Lala Sweet consists of guitar and vocal Kim Hyuna and keyboard Park Byul. April 29th they released their first EP and made their song ‘good bye’ known through the Mintpaper compilation LIFE and the 1Night 2Days preview on next episode with Kim C leaving the show. They made their debut with ‘나의 낡은 오렌지나무’ winning silver at the University Music Competition.
Growing up with listening to rock music, they met in their teens at a place where they went to learn instruments. After some time they decided to make their own music that is just made of guitar and piano and they started Lala Sweet.
When they were traveling to India, they discovered a store called ‘Lala Sweet’. They found the name cute and wrote it down. When they were searching for a name for them that was ‘easy to say, pretty in Latin letters and Hangeul and without any embarrassing meaning’, they remembered it.
Mintpaper had a little Interview with them that I thought was interesting (and easy) enough to translate.
Mintpaper: You prepared a demo long time ago and now you finally brought out your first EP; how’s your feeling?
Hyuna: Actually, I don’t really know. We talked about it earlier; an album seems to be like a license.
Byul: ‘Because we got the permission, from now on we can perform in Hongdae’ such a feeling? (laughter)
Hyuna: Even if people see our performances and like our music, when they come home, they have no way to listen to it. We thought we have to make an album. At first, we thought about making it alone, but we got help and our EP came out like this.
M: You two know each other since before Lala Sweet; how and when did you meet?
B: I was in High School and Hyuna was in Middle School; we went to a place called Haja Centre to learn to play instruments and met there. Hyuna played electric guitar and I played bass. We didn’t have a band together. We spend continuously time together, being close. We had our bands, went to school, did our part time jobs, and then in 2008 we thought ‘Won’t we really do anything together?’ and we came to start Lala Sweet.
M: If there was a moment that made you interested in music or made you go to learn an instrument, which was it?
H: Normally Elementary School girls don’t listen to rock music. My 7 years older brother listened to music like Black Sabbath and X-Japan in his puberty. We lived on the 9th floor that time; when the elevator with my brother in it came just to the 4th floor, you could already hear his music sound; it was that amazing. Like that I naturally came to listen to rock music and got interested in it.
B: When I was little, I went to a Piano institute, everyone went to. In 4th class of Elementary school, my mum said it would be better to go to an institute for mental arithmetic. So I said that I will quit the piano institute, but my teacher stopped me saying “You can’t quit. I barely see a child doing well like you.” But after all I couldn’t win against the persuasions of my mum and quit. I believed the teachers words until I was 20. My friends said “When you tell them you will quit, they all say so.” (laughter) But because I always believed her words, I learnt an instrument with the thought ‘I have a talent for music, so don’t I have to continue with music?’
M: In 2008 you received silver in the University Music Competition. There seem quite some people remembering the winning song ‘나의 낡은 오렌지나무’(my old orange tree).
B: Asking if we shouldn’t try out something, Hyuna made songs. We first worked on them, and then we reached them in at two places, the University Music Competition and the Yoo Jae Ha Music Competition. We actually had Yoo Jae Ha as goal, but the announcement from the UMC came out first. So we thought ‘Huh? That’s not it’, and we passed the 2nd round and then the 3rd round too. We really were in the state ‘Huh? We didn’t think it would come out like that at all’.
H: When we first made the song, it was 5min 30sec. The regulation for the UMC was 3min 30sec. We also made it difficult when we made the song, but I particularly didn’t have the confidence to shorten the song. After all, right before going on broadcast, it went through an inspection and was fit the time. We also never thought that it was a song made for such a huge stage, so we crazily went through that time always thinking ‘Huh?’
M: When you started with Lala Sweet, how did you decide the vocal between you two?
B: When we were little, we often went to karaoke; Hyuna sings well.
H: We actually thought about a male vocal, but as we two made it together, it seemed to be difficult to get someone as a new member. At first someone had to do it; because I couldn’t tell unni to do it (laughter) I made it.
B: But isn’t Hyuna’s voice filled with sadness? There is a power to even make bright and vigorous songs melancholic. (laughter)
M: On various club performance posters your name started to show up since last year.
H: We started performing in December 2008. It seems we have already passed the 100 times.
B: I found it in the internet, the artists with the most performances in 2009 are on 2nd place 10cm and the one after the next, on place 4, is Lala Sweet.
M: Out of the performances you did that time, there also has to be one that was fabulous or you can’t forget; will you talk about just one?
H: We really went to all strange places. The president of a concert place once told us just ‘known people are performing, if you have time, come when they left’, so we went there clueless….
B: That was the office of Yeomni-Dong. An office we really know well. (laughter) In the Basement was a music room, so we performed there. In there were some fitness equipments and a mirror… the audience was from 7 to 60 years?
H: We were performing and some person did some fitness. (laughter) We had to sing ‘good bye’… It was the first time in my life it was so difficult to keep back my laughter like that. After all, when we sung, I couldn’t hold it back at all and I stopped, saying sorry.
M: Lala Sweet’s ‘good bye’ is one song out of the songs that got a lot of love during the performances; it was recorded on ‘LIFE’ this time.
B: I like it because it seems more people got interested in us after the LIFE album came out.
H: Wook Jae (No Reply’s Wook Jae participated as producer) put the song into the right direction and when we worried ‘Will that work?’ he easily said ‘why shouldn’t it? Everything will work’ and he really made it work, so it was marvelous and a nice experience.
M: How was the EP showcase that was some time ago? I heard that you prepared a special present for the audience.
H: It was our first concert; after the rehearsal ended, we suddenly got nervous. We also didn’t tell the people around us to come and watch, so we really started to worry what we should do if no one comes. We held it in, to not tell each other and pretended it would be nothing, but we were really worried. Thank god a lot of people came.
B: All the people came to watch just us. So, if it was the degree of concentration, or the response, it was totally different; so so nice.
H: We actually also even thought ‘should we bake a cake and give it as a present?’, but the performance stood before and because I was hurt, I didn’t have the senses to make one. But still, we wanted to do something, so we prepared an easy thing similar to an Indian, sweet snack. We wrote messages with hand, packed it up and gave it to the people who came. Until right before going on stage we were crazily busy with packing and putting stickers on it.
M: It seems to be a really happy thing to feel that ‘someone listens to our music and likes it’.
H: Preparing the showcase, a lot of difficult things piled up. One day I came home really tired and someone send me a friend invitation writing ‘I like listening to your songs’ (lit.: I am listening to your songs well’). Now we, as Lala Sweet, making music is not something that has a visible result; it’s also not something where it’s just either pass or fail. Sometimes I also get the thought that in other people’s eyes it can look as if we don’t make anything at all. But at those words I got the feeling that everything gets solved.
B: Actually, when we packed the sweets during the showcase and wrote the messages, it felt like writing a love letter to a person you really liked for a long time.
M: It’s not just Lala Sweet, but also Joa band, 10cm, Dalmoon etc who are receiving a lot of love with their simple composition music.
H: When we started performing, there really weren’t a lot artists with a similar disposition, so when we went to the clubs to perform, we had to do it after a band with strong music. It’s good that these days the bands we can perform together with became more. It’s also amazing that the point of time everyone started is similar.
M: If there is a goal you want to reach as Lala Sweet, which one is it?
H: Making a nice 1st full length album. And performing at the GMF? (laughter)
B: Of course appearing at the GMF, also performing at Space Sympathy, being chosen for this week’s album, appearing on Sketchbook; I want to do all these things. Because it’s not that kind of music that’s difficult to listen to, I’d want that a lot of people listen to our music and sympathize with it.
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