A week before turning 32, Korean-American singer-songwriter Jae Park, better known for his stage name eaJ, performed his solo concert right here in Kuala Lumpur. “I feel like I’ve been waiting a really long time to be here, and I’m just excited to see everyone, man,” he told during the interview before the show. “And like as soon as they see me, they’re crying… So, I’m just happy to be here.”
Known for his versatile vocal prowess and honest lyrics, eaJ has been making a name for himself in the indie music scene, blending indie pop beats with raw emotions. During our conversation, eaJ teased that “the EP title song “when the rain stops” will be played. I also have a song called “Up” that is on my next project. I have “ADHD”, so once this project is done, I’ve already moved on to the next one.”
eaJ gets honest about the misconceptions people have on him, recalling how he has grown since his K-pop days, the meaning behind his tattoos, life as an independent artist, and more. Scroll down to read more on his fascinating story here:
This tour, obviously, is a lead up to your upcoming EP “when the rain stopped following me”. Would you like to talk to us a little more about the inspiration behind the title, and the theme behind it?
So, I think this is the first EP where I kind of made a world and a narrative around it. I’ve always kind of just written songs for the sake of writing songs, to write a good song, through my whole 12-year career of music. But this was the first one where I felt like I had a thesis, and I wanted to make a story, and I wanted to really involve the people listening to it.
The whole story of the EP revolves around this guy that just lives a normal life, and all of a sudden, one day, a rain cloud comes over his head and won’t leave him alone. It just keeps falling and pouring rain. His water bill is zero because he doesn’t need it; He showers without turning the water on; He waters his lawn by just walking through it, and that’s just like a weird story.
And then just as fast as it came, it just disappears one day. I partnered up with one of my good friends, Jjolee, who’s a manhwa writer, and we wrote this narrative that’s going to be told throughout the story of the show. But pretty much, musically, everything is very honest. These have been very honest emotions.
I haven’t really written honestly, because I thought it makes it harder to write. When you go into a studio thinking, like, I’m going to write this today about this, you tend to end up in a box and then just run out of things to write about. But I don’t know, for this stuff, there’s definitely topics that I’ve been tiptoeing around.
Some fans don’t like that I bring up those experiences. But I think I’m starting to realise that those are my experiences, and I don’t think they have a reason to invalidate that. If they don’t feel like my emotions are valid, then they probably shouldn’t listen to it, and I respect that as well.
The title song of this EP is called “when the rain stops”, and I think it perfectly encapsulates how I feel about everything that went down at the end of 2021 to 2022.
You’ve had a very long and established music career. How would you say that your sound and your voice, whether that’s on a personal level or on a more technical level, has changed over the years as an artist?
Well, I think the biggest change for me is that I have a really bad panic disorder, so an anxiety problem. Even from the beginning of my career, from K-Pop Star all the way to now, sometimes I get nervous and I have this tick in my eye. Fans would be like, oh, that’s cute. But it’s a tick.
I think the main difference is that I’ve kind of, with time, been able to work through that. And I feel more free and more liberated than ever before now.
I feel like I’m still learning and I’m still growing. But if you come to a show now as opposed to five years ago, you’re going to see a different Jae, because this one is becoming more and more open and more and more comfortable.
We’ve had a lot of music questions, so let’s take a little break from that. You have a lot of really cool tattoos. If you’re comfortable, would you mind telling us a little bit more about them?
I got all my tattoos in the span of maybe like two months. Back then, I was under a lot of duress. It’s when my panic attacks started. I used to self-harm and I just didn’t want to do that anymore.
I’m trying to grow out of it now. So this was the closest thing that I could justify it to. I kind of got them just as a way to feel something, I literally went every other day. It was a really weird time in my life.
But other than that, I got some classical, very old school Korean famous painters and artists. The big three, they were called Da-won (다원), Hee-won (희원), and O-won (오원).
And I got a couple of pieces from all of them. Even some pieces like anime. This is inspired by my favourite anime – Your Lie in April. That’s the scene where she turns around and says she’s already passed away. That made me sob. I’m thankful for a lot of things, so that’s why I got that on me.
There’s also one from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. I like the movie, but I really loved the book while I was growing up in middle school, which was an eternity ago because I’m a dinosaur. I love this scene in the book because of that one line, “and in that moment, I felt infinite.”
It’s something that I want to feel someday. Youth is so fleeting, right? And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to feel what those characters, the three of them, felt in that car. That feeling of just truly feeling infinite and free. I’ve always wondered what that would feel like, yeah.
Back to the music questions! What would you say is your favorite part about performing live?
My favorite part about performing live is the energy. I think for every artist it’s the same thing. We spend all these hours in the studio making the music, and obviously we love making the music because it’s great, and it’s beautiful, and it’s fun. We love listening back, and we love release day because that’s cool. But all the promo, all the press, all the studio time, all the writing, all the working on our craft, that’s all for this.
We do all of that so that we can do this, because this is our passion, and this is what makes us happy. Being able to give others an hour and a half to just escape reality, and I think that’s what I do everything for. That’s what I look forward to the most.
Do you have a favorite song to perform live?
It changes night by night, because the energy of the crowds are always different. Some crowds sing louder, some crowds jump more, some crowds mosh. It’s always different.
I don’t know. I’ve really been liking “when the rain stops”, and “safe in the rain” recently too.
Do you have any sort of advice, or even just words of support, to any other creatives trying to get their own start as an independent artist?
For independent artists, I think the biggest struggle for a lot of really great musicians is that good music is very important, but in today’s day and age, you have to adapt to survive.
You have to do content. I know it’s not fun, it’s not your favourite thing in the world. I have not met one musician that likes making content, because all they like doing is making music and performing it.
But the thing is, as an independent artist, the moment that you have one (big moment) is when you can stop doing it. The faster you hit that point of a great moment with a great video, the faster you can stop doing that. So that’s probably my number one advice.
Do you have any messages to your fans in Malaysia?
I’m so excited and I’m so glad and honoured to have been able to see you guys so frequently. I hope that this shows you a different perspective of what my shows are normally like, opposed to a festival set.
My main goal when I do a show is to completely transport someone somewhere else for an hour and a half, and all the stress that you have from work, relationships, family, school. I just want you to be able to dissolve all that for an hour and a half and just really enjoy yourself.
eaJ’s upcoming EP “when the rain stopped following me” drops today on all music platforms.
Amanda Angela Danker and Justin contributed to this article.
