Freddy Lim from Chthonic is not the average leader of a death metal band. He is also a member of the Parliament of Taiwan.

Taiwan has struggled for decades to establish formal independence from China. The political history of this rupture is deep and somewhat complex and I won’t dwell on it too much here. However, it’s fair to say that Lim and Chthonic have been one of the loudest voices in this fight. Lim is convinced enough of this issue that he successfully ran in the 2016 election and won a second term in 2020.

Chthonic doesn’t separate his feelings about authoritarian regimes from his music, with songs like “Supreme pain for the tyrant” and “Next Republic. “

As tensions have intensified between China and Taiwan lately, HBO Last week tonight with John Oliver decided to feature the conflict on last Sunday’s show. During the segment, Oliver referred to Lim in his coverage.

Oliver explained that the Taiwanese Olympians cannot compete under their own flag but must instead fly the pseudo-official Chinese-Taipei flag. (All due to a deal made with the IOC in the ’80s so that China didn’t put their panties in a pile.) Oliver then presents a rant from Freddy Lim during the 2012 games where Lim talks about “Chinese-fucking-Taipei.” The video is wedged back just a bit for context.

Last week tonight with John Oliver Taiwan addresses

Although Oliver doesn’t talk about it here, he notes that Lim is a member of the Taiwanese parliament later in the video at 4:50 p.m.

As of this writing, Freddy is still fighting the good fight for Taiwan independence, calling on political rivals who target lawmakers like Lin with threats to oust them from government.

Lim is also a master organizer when it comes to music promotion. You might remember a frowning (and perhaps jealously) story seven months ago about how Taiwan hosted a 90,000-person music festival in the midst of a pandemic. Lim, the founder of the Megaport party, cited citizens’ willingness to cooperate with mask warrants and distancing protocols which showed “the high level of democracy in Taiwanese society.”