K-pop
artist XIA speaks at the press conference after his showcase for his
second studio album “Incredible” held in Seoul, Korea on July 15, 2013.
[C-Jes Entertainment]
Q. It’s hard to not mention track “Funny Song.” Is is a song you had always wanted to try making?
XIA: When I took up my pen to write the lyrics for this song at the airport in Los Angeles after shooting the music video for “Incredible,” I couldn’t come up with the lyrics at first but thought of the title. It was a funny song. Its arrangement made it sound cool but it was funny and interesting. So although I tried several times to sing it with different lyrics and melodies, nothing stuck to it as much as “Isn’t this song funny?” [the song’s chorus line and also its Korean title] so that’s why I decided on it. I then started to write the lyrics, telling about the things I had wanted to say. My staff said, “What?” when I told them I would write the lyrics to a song called “Isn’t this song funny” (laughs). So they were a bit confused but I convinced them. It’s like my usual Tweet mentions and also a present for my fans. I wanted to write something funny rather than a mere ‘I love you.’ My staff members voices are inserted all through the song, and it lists their own buzzwords. It’s her over there [a spokeswoman with XIA] who gave a guide speech in an airplane in the song. She is the only one who went with one-take, and she is great. (laugh) I enjoyed working on the song.
Q. You seemed to paid a lot of attention to differentiating your singing style for each song. And it sounds like you expressed almost an excessive amount of emotions in “11AM,” which may be due to the influence you got from working on musicals. Has it changed your style of singing?
XIA: I wouldn’t deny it hasn’t influenced me at all but I felt that the way I sang each song suited it well. It’s also about how you interpret it because the musical industry sometimes says I sing like a pop star and music industry will sometimes say I sing like a musical actor. And yet nobody has presented a reference point. So I record my songs in the way I think I expresses them the best. I’m also inclined to not think too much when I’m singing because that may harm my emotions or flexibility, so I just let my emotions go with the flow as long as it doesn’t take certain skills to sing the songs such as R&B tunes.
Q. There seem to be more elements of American pop music in your new album compared to the first one, both in the song “Incredible” and its music video. So it seems to be directed more to the U.S. market than Japan. Is this the case or is it just the change in style?
XIA: I didn’t do any targeting but there are two things I took into consideration for this album. One was to sing the type of songs I wanted to express and the the other was to sing songs of genres that I hadn’t intended to but decided on because they were so good. I tried to find the mid point of singing those songs in my style but add some new bright colors. On the whole, there are only three to four American pop-styled tunes in the album and I’ve made it more Korean this time. I put aside automatic sounds such as from the synthesizer to give the album more variation but I don’t think I was trying to make it seem more like that [American]. It’s true that I like that kind of music though.
Q. Your vocals sound richer than before. Are there any differences to vocal style from the first album?
XIA: You may not be able to hear it because you’re listening to the finished product but in “Rainy Eyes,” there is something I did that is called ‘carving’ the sound. I wanted to bring that out for the song and create rough sounds like in Stevie Wonder’s songs and tunes we hear in jazz bars. So I emphasized that I wanted such aspects to be touched as little as possible when mixing the song. So in a way, you could say that’s another type of challenge I took up. “Chocolate Girl” is a genre I’d tried singing for our Japanese songs before but I hadn’t tried it in Korea. The song has a plain beginning but I thought I could show more variety with the song because of its lyrics and melody. I wanted not only change the music but also the vocals. Of course, I also included the kind of songs that I’ve pursued until now. I like Asian ballad-style songs so I chose to put “Don’t Leave” into the album. This album was a new challenge for me, starting with the hope of finding more variety in me and a new me. “11 am” is a style I hadn’t tried before either. It’s the song I recorded last. It could seem very plain and monotonous but I thought that monotone is something that would help deliver the feelings just as they were.
Q. What do you mean when you said you wanted to make music that is better than your own songs?
XIA: That’s the thought with which I started working on my first album last year as well. When you write songs for yourself, you can highlight your strengths through those songs because you know yourself the best. But you also put yourself at risk of locking yourself within a set boundary. Of course I’ve been writing songs and make them different but I could harm the quality of my album if I insisted on singing only my self-written songs. My priority lies in the album’s quality, so that my fans get to listen to the best music. So I went further [than just writing my own songs]. I’ve written many songs, such as dance tunes like “Tarantellegra” and Asian-styled ballad songs, but “Don’t Leave” was better than those so that’s why I went with it. They’re songs that’ll go into my album so I chose songs that were of better quality from an objective standpoint.
Q. What are you going to show in your upcoming Asia tour? How is it different from the previous one?
XIA: This time, it will be filled with tunes from the new album. I’ll also bring some of the best performances from last year and the recent original soundtracks “Love Is Like a Snowflake” [from Song Joong-ki’s “The Innocent Man”] and “Foolish Heart” [from Song Ji-hyo’s “The Fugitive of Joseon”] that I sang. About rather than performing my musical numbers, I’d rather stick to the songs in my albums. I considered it but since I’ll star in “Das Musical ELIZABETH” next month, I chose to focus on showing the tunes from my album than from my musicals this time.
Q. Tell us about your future activities and determination.
XIA: My second album rolled out and I’ll be holding my second solo concert in Korea and overseas. I hope I’ll be able to devote all of my energy to each concert and that the audience will cheer for me after receiving my energy. Unlike my first concert that focused on showing my true self, I’d like the upcoming concert be more about having fun with the audience. I’m already excited with the thought of hitting the road to meet fans around the world.
Reporter. Lee Hye Ji hjlee@tenasia.co.kr
Editor. Jessica Kim
Courtesy of C-Jes Entertainment
Source: 10Asia
Shared by: JYJCircle
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