The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
  • Hangzhou Asian Games
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
  • Hangzhou Asian Games
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    Builders vie for leadership in modular construction

  • 3

    INTERVIEW'Coexistence of different art hubs across Asia is necessary': Art Week Tokyo Director

  • 5

    Austrian former nurse of Korean leprosy patients dies at age 88

  • 7

    Korea picks up 1st gold in roller skating

  • 9

    Korea to extend $5 mil. worth of fertilizer aid to Ukraine via US agency

  • 11

    Yoon meets police officers, firefighters on Chuseok holiday

  • 13

    New York City area gets one of its wettest days in decades, as rain swamps subways and streets

  • 15

    FM visits France to campaign for Korea's World Expo bid

  • 17

    Republicans reject own funding bill, US government shutdown imminent

  • 19

    With teammate's help, inconsolable shooter regroups in time to win bronze

  • 2

    Poll shows 79% of young Koreans agree on need to improve ties with Japan

  • 4

    What to know and what's next for Travis King, the American soldier who ran into North Korea

  • 6

    S. Korea lose to N. Korea in women's football quarterfinals

  • 8

    Top 1% of singers earned $3.4 mil. each on average in 2021: data

  • 10

    Households in capital area hold 70% more in assets than non-metropolitan families: data

  • 12

    Korean industry minister visits Africa for World Expo bid, economic ties

  • 14

    Korean baseball team trying to adjust to playing surface, new ball in China

  • 16

    Will blue crabs from Italy arrive on Korean dining tables?

  • 18

    Korea wins bronze in mixed team pistol event for 14th shooting medal

  • 20

    What happens if US government enters a shutdown?

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
Mon, October 2, 2023 | 10:15
Multicultural Community
Australian pop star looks to build a community in Korea
Posted : 2022-09-06 13:01
Updated : 2022-09-07 16:14
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link
Will Hyde / Courtesy of Steph Pederson
Will Hyde / Courtesy of Steph Pederson

By Jon Dunbar

Australian pop singer and podcaster
Will Hyde turned 23 last week. He spent his birthday in Korea, working on a song he plans to pitch to K-pop rock band Xdinary Heroes.

"We had some great dinners the nights before; I felt very grateful for those, and then just worked," he told The Korea Times, Monday.

"A big part of forming relationships with artists here is going out and having dinner and chatting, and I think that's a really refreshing way to get your feet into collaboration and to understand them," he observed. "In America and Australia, it's very different, like you just hop straight into the studio. At least (here) you have everyone on board before you even enter the room, so that's actually a lot nicer because it saves everyone time."

He arrived in Korea Aug. 20 for a short visit, and leaves this Wednesday for Los Angeles where he plans to continue his career. All his belongings are traveling with him, and he brought along a whole bunch of stuffed koalas to give out to the people he meets.

As well as giving koalas to Xdinary Heroes, he's met with K-pop and indie musicians, as well as producers, reps at entertainment companies and other businesses. He also got work done on two songs with singer-songwriter LEEBADA, titled "Dreaming of the Devil" and "she got it."

He's also been searching for more guests for his podcast "
Really Mental," which deals mainly with mental health issues, and said he's invited composer NIve, synth-pop band Glen Check and R&B singer Jiselle.

Will Hyde / Courtesy of Steph Pederson
Will Hyde, third from left, poses with members of Xdinary Heroes during his visit to Korea. / Courtesy of Aaliyah Chae

This trip was a long time in the making, as Hyde has been hoping to come to Korea for quite a while.

It was last October that he was given a big breakthrough into the country when K-pop group Stray Kids member Bang Chan
livestreamed Hyde's song "misfit."

"I was watching a movie with my mom on the couch, I don't know what movie, probably something with Leonardo DiCaprio because I love him and I got a DM from someone saying 'Bang Chan played your song,'" Hyde recollected.

According to Hyde's U.S. manager Sky McElroy, one of three co-founders of US-based boutique artist partnership company Pack., who was accompanying Hyde in Korea, the livestream was the result of a lot of work in advance, which paid off following a fan meeting event.

"It was a confluence of events," McElroy said. "K-pop does this really cool thing to encourage vinyl sales, where if you buy the vinyl you get entered into a raffle to meet them. And it just so happened that one of the fans that won the raffle, as a stroke of luck, was also a fan of Will Hyde. So Bang Chan asked her what she was listening to and she said Will Hyde and he said 'I hadn't heard that, so I'll play it on my livestream.'"

"And then from there it just created this ripple effect in terms of getting support in Korea," Hyde added. "I think sometimes you put yourself in the right area and then things will happen from there. That's why I don't call it a coincidence because we were trying to do more stuff here. So I'm here for meetings and to collaborate and I plan to come back a lot in the future as well. I really want to build a community here and that takes time."

Will Hyde / Courtesy of Steph Pederson
Will Hyde visits Meta Korea, where he is served a birthday cake courtesy of Orchard Korea. / Courtesy of Will Hyde

By the time of Bang Chan's livestream, Hyde's music had already been played on Korean radio and being made into lyric videos on YouTube with Korean translations.

"I always like to say that you build to it, right?" McElroy said. "If Will hadn't been doing the work in Australia and the U.S. to build his market and the song wasn't on (Australian public radio station) Triple J Unearthed, then that fan would have never heard the song."

"It just showed the power of the Stray Kids fandom, the STAY fam," Hyde said, referring to the official fan club of the JYP Entertainment act.

Maybe taking a page from the K-pop playbook, Hyde has his own fandom, the Angel Misfits.

"It was originally the Angel Circle, however after this 'Misfit' song started taking off more, I got exposed to a lot of new supporters that really resonated with the song, so we made it Angel Misfits," he said. "So they choose one when they sign up, which one they want to be. You're either an angel or a misfit."

His publicist confirmed that the fan club features roughly even numbers of angels and misfits, although Hyde himself expressed hope that the angels would outnumber the misfits, saying he knows how hard it can be to go through life as the latter.

Will Hyde / Courtesy of Steph Pederson
Will Hyde pays a visit to Musinsa Fashion Next 2022 in Seoul Forest Garden while wearing Givenchy. / Courtesy of Musinsa

Hyde began his music career at age 15, performing in the electronic duo SYDE and by 18 he achieved over 100 million global streams and nearly 1 million monthly listeners.

"We had lots of success, very grateful and we did a bunch of touring and had a lot of awesome opportunities but I felt really unfulfilled and unhappy during that time and really just empty," he admitted. "And so from that experience in 2018, I felt lots of anxiety and depression. I started looking around and I didn't really see any artists, particularly at that time, that I could really relate to in terms of their music or that they were feeling the same way. So I left the group and decided to start writing this project because I really wanted to literally become that for other people and offer that space and community."

This has been his "guiding purpose," he said, "that sort of guided everything I do," as seen in many of his songs, including "misfit." and "dark until september.," which he says are all about dealing with mental health.

His next song, "Kiss Me Before You Go," a duet with Canadian singer-songwriter Jess Benko set for release on Sept. 14, is also about dealing with loss and bereavement.

"There's some things that I feel like I can say better in a song but sometimes a conversation is the most effective way to talk about it," he said. "And so the podcast is an extension of that to build out that world and help people understand more."

He said that in
one of the early episodes of the podcast, Heyoon Jeong of global pop group Now United, helped open his eyes to Korea's own complex mental health situation, although he chose to look for common ground rather than fixating on cultural differences.

"We're all just humans, there's this struggle that's happening, particularly amongst younger people. We should have the right means to talk about things and feel comfortable because we feel these things, so why is it wrong to do that?" he said.

"After we did that episode, it charted here for the podcast and we noted that, so I think that maybe that's a sign that people are wanting to speak it about more. I think it's becoming more of a conversation. Hopefully, through talking with these K-pop artists and indie artists here as well, we can continue to just bring that to more people in the world and I really want to speak to more Korean artists on the podcast."


Emailjdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr Article ListMore articles by this reporter
 
miguel
wooribank
LG
Top 10 Stories
1Trapped along borders Trapped along borders
2[INTERVIEW] Risk-averse culture is forcing daring creators to flee showbiz INTERVIEWRisk-averse culture is forcing daring creators to flee showbiz
3Koreans adapt to soaring food prices Koreans adapt to soaring food prices
4Education ministry prohibits parents from recording classes Education ministry prohibits parents from recording classes
5[VIDEO] Bustling Chuseok: Namsan Hanok Village immerses visitors in Korea's rich traditions VIDEOBustling Chuseok: Namsan Hanok Village immerses visitors in Korea's rich traditions
6Builders vie for leadership in modular construction Builders vie for leadership in modular construction
7Are 'finfluencers' helping or harming investment community? Are 'finfluencers' helping or harming investment community?
8Value, consumer goods, financial stocks expected to gain momentum after Chuseok holiday Value, consumer goods, financial stocks expected to gain momentum after Chuseok holiday
9Will blue crabs from Italy arrive on Korean dining tables? Will blue crabs from Italy arrive on Korean dining tables?
10[PHOTOS] Decisive moments of Team Korea at Asian Games PHOTOSDecisive moments of Team Korea at Asian Games
Top 5 Entertainment News
1M+ deputy director discusses Seoul's potential to challenge Hong Kong as Asia's art hub M+ deputy director discusses Seoul's potential to challenge Hong Kong as Asia's art hub
2[INTERVIEW] 'Coexistence of different art hubs across Asia is necessary': Art Week Tokyo Director INTERVIEW'Coexistence of different art hubs across Asia is necessary': Art Week Tokyo Director
3Trailblazing nonagenarian artist honored for redefining Korean fiber art Trailblazing nonagenarian artist honored for redefining Korean fiber art
4[INTERVIEW] With '30 Days,' Kang Ha-neul finds new level of comfort in acting INTERVIEWWith '30 Days,' Kang Ha-neul finds new level of comfort in acting
5Rwandan artists bring diversity to Seoul's art scene Rwandan artists bring diversity to Seoul's art scene
DARKROOM
  • Turkey-Syria earthquake

    Turkey-Syria earthquake

  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group