Eric Nam: “I’m very thankful and very blessed to be able to do what I love”

After speaking about his work in music and recommending some music to readers of The Seoul Story, Eric Nam shared his love for the stage and his fans with us as we spoke during Eric Nam’s visit to Melbourne, Australia last week for the 2014 K-Wave Festival.

The Seoul Story (TSS): You mentioned in an interview that you’d really like to go abroad and perform for fans around the world – how has that worked out so far? Any countries on your wishlist?

Eric Nam (E): Well I’m here, so it’s worked out very well. What a lot of fans don’t realise is that I don’t get to say ‘Oh, I’m going to travel to Australia and I’m gonna do a show in Melbourne.’ There has to be an organizer who puts the entire show together and deal with ticket pricing, selling and stuff. We have nothing to do with that, we just don’t have the capacity to do that. So every time someone goes ‘Oh, come to this country!’ we go, ‘You guys have to advocate for it.’

My fans in Melbourne were very very vocal about that so SQ Entertainment were nice enough to bring me out for K-Wave. Same thing with Morocco, it happened with K-Con, and my fans were like ‘We want Eric at K-con!’ So I found a way to K-Con. And now, it’s been amazing because so much of it has been through my fans being active on social media and so I’m going to Toronto next week, I’ll be in Malaysia a week or two after that, and then we have a bunch of other shows in planning but nothing’s fixed yet. Hopefully we’ll get to announce them soon.

It’s been fun, been very tiring and I doubt it’s jet lag but I’m very thankful and very blessed to be able to do what I love and meet fans and people who appreciate my music.

TSS: If you only had 5 minutes to perform one song that could leave a great impact on an audience, what song would you perform and why?

E: It would probably be ‘Say Something’ because in terms of vocal range it’s not the hardest song to sing, but when it comes to the emotions of the song and conveying the lyrics – that’s where it becomes difficult.

I think it is right in this key where it beings out the best parts of my voice. Everybody has sort of a sweet spot, in terms of their vocal range and so for me it’s right in that sweet spot. Even in the low end, people have said it’s nice to listen to and when you get to the high range, it’s right where [the sweet spot] is, so I think it’s a perfect balance of that. When it comes to the maeryeok (매력), or the charm of my voice, I think that song would show it off the best.

TSS: What is your favorite thing to see in the audience while you are on stage?

E: People just having fun and rocking out, and some people singing along to the lyrics… I’d just be like ‘Oh, they know my song, that’s cool! Thank you!’ I actually don’t get to perform that much, something that I’d definitely like to do a lot more of. Seeing people smile and enjoy the music… I was at the Seoul Jazz Festival in May, and that was fun because there was 2000-3000 people packed in this place and everyone was just singing along, having a good time, and it was good, it was fun.

[text by thenghui]