Interview with Kyuho from Madmans Esprit

After multiple hindrances, finally, I present an interview with Kyuho, founder of a South Korean band Madmans Esprit. At the time of the interview I was an Asian studies, Korean language major student of University of Latvia. This interview was included as a part of my bachelor's thesis on Korean alternative music scene. I am extremely thankful to them for giving me this chance and agreeing to do this interview.

(Santa Marija Kivriņa)

What is your main audience? (Age, gender etc.) What’s the ratio between Korean and foreign listeners at live shows?

I would say our main demographic is around the late teens to early twenties. We have mostly female fans, but we do have many LGBTQ+ people too. Before the Covid-19 situation, I would say we had around 30% foreign fans at our live shows in Korea. Now there are more Koreans.

Are there some differences between Korean and Western listeners? If yes, what kind?

If they are at the venue for us, I don’t see that much difference in them. But if they just came to the venue randomly for a party or something, Western people can be very loud during the show.

Korean people tend to stay very quiet while the band’s playing. Of course they still clap and shout and stuff after a song ends, but if the song was very sad or serious, they sometimes stay extra silent.

I think there’s a cultural difference. I don’t think the Western people are doing anything wrong. I just personally prefer when people are not consuming my music as BGM.

Apart from when they are at the live shows, how the Korean and Western fans act can be very different but of course it differs from person to person.

Western fans tend to keep more distance but Korean fans often try to become a bit more personal. To me it is a strange concept. I think it comes from the idol culture, how the K-pop idols and their core fans have almost some sort of a close relationship. Sometimes I feel like there’s also this Anime culture, liking us like how people like some fictional characters from a cartoon. But like I said earlier, it’s hard to generalize.

How big usually are the audiences?

I would say around 100 people or sometimes a bit more.

What are the main/most popular venues these days where indie music is played?

Honestly, there are not that many indie venues left in Korea anymore so all that are still left are the main and most popular ones. I won’t mention the names, but you could look up our previous posters.

There are around 3-4 venues or so left in Seoul with a proper stage and backstage, where regular bands can afford to rent or be called to the club-organized concerts. They can fit normally less than 100 people.

There are 3-4 other bigger venues, where 200~400 people could fit but if the band’s a tiny bit smaller than us, they can’t afford that venue at all.

Does doing shows actually provide some substantial income or is it more of a coming together of enthusiasts and maintaining a scene?

Having shows will absolutely not provide any meaningful income. Most of our income comes from selling merch. As an inside joke many bands from the scene say we sell T-shirts and making music is for the advertisement. But we are a band. We make and play music. That’s what we do.

How active the scene used to be, how is it now, and what are your predictions of how it will change in the future? Why so?

The scene used to be more active back in the 90’s~00’s. But there has been always a great monopoly in the Korean music scene, whether it’s mainstream or indie. There have always been some bands that started from the indie scene and became huge but it’s always the certain type of sound that the majority doesn’t find offensive which I despise. Underground scene is nonexistent in Korea. It’s not sustainable for one or two bands to keep the scene alive alone.

In Korea, the opinion of the majority is the number one priority. It affects practically everything happening in Korea. Many people hide what they really like from the other people. Mainstream media will censor what the majority might find weird. People with power, people who decide the flow of cultural capital will let the underground culture die out.

So I would say the future of the Korean indie scene is pretty dim, boring and harmless.

The only way out I see is to be popular outside of Korea and get re-imported. Then suddenly all the people will be super patriotic and start to act like it’s the new shit.

What are some opinions and reactions of the locals when it comes to your music and lyrics?

Many think it’s too extreme. Some think it’s total garbage. But also some think it’s the greatest shit ever. If they are already familiar with this kind of music, they are often more positive. But it’s pretty rare that someone’s already familiar with this genre.

Is there a certain message or an aim indie bands these days want to convey (through lyrics, for example) or each band just wants to express themselves musically?

I think the dominant themes of Korean indie music are often the small happiness you can find in your life, love stories, summer breeze, a cat, funny and smart-ish word plays, being dreamy and so on. Very light hearted themes. People don’t normally expect nor like heavy/serious topics in my opinion. But of course every band has a different theme.

Are there any other hindrances to alternative music activities except for the obvious dominance of the mainstream K-pop industry? Any political, economic, social problems that might affect them?

5~6 years ago, the Korean government had a black list of artists who were against the government. They had a difficulty continuing their activity as they were practically banned from making public appearances. Nowadays it’s better, I believe.

Even though South Korea’s getting richer every day, the wage gap between the classes is still very extreme. There’s not enough capital shared with underground culture. The people in the scene can’t sustain their lifestyle on their own which makes the quality of the scene lower, makes people leave the scene and deters people from joining the scene.

South Korea has extremely high working/studying hours and lacks the balance of free time. There’s a very competitive atmosphere around the society and it is in fact very difficult to sustain life. People are often discouraged to do anything that’s not part of the mainstream lifestyle.

Also there’s a lot of pressure not to stand out. People are often scared that they are not part of the majority. That also discourages people from dedicating themselves to their subculture.

How would you rate today’s Korean indie/rock/metal music? How is it doing musically in general? (Is it stagnating or are there musicians bringing in something new and original)

It’s not like the bands are worse at playing their instruments here, I would say actually Korean musicians are more serious about their profession. In fact, I find the average Korean musicians better at playing than the others I met but in terms of creativity, the ability to read the trend and experiment, Korean bands are pretty bad. They often copy trends at least a decade old and sing in broken English. I would prefer much more to hear something original and unique to them. There are of course many brilliant artists here too but the general direction is much less interesting/innovative than what I’ve seen overseas. It’s just very harmless and boring.

As there are and have been some musicians that have made the transition from being independent to entering a commercial company, what are the reactions of the rest of the scene? Is it looked down upon these days? What is your opinion of such musicians?

Most bands disband because they cannot continue their career that far. So, I’m happy for the ones who made it. But also entering a big company isn’t always a good thing. Joining a big commercial company means you have zero control of your own musicality. Many change their musical direction and are sometimes forced to make a certain type of music. Sometimes they are abused by the company and end up disbanding. I guess everyone could have a different opinion on this matter, depending on what they want from their career.

What made you want to become a musician?

I think it was just very natural to me. I’ve never had an exact moment when I decided to become a musician. I grew up under parents who are big music lovers. I started to write music around when I was 13 years old. It all just happened naturally.

What made you decide to be an independent artist and not be under a big company?

Because there were only idol groups and ballade singers under the big companies and that’s not the kind of music I wanted to make.

Since you recently made your own label No Authority, what do you aim to accomplish with it?

There has never been a proper label that could support my kind of music domestically/overseas. I wanted to have a better system for my band. Also there are other musicians in a similar situation to mine. I want to support them to continue their activity. It would be great if this could be an entire movement for bands like us and we could do something greater in the future.

What do you think influences the possibility of gaining some recognition in Korea outside of the K-pop industry?/What could attract more attention to indie bands?

There are definitely more international fans coming from the K-pop scene. But of course K-pop culture is a pop culture with massive capital and manpower. What people expect from K-pop idols wouldn’t fit what the indie musicians are doing in the end. International recognition is definitely helping the bands out a lot, including mine. But mostly, the mainstream media and the government policies must change into accepting more diversity in the society. Korea itself is rich enough, it’s just not distributed.

How has the pandemic affected your activities? Of course, it put a financial strain on all independent artists, but maybe there were some positive changes?

It was dreadful, as you can expect. The positive change would be that we had to be more creative to reach people at home; online live-streams and different kinds of sales strategy and so on. We are hoping to soon be able to recover the loss of the past 2 years.

Maybe you have some additional comments or suggestions regarding the subject and my research?

It was interesting to see someone talking about the Korean indie scene because, honestly, even most Koreans wouldn’t really know about the existence of it that well. In my personal opinion, Korean “indie” lost the meaning of being “independent” a long time ago. Even in the indie scene, the bands who follow the commercially viable path of the majority are getting the support. Not only by the labels but by the people too. There’s nothing wrong with the bands musically. The problem is that only a certain type of music survives, even in the indie scene. There must be complex social reasons why it’s so neoliberal. If you could discover more of the bands who are not following that law and introduce them to the world. That would have to be very exciting.