303 - for hair like Tarzan!”) He was also a combatant in our faux martial arts serial, The Deadly Chicken Wings of Wen Chou Chou. By the end of the evening, our stomachs were cramping up from too much laughing. Once again, I owed one of the most enjoyable experiences of my moviemaking career to Wayne.

By this time, Wayne was already moving into doing more producing work, and I recommended him for several advertising gigs. A client even called me to thank me for introducing him to someone who was both creative and hardworking. Wayne and I had also begun discussing potential collaborations, and I gave him space on my server to experiment. There’s still a folder there marked ‘Wayne’, and I haven’t the heart to clear it.

Wayne was someone who refused to let hardship and narrow-mindedness discourage him. He was an inspiration to all of us who struggle to do what we love. If there’s a heaven, I know Wayne Thunder is there, and he’s probably lining up the angels for a harp and drum jam, and selling souvenir t-shirts too.

Thanks for all the music and laughter, my friend. Rock in peace.

A special tribute concert in honour of Wayne will be held on 23 June at Far East Square. Details are at www.waynethunder.com

Share on Facebook