Translation of article from Hankyoreh

This is an article from a newspaper, 'the Hankyoreh'. 
Original link - http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/culture/music/805691.html

‘Squall’ hits sunny day in Japan

Date : 2017-08-06 14:51
Interview with Guckkasten at Fuji Rock Festival, Japan

“Sing in Japanese and explain in Japanese
If the lyrics do not reach the audience, deliver with powerful performance and aggressive gestures”

10 years since the band organization
“We cast off prejudice that we need to lose the maniac source to become mass-appealing”

Guckkasten performing at Red Marquee on 30 July Fuji Rock Festival Japan. Provided by InterPark @Torii Yosuke

It had been raining the whole day before 30 July, but on the day it turned to drizzle. At 21st Fuji Rock Festival that was held at Naeba Ski Resort, Japan, a ‘Squall’ hit Red Marquee stage. As the dramatic and powerful sounds filled the stage, Guckkasten’s frontman, Hyunwoo Ha, kept pace with their wild audiences with his passionate gestures. ‘Squall’ is the name of Guckkasten’s summer concert tours, which began in 2015. Last year, more than 70,000 people came to see their concert and approximately 7,000 people came for this year’s concert, which was held for just two days. It always tends to rain whenever the band goes on stage, and members joke about this being the vocal’s fault as his name Hyunwoo (鉉雨) includes the meaning of ‘rain’. Fuji Rock Festival was no exception. I met with the members Hyunwoo Ha (vocal), Gyuho Jun (guitar), Jung-gil Lee (drums), and Kibum Kim (bass) at the musicians’ waiting area after their performance.

Hyunwoo Ha said “I had to sing with the in-ear’s mic sound being out of phase”. As their performance had been passionately dynamic, no one would have noticed that he had to sing under a poor condition. They had missed checking for this during the short turnaround time. Approximately 30 minutes of interval time is given between each performances and Gyuho Jun later commented that their stage was setup rather quickly for a band with supporting musicians. He further added “we have used almost the same equipment that professional staffs had setup in a studio, so luckily we had no troubles.”

Hyunwoo Ha singing at Red Marquee on 30 July Fuji Rock Festival Japan. Provided by InterPark @Torii Yosuke

Hyunwoo Ha had memorized the Japanese lyrics that were made long ago for this performance, and he sang ‘Mirror’, ‘Scarlet Field’, and ‘Faust’ in Japanese. He said “When I sing in Japanese, the power and balance changes from the way I sing in Korean, and this is interesting. I used big motions and I prepared Japanese explanations for the songs.” Jung-gil Lee added “The beat for our opening song ‘Scarlet Field’ is ¾ and this is quite tricky to actually get into the beat. But it was fun to see that audience got more and more excited as we performed.”

The band’s characteristic is delivering their abstract lyrics into multisensory images, and therefore performing at an overseas stage may come differently. To this, Hyunwoo Ha said “Koreans will also find it difficult to understand our lyrics. Koreans may get a grip with words that they can hear and understand, but foreigners will look at our performance mainly. We did not obsess over delivering our lyrics, but we just focused on our play and performance. Fuji Rock Festival is especially more ‘rocking’ than other festivals, so we made our set-list with songs that audience can focus musically.”

Indeed, a rather long prelude was included for ‘Mirror’ before they started playing the famous tune, and for ‘Thief’ Hyunwoo Ha stepped forward to the front of the stage to bring out the crowd’s response, marching to its striding beat. The band also played ‘Compass’, a song that Hyunwoo Ha, Gyuho Jun, and Jung-gil Lee made when they had formed the band ‘The C.O.M’, and presented their elegant performance.

2017 marks 10th anniversary of ‘Guckkasten’ with Kibum Kim joining as the last member of this band. Hyunwoo Ha confessed “When I look back at my younger days, I remember the sufferings rather than how hard I worked to live.” The turning point for the band was going on show programs such as <I am Singer> in 2012 and <King of Masked Singers> in 2016. The fact that only the frontman Hyunwoo Ha had appealed to mass through these programs may seem rather dangerous. However, Hyunwoo is rather relaxed saying “I don’t force myself to constantly remind the fact that I am a part of this band. If I can just continue my career naturally, I think I would be able to resolve this problem musically without much difficulty. I had worked a lot as a vocal through <King of the Masked Singers> and this helped immensely for the band.”

Members of Guckkasten. From left to right – Kibum Kim, Hyunwoo Ha, Gyuho Jun, Jung-gil Lee. Provided by InterPark

Late Haechul Shin had said during an interview in 2014 “No matter how many soldiers there are, it takes one good commander to lead on and win the war. Just like this, we need to have a superstar from the indie scene. A band like Guckkasten needs to get attention and become popular.” Guckkasten was a hope for all bands and this became a responsibility that Guckkasten had to bear. “We still have a long way to go for all the things that Haechul Shin achieved. The responsibility for us now is our fans and our music. We had some incredible experience after appearing on show programs. We even met elderly people in their 70s coming to our concerts, telling us that they regained their will to live. Through these fans, we became to question ourselves if we are the prejudiced ones towards our music. We feel we need to beware of dichotomic view of mass-appeal versus mania-appeal. We are confident we can find the value if we can focus on music for a long time.” said Hyunwoo Ha.

Hyunwoo Ha emphasized the word ‘value’ many times. “We’re still passionate about music, but we now think about ‘values’. We are grateful that we got to create something valuable for people through our music. We will maintain our health, stay together strong, and keep working on music for our fans’ rights to see us for ages long.”

After releasing their 2nd album, <Frame> in 2014, Guckkasten released a few singles including ‘Pulse’, and ‘Thief’. In their recent concert, they premiered ‘The Stranger’. “Our fans analyze the song just as thoroughly as the maker. The consumption patterns on music are changing and we think focusing on a song one by one is also good. We may release the new songs in single or in a mini-album format, as they are recorded.”

Guckkasten will also meet with their audience on 11th Aug as the headliner at Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival.

Yuzawa (Niigata, Japan)/Doolae Koo, anyone@hani.co.kr