Mini-Interview with PATiENTS

When Patients debuted ten years ago I had yet to fully embrace punk music, but anyway enjoy a few of the songs. Five years later I was confused to find Patients competing in Hello Rookie, but by the time Patients entered the competitions for Top Band 2 and Ssamzie Sound Festival’s Hidden Masters 2012 I had realized that this was indeed something new.

Things have been progressing well since and this Wednesday, May 25, it’s time for Patients to start a third UK tour. Unfortunately I won’t be able to travel to catch it myself, but I anyway got a few questions answered by the band’s bassist and vocalist Sumin Jo.

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It’s been more than a decade since Patients first surfaced. How would you describe the changes the band has gone through over the years?

When we first started we were actually a quartet, but Patients have played has a trio since 2007. In the early years of Patients, we played punk music that was heavily inspired by classic punk bands from the ‘70s because I loved their sound and attitude so much. But as things progressed, we decided we wanted to develop our own unique style because we felt that doing that would be a lot punk. So we started making new sounds by mixing our punk roots with elements of other styles of music we enjoyed. And because I still love punk and our music still comes from a punk spirit and attitude, I call the music we now make “hybrid punk.”

In 2013, our keyboardist, Hyuckjang, joined Patients. So now our band features a bassist, keyboardist, and drummer. I think that having a keyboardist instead of a guitarist allows us to experiment even more and take our songs in lots of interesting directions. So our “hybrid punk” style has definitely further developed and become more exciting with Hyuckjang on board. And at the beginning of this year Patients got a new drummer too. His name is Soowon Choi. He’s a great fit for our band and we’re really happy with the music the three of us are making together.

Although our sound has changed over the years, one thing has remained the same – we still make the music that we enjoy and want to make. That’s one of the most important things for us as a band and something that will never change.

 
This will be your third time coming over to the UK for shows. What have been the best things about touring the UK so far?

Definitely the audiences! We feel so good when we perform in front of crowds in the UK. Music fans there react quickly to things they like and seem to really enjoy music. I love UK audiences so much. We toured the UK for the first time in 2014 and have been back each year since. It’s definitely the fans that make us want to keep returning. After our previous tours, as soon as the plane took off to take us back to Seoul we all started saying how we couldn’t wait to tour in the UK again. I’m guessing the same thing will happen this year!

 
What will you be showing the UK audiences this time around?

We’re going to be playing music from our 18 sophomore full-length album that came out last year. We released that album right before our 2015 UK tour and took lots of CDs with us. We sold out of CDs before the tour finished, which was awesome and hopefully means people will be excited to hear those tracks again during our tour that starts this week! We’ll also be playing two brand new songs. They are called “Space Call Girl” and “Game Boy Game Girl”. We plan to record both tracks when we get back to Korea and will put them out as singles in the coming months. So UK audiences will get to preview the songs before they are released.

 
When will the rest of Europe get to experience Patients live?

We would love to tour in other parts of Europe but don’t have any set plans to do so yet. But we’re going to be meeting with some European promoters during this tour, so hopefully we can make some good connections that will help us tour in other European countries in the future. Wish us luck!


Best of luck to Patients! For the current now as well as future tours to other destinations. If you’re in the UK, do consider checking them out at one or more of these occasions:

May 25 – Chester @ The Live Rooms
May 26 – Manchester @ Night & Day Cafe *
May 27 – Whitchurch @ Percy’s Cafe Bar
May 29 – Liverpool @ Liverpool Sound City [Cargo Stage] **
May 31 – London @ Windmill Brixton
June 5 – Worthing @ Bar 42

* with Dead Buttons, 57, Laybricks
** with 57, DTSQ, Laybricks, We Are The Night

For an idea of what to expect, here’s what Patients sounded like playing the Cargo Stage at Liverpool Sound City in 2015:

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