[TRANS] RollingStone Japan magazine interview - “FTISLAND’s Lee Jaejin’s story, a new challenge ‘the moment before I enlist, it is now’“
FTISLAND offers band-style music that is rare in the K-POP world. On October 9 (note: 2019), Lee Jaejin, the bassist of the band, has released his first solo album. Before he goes to enlist, he had made the determination to himself, “if you are going to go solo, now is the time”. Jaejin who was visiting Japan at the time had made the time to visit RollingStone Japan for an interview.
Korea is the number one idol powerhouse in the world. In the midst of the massive survival competition in the K-POP world, where there are more than 300 idol groups, donning intense hairstyle, makeup, and costume, and boasting unparalleled synchronized group dance, it is very rare to see a group of youths that are still faithful to the authentic pop and rock style and moving forward with it, drawing a line of difference between them and the others in the industry. This group is FTISLAND. As the group is marking their 10th year since they made their major debut (in Japan), this time, we will be featuring Lee Jaejin, the band’s bassist who has been by Lee Hongki’s side on stage. Unlike his lovely face and delicate appearance, this central pillar of FTISLAND is dropping a bold sound that is hard to imagine through his solo album, Scene 27. He had answered to the interview with RollingStone candidly in fluent Japanese without any need of the use of interpreter.
―Following FTISLAND’s Lee Hongki to debut as a solo, is it something that you wanted for yourself?
Actually, since a few years ago, I have received offers from the agency, “Do you want to try out going solo?”, but I had wanted to focus on FTISLAND, so I had only been gathering ideas. However, Hongki-niisan will enlist in September, and in line with that, FTISLAND will go on a break, and I will follow niisan to enlist too. As soon as I complete the military service, I intend to focus on FTISLAND again, so I thought, “if I want to do a solo, it is now”. I thought to myself that I might not get another opportunity to move one step forward for myself if I don’t take the chance to go solo now, so I got back to the agency, “I will work hard, let’s do this!”.
―It feels like, your long-held wish has finally come true.
That’s right. However, in the beginning, I didn’t have any vision as to what kind of music that I wanted to do for my solo... I don’t like the way that it sounds like an excuse, but we were really busy, so I didn’t have any time for it! (laughs) I have just written a lot of songs and done a lot of comebacks with them, gone to a lot of tv shows, and done a lot of live concerts in Korea, Japan, and around the world. I didn’t really have any time to think of the songs that I would want for myself. However, this time around, I have received a lot of help from the agency, I was able to make it somehow (claps to himself proudly).
―How do you want to express yourself the most as?
For me, I had always felt like I would describe myself the most for my FTISLAND-ness. After all, I have dedicated all of my youth for FTISLAND. I would propose melody and lyrics that I made from my point of view, and these ideas would collide with the other members’ (Lee Hongki (Vo.), Song Seunghyun (Gt.), Choi Minhwan (Dr.)) as they have strong personalities. That’s why, I thought, if I want to honestly express myself as a soloist, I would have to do the opposite method, making it “Lee Jaejin’s uniqueness as seen by other people”. I tried to extract how is Lee Jaejin seen by other people, from people who inspired me - the members, fans, family, staffs, seniors and juniors from the same agency, friends, colleagues, and people that are precious to me, and from these people, their impressions of me and advises to me are reflected in my music.
―So it was a reversed method, it is surprisingly quite out of the box.
It’s because I have always expressed how I view things through FTISLAND already. Through my solo work, I actually get to have an opportunity to show another side of me, and I thought it would be interesting to show a mix of the Lee Jaejin that other people think of and the Lee Jaejin that I think of. That’s why, from my way of singing to the way the songs were recorded in the studio, I made it different than how I would usually do it.
―Is there any impression that other people have told of you that you found “eh, that’s unexpected!”?
It was when people told me that I produce high pitch voice easily.
―It’s because the audience always listened to your live singing attentively.
No, it’s not like that! (laughs) My role (in FTISLAND) is to harmonize with Hongki-niisan’s voice, so that it sounds nice to hear; however, if I sing using the same way that I did for FTISLAND for my solo release, it would sound strange. I’m still retaining my ability to control my voice easily. It turned out that all of the songs that I had picked for my solo album had higher pitch than my usual voice, so I thought it could only be done with adding in more breath and warmth than usual to my singing. It was really hard when I did the recording. Particularly, when I recorded for Love Like The Films, the key was lowered and raised several times, that we had to repeat the recording for 3 or 4 times, and the entire recording process took about a total of 6 days.
―In the “Love Like The Films”, Hongki is credited under vocal directing.
Frankly speaking, image that I have of Hongki-niisan is “the bad person who never practices”. Of course, he is an excellent singer, he also does a great job as the band’s frontman, however, as fellow team members, I wished he would practice more. However, after he helped me with vocal direction this time around, I would like to review that. (laughs)
―Ah I see. (laughs)
For me, as a main vocal, I still need to find something that can stand out and be my point of attraction. I haven’t really calculated the way that I sing in the way that “if I sing a song this way, it will be delivered to the audience also in a certain way”, so I thought that Hongki-niisan who has had a long career as a vocalist would know more about it, so I asked him to watch over the recording. Lately, niisan is working hard practicing and he also has a musical coming up, he just has been really busy so I didn’t have the heart to ask him to do it at first. But our agency then said that “Hongki will give (vocal) direction to Jaejin”, so it was sorted out that way.
―So, that’s how he came in!
That’s true. In reality, the moment that he heard the song, he told me “This is Jaejin that is singing, but it sounds somewhat not right”. “This song is putting together the ideas that everyone suggested Jaejin should do” but “in this part, you sang this too softly, you should give more power to it, so the audience can still hear it clearly” or “in this part, your pitch should be more straightforward” - all kinds of possibilities that I wasn’t even thinking of. Hongki-niisan is very knowledgeable in techniques on how to “sound good”, he taught me these in great details.
―As expected of the vocalist who has carried FTISLAND on his back. With just one added detail, the way that a song could be expressed could increase greatly.
That’s why, we were able to complete the recording of the song with satisfaction, I felt really grateful that Hongki-niisan was willing to help. When we asked him “please also look at the recordings of the other songs”, he replied “I don’t want to, it’s too bothersome”. (lol)
―Ah, that’s what happened.
It was unfortunate that he was able to only look at the title song, however, niisan was really busy that he didn’t even have any time to sleep. FTISLAND also was working on the preparation of our encore concert at that time, so it couldn’t be helped.
―Then, Scene.27 is packed with all of the efforts poured into it.
Thank you. I hope the message could be delivered well.
―Other than that, are there comments on the album that you found refreshing?
I heard things like “R&B suits you well” or “you can take on Jazz if you work just a bit harder”.
―The voice that has a bit of huskiness in it, it is Jaejin’s voice charm.
I appreciate any feedback. I have prepared myself to accept any feedback, whatever it is, so I actually would be grateful if the listeners could give me a lot of them. Actually, in this album, I wanted to focus only on the vocal and let go of my bass.
―And as a result, it purely shows Jaejin as a vocalist.
Please indulge in thinking of this as someone completely different, not the Jaejin from FTISLAND. I am challenging myself to take this opportunity to present myself as an entirely rookie solo artist. I also am planning to hold a mini live this coming October with band style performance, so please look forward to my vocals.
―Your agency junior, N.Flying is also starring in the MV. As they played with so much fun there, the MV also turned out to be full of energy.
These guys were actually busy too, but for me, they deliberately made the efforts to empty out their schedules, practiced and filmed with me - “we will help niisan with everything!” and somewhat I felt “ah, this is the weight of being an older brother”.
―You guys really have a good relationship.
I can only reply with “Me too, I will work hard!”, and paid them back through my (bass) performance. Actually, this is the first time that I felt such a proper give and take relationship with my juniors. I supported N.Flying by helping out in their live concerts, and this time, they came to help me instead. This made me feel such a brotherly relationship with them, that lately, I thought of how cute these guys are.
―In fact, you have been seniors-juniors for a long time in your agency, but “lately”?
Yes, lately. Originally, I am the kind of person to not really think of any other relationships other than with the FTISLAND members.
I usually listened to anyone who asked me for counseling or just to share their worries, but I don’t usually feel that “we are one team at heart” with my juniors. Honestly, in the past, I used to not to be too fond of N.Flying (smiles), I thought that they didn’t really put in enough efforts and seemed to be still too premature. For me, I am solely the bassist of FTISLAND, and my team is solely FTISLAND - if we put it in the extreme, “I am only the bassist to FTISLAND”. However, lately, these guys have worked so hard and have grown rapidly too. I have come to “If it’s N.Flying, I can play for them too”. Now, they are such a team of cute juniors in my eyes. I’m not that great of a senior either, but now, I want to share with them and have talks on things that I have knowledge on or things that I can give them advise on.
―Why did you choose bass in the beginning?
I only realized recently, but I was an introverted kid when I was in elementary school. I didn’t have any friends, so when I entered middle school, I wanted to brighten up my image. I had started to have friends then, and they asked me, “do you want to make a band together?”. I didn’t have any experience with any musical instruments back then, so I only replied, “Sure, what should I do?”, and they said, “Drum and guitar are hard, so you’re bass”, and so, that’s how I started bass. Compared to guitar, it only has 4 strings, and I could just start by producing the “dung, dung, dung, dung” sound riding the rhythm, it was easy. It was also popular with the girls.
―Most of bands indeed start with “I want to be popular!”.
For me, it is the case (laughs). However, it is for sure that it was how my life began. My sister is an actress, and she used to be under the agency that I am in now. She told me, “I think my agency is setting up a band, do you want to give it a try?” - she recommended me to an audition, luck was on my side, and I managed to debut.
―You debuted in 2007, in the midst of the heyday of idol teams that sing and dance, why did FTISLAND aspire to be a “rockband” back then?
Actually, in the beginning, the aim was a multiplayer kind of band that can play a lot of genres. However, if we look at the world, there are a lot of rock bands particularly that are charming. The more that I immersed myself in a new genre, and the more that I practiced, I was captured even more by the rock genre, and swore to myself, “Let’s become a rock band!”, and here we are now. I am crazily in love with the kind of power that only rock holds, and the feeling of catharsis that one gets when they perform. I feel the pride of this band called FTISLAND that possesses the charm to suit not only upbeat rock music, but also are good at pop ballads, and any types of music.
―So, what types of bass that you like?
Currently, I’m mainly using SPECTOR, LAKLAND, and Fodera. However, when I am discharged later, I want to buy Fender.
―Are there any differences between doing activities in Korea and in Japan?
Honestly, I think FTISLAND can best demonstrate 1000% of their charms in Japan. In Japan, we really feel that we can play comfortably and with a peace of mind. As stages and sets in Korea are centered around idols and hiphop, there isn’t many place where we can perform as a band properly, so honestly, we have had a hard time because of this. There is also the case where we don’t have much choice but to give up the (musical) direction that we want. So, when we want to perform properly to the audience in Korea, we got our PAs, sound directors, concert managers, and staffs that we trust in Japan to come to help. Doing major debut in Japan and actively promoting there is highly regarded in Korea. The home of the rock genre is the US, and so I don’t know if it’s a country thing, but the staffs there (in Korea) seem to just have “Going my way”-like mindset to them. There have been instances where it was hard when we tried to request something when we had performances. For example, when we asked them “please slightly raise the volume of the kick drum in our ear monitors, and please make the bass sound harder” or something like that, they would reply “Is that necessary?” or the like. They did follow our request, but I guess if we think about it, those who think that these kinds of exchanges are what rock is all about and those who enjoy these, thinking that these are merely differences in culture and way of thinking, are those that are winning.(smiles)
―I love that you are looking at it positively (smiles). Now, what are your dreams for the future?
If I get to be a bit richer, I dream of building a nice livehouse in Korea. It will be an ideal place, where performers can perform properly, and audience can listen to music properly as well.
―In a RollingStone Japan interview too before, Hongki also said that he wanted to build a music studio.
That would be nice! However, for Hongki-niisan, even if he does build a music studio, I think all that he does there will be just play games. He would say something like “You guys, do your best!” and leave the trivial or bothersome things to us, and when he feels like he is in the mood, he would say “This is nice” when he does vocal recording. However, songs that are made in such lively atmosphere will end up pretty rock, so I guess everyone would enjoy such songs anyway.(laughs)
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Disclaimer: Translated by Lu. This translation is based on the Japanese - Korean translation credited to fprit. Due to the indirect translation, inaccuracies are likely and possible, but I will also refer to the original article here to do double checks whenever needed.
