On Jan 1, 2017, Taiwan band, Sodagreen, announced a three-year break, leaving fans shocked and sad. The band was founded in 2001 by six students of the National Chengchi University in Taiwan and was a hit on the local indie music scene. Later, the band, which was an award-winner at the Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards, gained a large fan base in Asia.

During their break, some of the members furthered their studies abroad while the bassist Shie Shin-yi got married and became a mother.

The lead vocalist Wu Tsing-fong, who is also the songwriter of the band, launched a solo career with his debut solo album, Spaceman, featuring 12 original songs, on Sept 6.

Speaking about the break, Wu says: "I spent the first year at home reading over 100 books and traveling to watch concerts of my favorite singer-songwriters, like American singer-songwriter Tori Amos.

"I had gotten used to a busy life with the band, releasing albums and performing worldwide. And suddenly I didn't know what to do. I was very anxious then."

The break from the band offered Wu a chance to slow down. And he wanted to have a totally different lifestyle so he stopped writing songs in the first year. However, in April 2018, when he was invited to perform as a soloist at the SpringWave Music & Art Festival held annually in Kenting, Wu thought about launching a solo career. And since he had been with the band for many years, Wu didn't have any solo works. So, to perform at the festival, Wu wrote a song, entitled Everybody Woohoo.

At 36, the singer-songwriter, who graduated from the National Chengchi University with a major in Chinese, is good in delivering and portraying emotions through his poetic and romantic lyrics, though he is shy in public.

Speaking about the album, he said: "It turned out to be a very personal work about my fear, courage, loneliness and my communication with other people.

"Music can inspire the work that brings changes. My feelings are like pieces scattered around on the ground, which have been in me for a long time. I picked them up little by little while writing the songs.

"I don't play any instrument on the album but a little piano. And without the help of the band members, I completed the songs with my piano playing and humming," he adds.

The title song, Spaceman, has an intro of over one minute, involving musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, violin and drums, and tells the story of a spaceman returning to Earth after years in a space station alone.

Another song, The Carnival of Babel, was inspired by a novel, The Tower of Babel by Australian writer Morris West, which Wu read in 2017.

"None of the songs are like what I wrote for Sodagreen. And I was very surprised when the album was completed," Wu says. "At the same time, I felt nervous because with the band I felt safe. Now, I am a soloist and I have to face people on my own."

Some of his fans posted on Wu's Sina Weibo account, which has over 10 million followers, saying that "you are capable of turning something ordinary into a romance", while others look forward to his reunion with Sodagreen.

During the past three years, Wu also showed up at reality shows, such as a talent show, The Coming One, filmed for the Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video; and The Big Band, which was produced by iQiyi and focused on Chinese indie rock bands.

"I would never attend those shows if I was with the band as I was afraid of speaking in public. But now I have opened up and have adjusted to my new role as a soloist," he says.

The three-year break of Sodagreen is coming to an end soon. Though he didn't disclose the plan of the band, Wu insists that he will return to the band as vocalist and his solo career will be suspended.

"I have kind of enjoyed the transition between my role with the band and my role as a soloist. It's like different ways of expressing myself," Wu says.