Follow Your Heart: Interview with Smacksoft

What is your favorite part of being in a rock band?

My favorite part of being in a rock band is that I get to do what I want to do every day. Lots of people dream of playing music for a living – I get to actually do it. It’s awesome and I’m so grateful to be able to do this. Being able to play music all the time is a wonderful thing.

When you perform live, do you have a set playlist, or do you make it up as you play? Do you have a pre-show ritual at all?

We make a set list for each gig, but sometimes it changes depending on our mood or the mood of the audience. We don’t have any set pre-show rituals. Just load in and then hang out and wait to play.

Over the last 7 years, since the first Korean band was invited to SXSW, the number of invites has grown to 15 Korean acts, what do you think has contributed to this? What do you feel the Korean music scene has to offer that other countries might not?

More acts have learned about SXSW over the last few years and have applied to perform at the festival. In the past, very few bands here were aware of the fest and not many were applying to play. Now that more and more Korean bands know about the event, I’m sure the number of Korean acts applying each year will continue to grow.

I don’t know what Korea’s music scene has to offer that other countries might not. All I know is that Korean people love to sing! Pretty much everywhere you go in Korea, you can find a noraebang, which is Korea’s version of karaoke. So there’s always an opportunity to hear Koreans singing the songs they love. Now, whether the singing is good or bad is a completely different thing!