Rock star finds her own beat

"I used to play on the stage with my bandmates, who are all men. This time, I am all by myself, performing with female artists," says Zhao, who considered the reality show as one of the biggest challenges of her career so far. "My goal is to explore myself and experience a life totally unlike the one I have with rock bands."

She prepared for a long time before she came to the reality show. She learned to dance, for example, which she had never done before. She also further practiced her bass techniques, some that she had never trained for previously. "The process of preparing myself for the reality show helped me to relieve my nervousness," says Zhao, who spent a month－h(huán)ours every day－learning to dance either as soloist or as a group dancer.

The rock music scene tends to be a boys' club, from genre to genre and from era to era. It is always eye-catching and alluring when a band has a female bassist because it rarely happens.

Besides her role as the bassist of New Pants, Zhao is also the leading vocalist and songwriter of rock band Twinkle Star. During the first episode of the reality show, she performed, Release Yourself, which she wrote and sang with Twinkle Star.