A while ago I asked you who you’d like to see interviewed on this blog, and the answers were all interesting. Actually doing something about that has gone so-so (some I haven’t been able to contact, some never replied, and some replied happily but never returned with answers to the questions) which is why I’m now proud to present a mini-interview with the awesome and shoegazer-esque band Frenzy:
Could you please start by telling us a bit about Frenzy?
Hello? We’re Frenzy. Guitar by Jungmok, bass by Jungsik, and drums by Sungmok. Jungmok and Sungmok are brothers. We’ve been doing gigs around Hongdae, especially at Club Bbang.
Some people mishear our name as Friends. We laugh at it but it’s actually true because Frenzy used to be the band of Jungmok and his highschool friends.
Anyways, we watched Ssamzie Sound Festival when in highschool (about 8 years ago). The festival at that time, as I think, was far more energetic and passionate than it is now. It also let us feel some kind of freedom. Of course we came to desire to be on the stage someday.
So at first, we made up a band named Blue Screen. But soon we changed the name as Frenzy. We took the word from ‘Wake Up, Frenzy‘, which is a song written by The Pillows. Differently from now, we even covered Judas Priest, of course only some of easy songs.
It was such a slow process. We didn’t have a proper band leader. Jungsik lived in a different area from other members. We couldn’t practice regularly. Most of our works were recordings on weekends and vacations. Although we developed more slowly than other bands, I think it was a better way to make a chemistry among the timid members.
As I referred to Judas Priest above, we had vocals at first. But soon we thought having vocals is just typical. Also we didn’t satisfied with our vocals when having auditions. So we began to work on without considering vocals and gradually excluded them from our songs.
Time went by, songs were being completed one by one, but the members were getting into the army one by one. Jungmok and Jungsik didn’t stop working on during the time other members were in the army. In 2006 Jungmok’s elder brother, Sungmok came out of the army and was forced to join Frenzy as a drummer. We met Yunjoo (who went out the band recently) at an internet community and finally started the gigs. We played a lot of times. In 2008 we were on Ssamzie Sound Festival as one of Hidden Masters. Now we’re working on our first album.
How would you describe your music? Is there anything in particular that has inspired you to create the sound you have now?
Our music has a timid loser’s sentiment in it, like the dark side of the moon. Some songs have images of grotesque fairy-tales. Other songs began from the image of ‘winning losers’ like the album Winning Losers : A Collection of Home Recordings. We’d like to be called ‘elegantly pathetic’ fellows.
We try to make sounds leading to a poetic scenary. It could be a piece of landscape or a piece of ‘soundscape’ in which various of descriptions are hiding. It could be a game just for fun. Though our sounds have been based on guitars by far, we want to use as many materials and sources as possible. We like experiments but we won’t just experiment. Sometimes mere experiments could be okay, but we want to have a balanced movement between conservativeness and progressiveness because in the world, there are a lot of texts and images all mixed together. We also try to pull out a common sense from the strong characteristics of all our members, which will make us get closer to the images we feel. Just like the novels of Borges, if the realistic fantasy can be expressed by our music, we won’t mind doing any trials on sounds. We want our music to be like an orgy in which romance, love and violence are all mixed up.
You have already made some quite impressive songs and I know I’m far from alone in wanting to hear more. What can we expect from you next? Any releases planned?
We started working on the 1st lp at Tunetable Movement, an indie label which has been releasing brilliant albums like Shadow Palace, Loro’s, Flowing, and etc. If things go well, our album will be out around July this year.
Music such as yours seems hard do come by in Korea. Are there any other Korean bands you would like to recommend?
Despite the narrow scene we have a lot of good musicians in Korea. You can see Shadow Palace and Loro’s from our label. Daydream and Jo Wall from Underwear Band released good albums recently. Nervous Shirt, Electric Sheep [Denci Hinji], and Bulssazo are very good, too.
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How about that? Not only did they provide lengthy and interesting answers to simple questions, but the part about being elegantly pathetic was simply heart warming. Listen to Frenzy at MySpace or watch them at YouTube!