AKMU Talks about How They Had YG Color in Them Even Before They Joined the Company
[OSEN=박소영 기자] 2012 was the year in which audition shows were a big boom. A genius sibling duo stole the hearts of the heads of SM, YG and JYP as well as the viewers. All the songs they released swept the charts. They are LEE CHAN HYUK and LEE SU HYUN.
They were once shy teenagers who used to introduce themselves as a group that just came from Mongolia. Now, it has been four years since their debut. LEE CHAN HYUK is old enough to consider joining the military, and LEE SU HYUN will turn twenty soon. We met the brother and sister duo at the YG Building in Hapjung-dong.
◆AKMU is innocent but not naïve.
AKMU released “SPRING” in May last year and “WINTER”, the second album of the series, on January 3. All the eight songs in the album received acclaim from music critics, and the title song “Last goodbye” swept the charts against fierce competition.
“The album is a story of a person from the moment when he is born. He grows and faces difficulties, and the last song is about when he comes back home and rest, reminiscing about the old days. When we released “SPRING” album last year, the songs in this album were already made, but we had to control the release date and that’s why they are released now.”(LEE CHAN HYUK)
“It’s the first time we released an album in the winter. I hope the songs can warm up people’s hearts. We’ve released a lot of songs in the spring, upbeat songs that go well with the nice weather. But this time, we wanted to show a different side, a mature side of us, not like when we sang “Don’t Twist Your Legs”. A group that is innocent but not naïve. AKMU is fresh in the spring, exciting in the summer, sentimental in the autumn, and mature in the winter.” (LEE SU HYUN)
◆”Affected by YG style? Not at all.”
It’s difficult to talk about AKMU without mentioning YG Entertainment. When AKMU became the winner of K Pop Star Season 2 in 2012, some fans were surprised with their decision to join YG. But, AKMU said that they had no other agency in mind other than YG. They say YG runs in their blood.
“Our agency didn’t interfere a bit when we made this album. We hardly ever got to see Mr. Yang. So much so that we started thinking that he lost interest in us (laughter). He always praises us saying that all our songs are great. I was touched when TABLO said that he really likes the lyrics of our songs in this album because I really admire TABLO’s lyrics.” (LEE CHAN HYUK)
“We’ve been with YG for three years now, but our music hasn’t changed. If you ask the percentage of YG style in our music, I would say zero. YG hasn’t affected us in terms of music. Our music has always had a hint of YG style. We knew even before we joined YG that we would go well with YG although people may have not known this. You wouldn’t be able to imagine how often we listened to YG music when we were growing up.”
“When we started doing K Pop Star, we didn’t think that we would win, so we didn’t think about joining YG. But when we made it to the top three, winning became a big possibility, and that’s when we started to consider joining YG. The only thing that has changed after we joined YG is that I’ve become more interested in fashion. In terms of music, nothing has changed. This is the style of music that we always wanted to do.” (LEE CHAN HYUK)
“We’ve learned a lot. YG concerts are known to be fun. We go and see the concerts every time, and we learn a lot. YG has a lot of talented artists in diverse genres not just hiphop artists. So, we can learn a lot from them.” (LEE SU HYUN)
2017. 1. 15.
