American Idol Learns About K-Pop Industry with Han Heejun | Get Real Ep. #52

[Music] all right guys welcome back to another episode of get real the show is hosted by me pineal me ashley and maybe uh yes and uh yes we are going to get honest about all the ups and downs of young adulthood but from our perspectives our perspective what's on the script actually actually he's been djing for like how long i know danielle was a dj too it was a video for what why are you talking about fire anyways uh yes uh today we have our very special guest you guys probably recognize his voice already but uh yes please welcome finally before we start off on anything i just want to dedicate this broadcast what to call this podcast podcast to our beloved diane diane she's been trying to manage this for a long time i know i don't know it's been months now and then yeah weren't you supposed to come on like on like 40 or something episode yeah it just didn't click and then diana and i have just been texting a lot for that and thank you for that i'm sorry diane i love you you're so busy well yeah special shout outs to diane for making this episode possible without you he would not be sitting here right now i know seriously you're the best um my first time being on a podcast very excited really yeah oh yeah nice i didn't even know how i was going i don't even know i mean it's similar to radio but it's just more free you could say like brands if you want you oh yeah if you want yeah um who listened to this though who's going to excuse me no no i'm just curious like who's going to listen to me is going to be on youtube yeah all around the world and spotify spotify apple music so people download this yeah yeah they don't listen to this they stream it they stream it they stream it yeah that makes sense all right anyways oh yes yes yes today's episode we are going to be talking about k-pop yes yes why because xi jin said he wanted to what the oh okay yes and back in the early 2000s the term k-pop wasn't even familiar to koreans yeah um was it really k-pop maybe anyways yes but during the past decade the industry has shown rapid growth but where do we go from here all right to interact with us uh follow us on our socials at d dive studios or leave us a comment on our full episodes when the video is up on youtube.com dive pods yeah also follow the podcast on spotify and on apple podcast leave a review on apple podcast so more people can know about this awesome show and join in on the fun yes sir um okay i want to clarify um i wanted to talk about k-pop uh but diane texted me what do you want to talk about i want to say about k-pop not knowing this is going to be like two-page series i thought it was just gonna be whatever you know i i couldn't pick the topic right away because i was in the car i was in a rush like k-pop let's do it and then i didn't know it was going to be like okay do you want to talk about something else no no it's fine but i have realized you guys all in kpop anyways yeah yeah yeah hard east code used to be and um b2b now so yeah i just thought you guys never talked about kpop before oh like little sprinkles here and there yeah it was never the main subject yeah experiences yeah k-pop artists but oh yeah pop culture pop culture um but yeah we're gonna dive into like k-pop k-pop today so i'm surprised you guys haven't talked about it for a 50th episode what did you guys talk about before whatever she told us to talk about you guys are a main core of k-pop and you guys never talked about k-pop she never told us to talk about we saved it for you i'm not going to keep up ceremony you guys the american idol turned into a k-pop star well i have nothing to talk about k-pop i just want to talk about like the reality of k-pop let's just say okay because people actually tune in i have realized that a lot of people are like paneer listen to your guests oh i'm listening so i'm multitasking when when um when uh k-pop and yakan in an international and people look up to you guys and i am assuming people who's watching this are more of a fan of you know k-pop i guess i assume yeah i feel like we have uh uh boraging justice to talk about the reality of realistic goal of k-pop we're about to go into a really dark place then there we go that's where we're gonna go i might not be able to talk today because people think it's really fancy things but it's really not and then i feel like you guys should definitely talk about it and cry about it and make it a cry about it who's gonna cry who's gonna cry you're gonna cry that's your job today ironically i saw you for the first time when you're a rookie like a very first year when i was in l.a yeah yeah i saw bm when he was training yeah when when you when you were like really small and skinny back then it was never small unless you saw me when i like really lost weight at one time it wasn't yeah it might have been yeah when you're trying and i saw ashley when i was in junior high school so i saw you all of you guys oh you guys were such a you know kazuga yeah so you guys can talk about the dark days how old are you why you sound so old when you're ready you're only two years older than me that's true so okay hi this is xijoun and um i'm i'm a singer in korea currently uh a radio dj and hosting other shows and writing scripts and scripts not songs scripts writing songs okay and all that but enough about me guys you want to go down the rabbit hole now let's go let's go let's go lead us into it oh gosh where are we um well let's start off with when we were kind of first exposed to k-pop what did you guys think of it okay exposed oh what's the k-pop though like the genre of the music differentiated by the beat as you all know yeah if it's hitbox it's electric dude yeah but k-pop is not a genre of a music yeah but k-pop is more of a cultural thing yeah so when did you guys actually first exposed by the k-pop cultural thing i guess well you know i used to think it was a genre okay what i thought kpop was when i was really young you know what candy pop is candy pop candy pop is like really really bright and like like japanese like japanese oh there's a lot of candy pop in japan too that's what i thought kpop was because that's just what it looked like to me that's what it sounded like to me when i was really young but i was first exposed to k-pop the first time i thought k-pop was dope was when i first heard big bang and when i saw jay park through his r b thing what was this that was it was like six seven years ago i think very first time when yeah got out of the jyp yeah yeah yeah when he started doing his solo thing yeah so for me it was really fresh i was like oh snap no k-pop is actually pretty dope [Music] i mean i personally just wasn't into candy pop and stuff since i was a big hip-hop head at the time yeah but seeing big bang do that and seeing jay park do that i was like okay shoot maybe like this could be you know this could be really really dope yeah that kind of helped me transition into k-pop what about you guys yeah i mean i was um exposed to k-pop at a very young age like since the 90s why does that sound so long ago mid 90s oh it is i mean my dad was in the music industry kinda he was like in the band so he loved singing and me and my mom just would always watch those music shows you know they back then they had the similar music broadcast shows but it was something yeah something else music camp or something like that um and i was a huge fan of pinker so i like collected all their cds at a young age i used to buy their music sheets and like try to play their song on the piano oh so pink was like my first idol yeah yeah your hair kind of got like a little finger vibe going on right now is that what's happening right now or are you just lazy you're lazy this takes work she got so offended whoa lights out you know what that means damn she got so fun that she cut the lights now this takes work when um ashley did her first meeting with the agency in korea uh-huh i was there remember that the company in uh in a city you got when you did a meeting with lars i was there for the first time when you didn't where i was you guys were living in new york yeah in new york when you actually first oh my god you she doesn't even remember this i didn't even go to polaris at first i was that cute exactly when you were meeting the cute guy i was next to you you were oh my god in a korean cape um um kodiak town restaurant remember that that's messed up ashley you don't remember your boy that's like that's shady you were in cube and then they take you out to the other place remember that yeah but that wasn't in new york yes it was you know i forget it you know okay when is your first time or when what what's your memory of your first time meeting him then oh it was in junior high school i was a freshman he was uh let's not talk about i wasn't selling the same school yeah whoa in l.a wait no you really are you used to be in new york yeah oh what the what i don't know this is from queens new york oh we went to is 25 together yeah i was in seventh grade he was in ninth grade back then but i didn't really know him back then like yeah i was with the cool people and he was with us like that is very accurately true did you know all of her ex-boyfriends that went to jail too did you meet them no he knows all of my ex-boyfriend oh god um even the one that went to jail no if i say his name he might know oh i know everyone from ice 25. you actually went out with him too was a really queen of junior high school no i wasn't she's really gorgeous right now but she was sports back then wow freakishly tall i mean short yeah yeah yeah wait what if breaker should cut i'm sure she was really short with the same figure at the face so when she was sitting down everyone thought that she was gorgeous but when she stood up and like oh that's it and everyone just like oh anyway so she was cool people and i was a i was a really bad one and then we ended up going to a same acting was it even before that we went to the same agency back in new york yeah where we were scammed [Music] yeah though even before that actually she was a back backup dancer for this other artist called jenny back in new york she's doing all this neighborhood kind of hangzhou i used to be an mc for our tunde yeah and then after that we went to same um acting academy and then um uh we got scammed at that one too wow we've been we had a scam there were a lot of con man's back then especially related to entertainment because that was the it was the boom you know in new york and america we didn't really have a lot so everyone was trying to establish an entertainment company and yeah the first place we went to they were bankrupt like they shut down without even telling you they ran away they did yeah they ran away the second dance school we went to yeah they ran away too with your guys's money well like we just paid for the lessons but i'm sure they and then you got no lessons yeah yeah that's the foundation of k-pop i guess people run away so that's not not a not a good uh first image of k-pop for you guys i hear a lot of stories and i feel like k-pop even now there's a lot of scamming going on like hey i'll turn you into a celebrity you can work with us yeah i'll make you a superstar you're a star that's that's how she got really scared so when we're in an acting academy she does remember but i remember this clearly um one of the other student was interested at her figure like kimiona kind of look and then she said so i went with her she doesn't remember oh that's messed up wow and then do you remember now right there i took my time to you know protect my sister and she doesn't remember then i text her at the end like don't do not sign this feels like we've been scammed a lot and i smell it really bad and then she said okay and then she took up to korea so i did sign you this oh and then this so i didn't listen to you that's how your k-pop life started you signed and then you went off to korea yeah so pretty much so pretty much you were like protect me and he was like i'll protect you and you're like no thank you thank you pretty much yeah yeah like hey i need some advice what should i do do this okay i'm gonna do that all right ashley see you soon that's what exactly happened no so that's the life of k-pop that um actually had alright yeah i mean there's a lot of november in k-pop yeah i mean just an entertainment in general but in k-pop there's a lot yeah there's a lot did you guys know a lot of like famous companies are run by gangsters in korea yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah people need to know i mean i know back in the day but hi it's producer diane and i have a fun fact for you it's not a secret i don't know why i miss whispering it's just a fun fact fun fact most home remedies and over-the-counter acne products don't work and even worse they can really damage your skin i've been there i have acne scars that have lasted months if not maybe a year because i was silly and was picking at it and i was using products that you know smelled good but wasn't quite good for me and that's that's me being booboo the fool and paying the price but i don't want you to pay the price okay that's why we're excited to partner with apostrophe the sponsor of this episode apostrophe is a prescription skincare company that offers science back to oral and topical medications that are clinically proven to help clear acne apostrophe connects you with a board-certified dermatologist who will create a personalized treatment plan that is perfectly tailored to your unique skin simply fill out apostrophe's online quiz about your skin goals and medical history then snap a few selfies and your dermatologist will create your customized treatment plan posture retreats acne and they can also help you hit your other skincare goals like reducing redness wrinkles and even dark spots like i've said this before but my skincare goals i just want to have this even tone so that i can get away with basically not wearing foundation but made me look like i'm wearing foundation i'm also very concerned about like the texture of my skin i want things to i wish things could be like smoother so and it's important for me to hit that because as i get older so does my skin but i don't necessarily want it to look older you know and so therefore i'm really grateful that we have a special deal for our audience save 15 of your first visit with a board-certified dermatologist at apostrophe.com get real when you use our code get real this code is only available to our listeners to get started just go to apostrophe.com get real and click begin visit then use our code get real at signup and you'll get 15 off your dermatology visit that's a-p-o-s-t-r-o-p-h-e.com get real and use that code get real to get your dermatology visit and save 15 and we thank apostrophe for sponsoring the podcast i didn't really know much about k-pop i used to listen to punk rock yeah and no you did not did you really i used to listen to punk rock like uh yeah like uh red jumpsuit apparatus all-time low some 41. some 41 is good all of them and then um i started hanging out with my korean friends more around like middle school high school-ish and then um you know obviously all of them were like listening to k-pop and there were a bunch of um people from korea do you guys remember fobs the word father yeah is that okay yeah they were like uh they were like a bunch of fobs and stuff at our church too so then they all like and spread like yeah k-pop and then i was just like oh okay like this is pretty cool but i had no idea what it was right i was just like i was just like oh it's in korean okay k-pop yeah like um and then one of my friends said that they were gonna audition so i just followed them oh yeah and i got in so i just kind of but the friend didn't yeah my friend didn't get it do you remember who he was yeah she is she in the industry now no oh oh she didn't make it that way it's okay it's not all you know sunshine rainbows out here yeah you did yourself a favor yeah you guys weren't saying company before yeah yeah i saw her for like two months and then she left oh yeah yeah yeah good talk guys see you guys next week we went down the river i mean i can't go much deeper than this wait i can't tell you you can you guys can he joined when was the year when you came out on kpop star k-pop that was after american night oh yes yes i was never interested in k-pop well i really just was not you know what can i be honest i am not really a fan of k-pop even though i am now okay that i am uh host of the show okay specific melodies yeah or at least right like a b b rhythm something but k-pop i feel like it was just race yeah it was just really not soulful k-pop yeah and i feel like when when ashley says she's gonna took off to korea i literally said do not sell your soul to something that's not real you know k-pop to me it was never a real thing i didn't sell my soul though yeah exactly yeah and then and then and my perception changes really slowly uh yes changed a lot it's so much respectful for all these k-pop singers out there in korea right now because [Music] yeah it's so hard did you guys actually went through the schedule that you guys had to do in a pocket all right what do you mean watch me on they don't know no not in detail but i'm sure they know because they heard a lot of stories music podcast when i was watching all these k-pop singers looking pretty and all that and i got boy and i was i was on that stage and i had this thing where oh i know my you know i can do better than all these guys and i went up to the stage and i'm like we're talking well i'm like don't move you're nervous and i can't even find the camera right oh the red light the red light oh yeah that's hard and i i'm just the guy who's standing there and singing and you guys are dancing crazy and just looking at the camera with the great expression and all that and i'm just the guy who's singing ballad and i can't even do that right and then that's my first time got up there messed up whole lyrics you did it everything mixed up and then i would i never get pixar in my life you cracked was it bad really what is happening and after the stage you even knew you're like i don't know respect for all these artists even the rookies because you guys go up in like four a.m in the morning get yours done you know the great performance women's i had no respect for k-pop i'm just being honest yeah yeah yeah yeah no that's pretty that's understandable though yeah i'm sure a lot of people have like the same perspective as you yeah and then they never stood on stage or anything so they don't know what's going on exactly yeah and i feel like even if let's just say the greatest artist of all time bruno mars whoever comes to inkigayo because you guys do it weekly every day literally every day monday through sunday you guys have music programs right yeah they're literally one like every day now back in stage there's no programs like that so they're not really trained but you guys are all trained for performing really well but bruno mars and all these huge artists are only trained for one specific appropriate like super bowl and all that trained on rehearsal for a month but then you guys only do live for like two two times and do that that's why i have huge respectful for all this k-pop brooky artists too they're so good yeah let's do it that way a lot of physical stress comes with it yeah definitely yeah even for um kingdom this time when we did the performance stage we practiced two full days are you serious yeah that's it how many hours um like i think i was from like 10 to maybe like 12-ish one oh my goodness and then it was two days and then it was like the tungsten rehearsal right away yeah we did that once it was technically like three times and then it was the day of the shoot we got to do like rehearsal like three times and then the actual shoot uh you can only do it once is it live sheesh it's not they shoot it like it's live though so it's like even if you do like perfectly like you don't mess up a single time during uh the rehearsals but then let's say you they're like okay it's like it's like all right we're gonna do the actual shoot now yeah and then if you mess up during the actual shoot that's what goes out yeah yeah but yeah but we were only able to practice like three why times it awesome though how do you memorize that in two days my brain is fried right now i think it's the world best when it comes down to performing i think k-pop is the best no they they memorize the move so fast yeah like i'm in the like the the oldest guy after me he was cooper yeah and then i'm just like in the corner i'm like hold on what [Applause] put me in the bag put me in the bag oh can we actually talk about your train because i never had a trainee ears oh okay i was just super talented so i never i mean american idol dude yeah dude that must have been nerve-wracking well normal no not really not knowing what's happening and american idol you guys know state production gives you so much time yeah oh really dang i didn't know that shape production gives you so much room so much beneficial thing like they give you food and all that let's just say you're in a competition in korea they don't let you sing the songs that you like to sing they choose it for you yeah they give you like the listen sometimes you just do whatever you want because it's up to you and that's the huge difference and um and the biggest difference of of it all is that judges in korea just goes like this you know yeah that's what you got you know let's see if you crack under pressure and instead they go oh my gosh you're so good let's just see more you know so it's a it's yeah i feel like that's very like a korean and american kind of wow i feel like sometimes cracking under pressure testing on the pressure is good yeah sometimes it's good but it's a big difference for sure difference and um in korea when you do a competition uh notice guys if you guys want to try for a competition they take your cell phone away why oh what i have no idea i didn't take my phone away they didn't wait what season were you on were you in k-pop season one why weren't you gonna keep on stopping it might have been it might have been all the fuck-ups we did in season one that made you guys get your phone stick that's what exactly yeah yeah you got your phone taken i mean i was good i was a good guy i didn't do anything with my phone when we were in a uh living the same apartment they took our phones away really yeah yeah they didn't take my phones at that time they take my phone like a company that like just debuted you guys exactly and i said back then i was fresh from the state and i'm like this doesn't make any sense and and eventually i ended up giving it up but they take your phones away man really it's literally just insane i said i didn't give it did it yeah when we first debuted uh i remember i forgot what happened but then the managers got mad and they were like all right because we didn't get our phones taken away from the beginning oh okay and then afterwards they're like everyone like leave your phone at the dorms from now on and then they're like anybody have an objection no i was like and they're like why and i was like i want to carry my phone around and they're like why and i was like like the time difference and everything so it's like i want to talk to my parents and they're like work hard then oh okay and i was like i was like what does that have to do with my phone and they're like just just work hard i was like okay yeah and then i left my phone at the dorms and then i just put everything on my ipad yup that's how you that's how you do it right yeah and then they were like we told you not to bring your phone around like no there's my ipad didn't you take your phones away when you are training uh yeah they did a lot and if i wa if i needed it or wanted to record myself doing something i would i would need to get consent from them too so i felt like i was paying for my phone but i needed their consent to borrow my own phone yeah like what google special when you're training yeah we even had journals as trainees that we would write in and submit every day and they would read over it yeah yeah yeah they would give us feedback i remember seeing oh yeah cute people doing that i had no idea what they were doing and we had to weigh ourselves every time we come down that was embarrassing the journal thing was okay i was like man whatever i'll just like have what i did today you know it was cool but the weighing thing oh my gosh dude did they weigh you in front of everyone everyone is in line over what just to get weighed wait were you a big matthew or a big method that was big mac obviously i'd be last so i would hope like whoever like it was first would weigh and get away you know everyone's staying and they're just like looking at the thing i'm just like yeah i never took it to heart but every time i was on i was like take off my earrings take off my necklace take off every article of clothing [Applause] i've never taken the heart but i'm a drama yeah no my my dumb for some reason i would think like holding my breath on top of the thing would like make me lighter like make me float or something [Music] what was that what was the limit though that you guys had to keep well that would be based on what you look like i had a belly at the time and i you know i wasn't like and especially since i have height too in comparison to the other guys that didn't have as much height and they were skinnier right i just stood out like a sore thumb oh yeah i was huge okay oh so every time all right you need to cut weight you need to cut away you need to go away and then there was one time where i cut like i was like going from 84 to 85 kilos back and forth but i was i wasn't i didn't have as much muscle as i did now there was one time i dropped 10 kilos to 74. cool oh my goodness everyone was like dude you look like you [Music] not healthy right that's probably when you saw him i think that yeah that was probably yeah right now yeah yeah no i had i had a problem because they started weighing me that's what happened to everyone huh yeah after i came to korea i started to gain weight because of the every time we had to weigh ourselves i would tell my friend like you'll pull my hair off it's like subtract some weight and holding you up and i would just feel bad um especially because i started at a later age i started as a trainee when i was like 20. yeah but they were i had tungstens who are in junior high school who would be eating like 12 cherry tomatoes for lunch i mean they're still growing at that age you know but they're so stressed by weight so they're always eating chicken breast salad and like tomatoes at that age and i felt so bad you know what happens their stress like blows up and then they go to the bathroom and hide and like eat something else we did every time we came back to the dorm from practice we would buy like 10 packs of rice cake and we would just shove it down before our manager gets worse like no that's what it does to you you go crazy no also if they're gonna make people lose weight they gotta teach them how to do it properly you know but they're just like they're just like starved eat leaves yeah yeah and don't do anything else they say it's unprofessional to look like you're someone who's supposed to be on stage dancing looking good and you know if you gain weight they're like nobody really wants to see that before we get on with the rest of the episode we would like to thank our sponsor betterhelp betterhelp is a platform where you can match and speak with a professional from the comfort of your home all within 48 hours of registering it's an alternative to in-person counseling and if you think you may need help with paying for their service there's options for financial aid that you can find on their website so check to see on their website in case you're qualified and if you want to try a different counselor from the one you matched with better help lets you switch over for free there are many different counselors that specialize to suit your specific needs whether it's anxiety stress or depression i love being able to talk out how i'm feeling and knowing that i'm being heard by someone ready to help if you need more opportunities to sort those types of feelings out i suggest checking out better health as a potential new option i want you to start living a happier life today as a listener you'll get 10 off your first month by visiting our sponsor at betterhelp.com get real 10. join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health again that's betterhealthhelp.com get real 10. okay now back to the episode so you when you guys were a trainee the the the weight was the biggest issue was it the hardest part to keep up well it wasn't even that hard for me i had fun doing it because it was like my first time dieting so yeah it's pretty fun so what was the hardest thing to do when you were in a training let's just i mean waiting for debuting i guess no right i mean i think ours would tie in to being a foreigner okay missing people missing people learning about the culture not knowing not knowing much because i mean the thing with k-pop is a lot of it is uh artist development right right so they train you they tell you to diet they tell you to do this they put you through um they send you to the hospital to go through you know more more procedures for your face and whatever so in the states i feel like it's a little bit different they look for people who already have the talent like how you were on american idol exactly but here they see potential from something that's at zero right now and then trying to pull it up and then they try to put it to 100 so i think that's really different and i think it's also like to a certain degree i feel like it could be really toxic because you're using the angle where it's like hey you want to be famous yeah you know yeah do you love music it's not even do you love music do you love dancing do you love performing do you love fame you know like how do you like on tv it's it's almost literally selling your soul and then you get put through all these like crazy you know uh procedures and everything i just said it's just like damn like yeah i guess but yeah i don't know at the end of the day i feel like that's a huge part of the development part is just so big yeah so speaking of like the face procedure stuff you know i heard like i don't know about anymore but back in the day i heard there were like a lot of companies that were like oh like if you want to debut like yeah yeah surgery they made it mandatory yeah yeah so how long was your training years uh i trained from 2000 late 2011 early 2012 till the last month of 2016. four to five years it wasn't too short how about actually it's been four five years too no i trained in queue for exactly a year and then i went to polaris and before we debuted it was around like six months so a year and six months no sort of thing all right yo dude my training process sucked oh my goodness i got lucky ours combined is still shorter than his the hardest part was the last year oh because i'm i'm 24 and mind you all my friends back in the states they're all getting their jobs now they're big boy jobs they're out of college which i couldn't graduate too so i'm just like i need to make money doing something debut me or throw me away you know i don't know i don't know why i was there so i i i i grew some and then i was just like hey let me out the company yeah i need to leave yeah i'll do music by myself i'm not going to run away to the states so i'll pay you back all the training fees just let me out really really we're going to really pay all that money it's too expensive i know but i mean i i felt like i would have probably been happier trying to do that and then end up in a different company or a hip-hop label yeah that makes sense yeah and then just try to do the rap rapper route um but she was like my my ted pill my ceo was like give me a month yeah and then two months later i debut nice nice that's a card nice card i feel like in the past um people did kind of look down on k-pop idols because they called them like puppets um yeah and back then when they performed it was mainly just lip syncing and they just kind of danced a little bit it wasn't even like full-on dance they called it urton which is like kids dance little choreographies and they would just kind of be there looking pretty but that's definitely changed now because so many talented people exactly yeah and they like compose there and produce their own stuff now too and everything um i don't know yeah and i feel like the the biggest difference between back then and now is that how you put it back then it was all about gangsters yeah it really was it really was gangsters around that so let's just talk about a little bit of a state side so when you're in state you need if you want to become a singer or a little a professional singer you need like a we call the four triangle we which is agency label management and sometimes lawyer plus pr or you call it publicity if you don't have four of them it's really low for you to make a great singers so all of the four different angles are working for you right and the the biggest part as a singer you need in state is label label picks song for you label picks everything for you yeah you even though you're a singer songwriter you go up to the label and then you get confirmed from the labels right because label has so much backtrack of the producer and everything and they match you with the producer that could work with you in the right way and that's how states musics are so much moraga far away from ours because they talk about music with people who knows about music yeah the problems with korea back then ego is four different angles in korea but in korea they all combined this together yeah in one building and like sandwiched we call this total management it's a total management but i don't think it's a good thing it's com it comes from japan yeah total management everyone had a different job but the powerful department from total management was management management people who managed a lot of different talks about music so it's like literally a nurse comes up to the restaurant and trying to cook let's just put it that way so managers became the head of every department yeah choose uh bm to sing this song and all that that was that's what happened back in the day and most of the managers back in the day in 1990s until 19 like literally 2000 they're all gangsters yeah 98 to 7 percent yeah and kurochin starting to show up yeah and all this other artists came up and a write producer clicked in talking with the right singers who knows about music so jyp was one of them he was a singer great producer produced a great singers uh sm was part of it too yg was part of it two people think yg is not a singer as you all know yg doesn't wise he confirms everything but he has a great producer called teddy right so teddy confirms a lot of things as you all know and if teddy says go we go right yeah so oh and again big hit pancho was the producer so if the producer makes the track and choose the song for you that's when it shines but in korea when management picks the songs for you that's when you crack yeah uh when i first sell you the song can you remember that b2b uh-huh the christmas song christmas song oh and um that's when your a r team request me to write a christmas song uh-huh but hong song song confirmed it yeah so i feel like only successful company that uh that got confirmed by management was cute other than other companies i don't i can't find any companies whose are doing who's doing good uh by making a decision from a management right and i feel like korea k-pop nowadays is transitioning to that phrase right now yeah yeah if you haven't if you haven't changed that yet you're really really late right now yeah i feel like that's really what's initially i think what you're saying is you're listening to what the music professionals are saying exactly you know and a lot of times these days the artists themselves will actually make the song exactly and then they'll take it to the company and then the management will pretty much pick between one of the songs that they wrote all right uh we got a question from reddit user [Music] luxurial all right uh hello everyone i try to find the right place to write this but if there are any problems please tell me sorry for my bad english since my mother language is korean nice it's all good i'm korean and work for a k-pop company we already have a girl group i think they are sort of well known in the k-pop industry but not actually in korea she and the business oh shoot okay but we are really working hard for this group i'm sorry that i can't tell which group we are taking care of i know understandable nowadays many k-pop groups are trying to set strong marketing strategies if you are the one who makes k-pop groups what is the most important thing to consider and what is the most interesting youtube video you have seen about k-pop these days i know heavy and neat performances um is the point that attracts international fans but any other points what do you think guys you guys are internationally famous sheesh what do you think card actually didn't doing really well in the states card was a miracle yeah card was a miracle you know what's crazy about card the amount of money that was invested for the first couple projects and the level of expectation that we had was really really low both of those no one thought we would have made it like that we were kind of the uh let's see how they do if they don't do well let's just kind of brush them to the side we were like that oh yeah you know we were kind of gonna be the ones that they were just gonna not throw away but just ah we'll take care of you later type things is what i felt for us we were a miracle because the amount of numbers we did when we first came out was the amount of numbers you can do if you have a lot of side money invested yeah and though from my understanding we didn't have that right so we got really lucky in the beginning and um i think there were other factors the fact that we were quite but now i feel like to have a successful group there's a crazy amount of not only money but promotional stuff that initially is money that you need to invest in each comeback in each um group yeah the more coverage the better yeah you have a mom and every news article every forum every you know tick tock is huge nowadays i feel like pretty much summing up the publicity pretty much yeah publicity you know just huge marketing publicity and there's so many ways that you can you know market or yeah whatever your artist these days you just gotta find the right ones find the ones that are kind of blowing up yeah um get them on that no uh like internet content it's huge because of corona these days you know so there's no like and it's like if you think about it like the um views they're actually not that high it's like it's like one percent less than one percent so it's like it's more for fans yeah it's more just for fans but if you're kind of focusing on like oh how do i get them like well known you know i feel like it's like internet content yep um news articles all this stuff you kind of got to get them out there yeah you need digital coverage yeah i feel like cart did really well in states because you guys had a great songs yeah people don't recognize not much as in korea yeah because the level of audience who's listening to the songs yeah back in states they are really well trained to listen to music yeah but in korea they're trained to sing along with the music right but car song is such a good song to listen to right so back in state i feel like people understood cards music and i think that's what they that's why it's doing well in the states didn't you guys blow up in like south america too right yeah yeah no brazil mexico chile so to answer this question it's really just simple you gotta have to find i mean the pr things makes perfect sense but you need to find a great music project yeah yeah yeah obviously and then make a good music and then that's uh that's it's it's automatically going to blow up if you actually have a good content that that has to be like that's the basic basic yeah yeah yeah even if you do all that pr and stuff and then people look you up and you got like music they're going to be like exactly it's so unprofessional sometimes man that's why i hate this so much like some sometimes companies just overtake the power and this management who doesn't have any idea about music comes up to the table and pick the next project it just doesn't make any sense for me no i remember um i mean he's out of our company now uh thank goodness because i didn't really like him but when we first debuted our members are like goofy as hell you know yeah we love doing like funny stuff yeah and i remember we were doing funny stuff and the vp came up to us it was like hey like you guys have to have like a serious image like you can't do that funny like stop doing that yeah yeah like our like video production team do not got like in trouble too he was like why would you upload that like but then our funny stuff started kind of blowing up on my community and yeah like other stuff right and then that's when we started kind of getting recognition yeah all of a sudden he comes back and he's like hey do more funny like hey it's doing well on the community stuff it's like and that's what hey that's what i'm saying hey bro all that just leverage yeah dude all that is leveraged like we told you yeah but it's like what you said they were they would he would literally it'd be like it'd be like managers you know and they're all just like looking online like what's blowing up and stuff yeah and they're like oh wait b2b is like funny stuff is actually blowing up and then he will come back he's like hey like try this and he would bring the stupidest stuff yeah that he thought was funny yeah and he's like like this is funny right and then the members and us like since he's like the name you know he's the vp he's the vp oh no not not now okay not now all right he got fired long time ago yeah uh but you know he would like come and then since he's like the pusa name you know we'd be like yeah it's funny like yeah yeah okay like shoot this and upload it later let me be like since bts became number one everyone thinks that they could do well in states or everyone starts to think that they could make a girl or a boy group they feel like they could be part of the k-pop looking like oh you're going to take a shirt the one guy just get an investment and all investors all together and make a music do you think that's going to go fine no it's going to crack and who actually becomes the victim the trainees or the artists because they have no idea some days literally i feel like 99 of the time companies have no idea what they're doing and one person at the time artist saves the day or the music producer saves today i think that's been the story of k-pop that's true yeah yeah so watching this guys get yourself a great producer right so okay then yeah get lux surreal get yourself a good producer yeah good producer and good um talented artist oh wait they already debuted i hope your artists are talent like super talented i mean who's not really famous in states nowadays in korea like everyone's famous in state oh they're famous in this like overseas but not that well known in korea huh oh there's so many groups like that though yeah anyways uh yes so um that's it oh yeah good basics right make sure you know you guys got good songs good producers true um talented artists and then good pr yeah i just feel like to sum up today's date thing uh-huh okay so you do your part do your part do that right do it right do your part do it right don't overpower and trust the professionals that's it if you're gonna pay them trust them but the thing is in the in k-pop like everyone thinks they're professionals exactly so that's also a problem but yeah uh once again know your part two yeah anyway so it is time to wrap up uh do you have any upcoming projects or anything or me yeah any new song releases well i'm really seeing i'm um not releasing releasing a song of course but um i'm releasing a book online you're releasing a book when is that coming out august august all right well uh what what's your instagram id something like that you could type my name i'm not really on an instagram i know what do you use twitter then or no i'm not sure what can like your fans follow you on you know whenever you upload you know listen to his tbs radio all right listen to his radio show i'm sure he'll talk about when the book is actually going to come out on there no his phone number is 0-1-0 just hit him up just kidding book in august anything else the move is coming out soon the movie then the one that i wrote as a script wow right now and oh that's what you meant by writing and it should be on a screen around the end of this year korean movie yeah oh dang i hope it does well all right i think it's gonna go on not on the theater but maybe on netflix because no one actually releases a theater movie nowadays yeah this is right because no no one really wants to go to like a movie trailer either let us know yeah and we need to have you back today was too short i know what the hell is going on we need we need to do part two of k-pop let's have you back home the music is all uh not music the movie in the movie yes please no i will be too [Laughter] anyways um stay updated he's not on sns so find a way to find his stuff i guess yeah you gotta hunt him down han heejun that's his name that's me all right anyways uh if you wish to stay updated on the show though uh follow us on instagram and twitter at the dive studios uh full episodes will be up on youtube.com dive pods and once again follow and review this podcast good reviews only five stars only and yes thank you everyone for listening thank you for coming on today all right guys hey did you like this video if so click the subscribe button and make sure to turn on your notifications so you don't miss a single video and listen to the entire audio episode on spotify or apple podcast bye

Channel: DIVE Studios / 다이브 스튜디오

Views: 140,639

Keywords: Peniel, BM, American Idol Learns About K-Pop Industry with Han Heejun, Get Real, peniel bm ashley choi, Ashley Choi, Btob, peniel bm ashley, get real han hee jun, han hee jun dive studios, DIVE Studios, get real podcast, btob peniel get real, ashley choi get real, bm get real, get real highlight, get real highlights dive studios, get real ep 52, get real full episodes, get real podcast ep 52, American Idol Asks K-Pop Idols About Trainee Life, kpop dive studios, kpop trainee

Id: eSKGY_oG06I

Length: 54min 20sec (3260 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

takeaway from this podcast:

• Ashley and Heejun used to get scammed a lot when they were in NYC

• Heejun tried to act like a protective older brother to Ashley and told her not to go with strange ppl to Korea but she went bye and did it anyway and didn't even remember lol

• Heejun is lowkey offended Ashley doesn't remember him being next to her when she switched from Cube to Polaris

• Good music comes from good producers and artists, not management

• K-pop used to be primarily run by gangsters

• Peniel and BTOB apparently hated their old VP

• Peniel got around the cell phone ban with his iPad

• Nobody in kpop management knows how to get idols to diet properly and Ashley and Peniel thinks it's messed up, especially for younger trainees and artists who are still growing

• "it's like a nurse going to a restaurant and trying to cook"

• Trying to find the tiny red blinking light on the cameras is hard according to Heejun and that was the moment Heejun started to gain respect for k-pop

[u/melonmellori]

This is a pretty interesting ep. They talk alot about what goes on behind-the-scenes, mixing together gossip in the kpop industry ranging from the late 90s to now so that no one gets into trouble.

Heejun is a good guest if people want slightly spicier gossip that most idols can't share. He's not an idol, but interacts with lots of idols as ASC's MC. He's also done lots of "idol-ish" things like survival shows, music broadcasts & even behind-the-scenes stuff (e.g. producing songs)

Plus Heejun doesn't mince his words, and he isn't too active on social media...aka he probably won't know/care if he gets "cancelled" on twitter.

Btw, mildly curious about this ex-Cube VP mentioned. Even BtoB's video editing team got in trouble with him.

But I can totally picture BtoB secretly judging that VP's not-so-funny suggestions (while pretending to humour the VP in front of him), and then ignoring it once he leaves to do their own antics.

[u/wipny]

Heejun was great!

I had no idea Heejun and Ashley knew each other back in NY.

It’s interesting how they both ended up in Korea in the entertainment industry after falling for all those scams 😂

I really enjoyed his honesty. I appreciated his candidness in admitting he didn’t initially like K Pop since he felt it was manufactured and lacked soul.

It’s interesting he gained an appreciation for the work idols do after he took on the job at After School Club.

I found it enlightening to hear his insight on the differences between the US and Korean music industry.

To make it in the US, he said professional singers need the “4 Angles” - talent agency, music label, management, lawyer, and sometimes a PR agency.

Unless you have these things working for you, it’s difficult to break through and make it as a singer.

The difference in Korea is that everything needed to make a star are all consolidated under 1 building within a single entertainment agency. He said this concept of “total” management was adopted from Japan.

He also said that the difference in the Korean idol industry from the 90s-early 2000s was that the managers picking the songs had no background or knowledge of music.

Heejun said K Pop really exploded and became the phenomenon it is now when the likes of actual musicians like Lee Soo Man, JYP, and Yang Hyun Suk/Teddy Park became in charge.