[INTERVIEW] Big Bang member Taeyang - Part 2

Taeyang [YG Entertainment]

10: In that sense, I don't think you would have needed a guide vocal for this album since the melody changes depending on how you sing the songs.
Taeyang: "I Need a Girl" was by a songwriter not from our company so there was a guide. But with the other songs, I worked directly with the producers, sung them however I felt about them, and recorded them straight away. I sang most of the songs without guides. Even when there were [guides], the producers pretty much left it up to me to do the expressions or set the overall vibe of the song.

10: I think "You're My" must have been like that in particular. You fill up the song, created only by the sounds of the piano, with just your voice, so the song can change entirely depending on how you sing the lyrics and whether you do ad-libs or not. In a way it's as if you're writing the song while singing it. (laugh) I think it might have ended up becoming an entirely different song from what the songwriter intended it to be.
Taeyang: It took some time for me to find my style for "You're My" because it had a guide and when I sang it similar to that, everyone had said it sounded okay. But I didn't like it. I was under the determination that I can only produce a completed album when it contains my style. So I changed the original sound while doing many recordings. There was a voice I wanted to use for it, and to express that properly, I needed to understand the song thoroughly, record it in my style, and then tell people that I want to use this sort of sound for this song. It was the same with other songs as well.

10: I think how you sustain your unique vibe in "You're My" must've been important because it has to be sung in one go.
Taeyang: Yes. It actually took a very long time to record. (laugh) Till the very last moment I had been trying to figure out how I should sing the song but I just decided to erase all the thoughts in my head and just sing it depending entirely on how I felt about it and that worked. (laugh)

10: Hasn't the way people treat you changed after you became more expressive of your opinions? Your new album does not follow the trend of the Korean music industry these days and you unfold your not-so-fast songs with the changes in your voice. You must've needed to persuade a lot of people to make such an album.
Taeyang: I think what I learned the most while working on this album was people relationships. We'd compromise before I set forth my opinions and then I needed to go through the process of pulling out what I want by talking with them a lot.

10: Did you have a hard time saying such things before?
Taeyang: Yes. I didn't know how to have such conversations and when things go in a direction different from what I want, I actually... used to just turn around and say "I'm not going to do it."

10: You said that new friends are what you surely want in the year 2010. Do you now have interest in forming new relationships?
Taeyang: Yes. Before, I wasn't open to meeting new people or forming new relationships. And I wouldn't say that I'm still that active about it but I think it's good that I even have these feelings. -- that I'm becoming more interested in new relationships and that I think more deeply about them as well.

10: I think such a change in heart has influenced your way of singing as well. With "Take it Slow" in particular, you very strongly seemed to give off the vibe that 'I'm the one who's leading this song.' You also gave a lot of delicate changes to your voice as well.
Taeyang: I think that aspect to it stood out more because I made the melody but now, I just want to be able to express the things I have the way they are when I'm singing. Before, I used to devise up a lot of imaginary settings before singing a song because it's not based on my experience so I would just come up with a set-up based on the lyrics. But that ended up in me expressing the song a bit differently from how it was really supposed to be. I now start with songs I'm sure of. By singing with more sincerity, I think I've started to realize a bit on how to express a song more delicately.

Taeyang [YG Entertainment]

10: Songs are usually constructed by the songwriting or arrangement but you did that with your voice which was absurd in a good sense. (laugh) What were you most concerned about when making your own songs for the album?
Taeyang: I'm embarrassed to say I wrote the songs but when producer Teddy made it, he would make songs with melodies that he gets good feelings about immediately after listening to them. So it's important to find the melody that suits my voice and tone. And I take overall flow into much consideration as well. I think making the melody that I can express is most important.

10: Teddy has worked with you several times now so he probably gets what you need immediately but how was it working with new producers like choice37?
Taeyang: Communication was very important because in the case of choice37, he's an old friend of Teddy's from the United States who has been working in Korea starting with G-Dragon's album. More than anything, I thought that I should express what I want very clearly. I made sure of telling him I'm making this sort of album so I would like us to use these sort of things. So I told him a lot that I want this album to have a lot of analog elements to it rather than digital sounds. I wanted the album to give off the vibe of soul.

10: This album definitely seems to stray away from the trend of Korean music these days. But aren't you worried? You said you wanted to do music where you can sing delicately within a fixed rhythm and gradually create an elegant bounce but that's not the popular style in Korea.
Taeyang: I do think that the music I seek to do is actually quite far from what's popular right now. And in a review, I read I was similar to some musician overseas, so that was frustrating as well because this is an album I made not thinking of any of that. I just went with how I feel. My goal is to do music which I am best at doing and that which sounds the best when done by me. Looking down the road, I also want to show not just Korea but the world that there is a singer who can do such music and sing such songs. I still decided to go with "I Need a Girl" for the title track though because it could reach out to the more common public.

10: You must've worried about saying your music is first than the public being one of the most popular idol stars.
Taeyang: I would've seen success if I was looking at the immediate future and released an album which suits the tastes of the Korean public. But I don't know if I would've been satisfied by that. People may speak of me nicely based on the results they see but I don't think that is what's important.

10: You used to say that acknowledging yourself is important but now it seems that having confidence in yourself has become more important.
Taeyang: Yes. I have to know myself better and become confident.

10: Is there anything you have found out about yourself while working on this album?
Taeyang: It's not that I didn't know myself before. But I think I've found out about myself in more detail this time. For example, if I have any bad habits, I've confirmed it and there are things I have accepted when it comes to things I can't do anything about. Thoughts like, I'm me. In a way, I've found an answer to myself. A realization about what sort of music I should do in the future.

Senior Reporter : Kang Myoung-Seok two@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@, Lee Ji-Hye seven@