Griffy’s Heartfelt Pop Songs Are For Everyone

After leaving music school, Griffy has carved out a space for himself in the indie pop field. “It’s not like I’m confident enough to call myself a musician now and I wasn’t confident then,” he says in this interview. “It’s more like I started to care less what other people say.” 

ONE NIGHT after an argument with his girlfriend, Griffy lay in bed in silence. Then, a funny thought occurred to him. “I could not help thinking in bed, ‘Oh this could be a song,’” he said with an infectious laugh one morning from his recording studio. “My girlfriend was next to me and I thought about what a good song it could be.” 

The next morning, ever a man of ritual, Griffy went to his studio and hashed out the song on his keyboard and guitar. “I was able to do a barebones sketch of the song,” he recalled. “I produced and recorded it in the studio that day.” 

That song became Griffy’s latest single “Talk It Out”. The track is pure pop in the same vein of Lauv or Charlie Puth with a big chorus and conversational lyrics. This is by design: Griffy likes his music to be accessible to all listeners. He creates bright pop tunes where, even if the lyrics are at times emotional or dark, there is an underlying optimism found in each song. 

“Maybe it’s just a stereotype but as a musical genre, pop is more personal for my story,” he said. “Before this, I was more into the sound [of a song] itself than actual stories. But I realized that all of the music I kept listening to were the songs with stories that touched my emotions. I realized that having my story in my songs is more relatable and it feels more natural to me to put the stories in the forefront.” 

All of Griffy’s music is autobiographical and created in the studio he recorded “Talk It Out” in. He’s a diligent student of American pop music, building a career out of the sparks from the different artists he’s inspired by. It would be easy for his music to sound like everyone else’s, so Griffy tends to dig further into songwriting from different viewpoints. 

He works slowly and intentionally as he develops his stories. “I enjoy that I can make music by myself if I want to,” he said. ” My generation is very influenced by hip-hop and R&B,” he commented. Griffy noticed that collaborators would often try to shift Griffy’s sound into this aesthetic. “They wanted me to make R&B. And I wanted pop music.” 

I FIRST FOUND GRIFFY through his TikToks. He’s a friendly presence on the platform: funny and engaging in a way that makes you think you could share a few beers and laughs with him. 

“You know that awkward silence in the bed after you fight with your partner,” he asks in one video, leaning towards the edge of the camera frame. “This song is about that,” he says and then bolts into the song with confidence and charm. He looks fearless singing these days, but I’ve learned that comes from worrying less about people’s opinions. 

When I asked Griffy if he could recall the first time he felt comfortable identifying as a musician, he commented on what an interesting question that was for him. “It’s not like I’m confident enough to call myself a musician now and I wasn’t confident then,” he said. “It’s more like I started to care less what other people say.” 

For a long time Griffy was insecure about his voice. That’s why when he first started making music, he focused on the production side. Griffy started with the traditional route: He majored in classical composition for one year at a university in Seoul. But the program was not what Griffy wanted out of music. It was largely analytical and philosophical. The music that was made was less for pleasure, and instead, created for theory.  

“It can sound like noise if you’re not into that kind of music,” he explained. “I understood there was a lot of value, but I wanted to make something I can actually enjoy and it was definitely not that.” 

Griffy dropped out, but he decided to stay in Seoul. Seven years later, he’s still here but slightly homesick for the place he grew up. These days, Griffy remembers how calm and quiet his family’s home was. Often, he would travel to his father’s relatives, who lived in the countryside. Those are the moments he misses now. 

“When I was young I always wanted to live in Seoul. But now that I’ve been here for seven years, maybe it’s because I’m getting older, I’ve kind of begun missing the chill vibe of my hometown,” he said. 

After I asked Griffy about his first memories of music, he told me a story about the weekends he’d wake up late to the sounds of his mother preparing brunch as she listened to G.O.D, a popular idol group from the 90s. “I don’t even remember the album,” he said, “but they always sounded so cool.” 

Griffy was eventually drawn to rock music as a teen. One day in middle school Griffy’s friend, who was a drummer, invited him to a practice room. His friend wanted to practice the drums, and Grify found a guitar that he could play. “And that point,” he said, “is where I picked up the interest in music.” 

 Koreans loved rock music when Griffy was growing up. But Griffy wanted to be different; he wanted his own music to enjoy, so he sought out rock music from America. “My first actual album that I loved was Guns N Roses’ “Appetite For Destruction”. I was really into Guns N Roses because I played guitar,” he said. “I was crazy about their songs, and I loved Slash the guitarist.” 

“It’s weird to say it was a starting point because I’m not making music like that, but it was [the beginning],” he reflected. Guns N Roses foreshadowed the path Griffy would muscle as a musician: “Appetite for Destruction” gave Griffy his edge, and it exemplified how he would go against the norms to find his own sound. 

Years later after he left college, Griffy again turned inward to find his artistic direction. He started out making music on SoundCloud, which was difficult at first because he didn’t believe he had a good voice. That music isn’t reflective of how he wants to be known as a singer, but it gave him the chops to believe in himself. 

He released “Slide” to SoundCloud, which was the first time he really felt proud of a song. “It’s very different from my official songs, because back then I was more into hip-hop and R&B,” he said. “But as I made more music, I figured out that’s not really who I am.” 

“My songs are mostly upbeat and hopeful. I think that even when I write sad songs, it has that little bit of optimistic point of view,” Griffy said.

GRIFFY’S CURRENT ERA began with the release of “Young” in 2022, which almost immediately went viral on Spotify. It was added to an editorial playlist, and Griffy experienced huge streams. “Considering it was my first release, I thought, ‘Man this thing is easy!’,” he said with a good-natured laugh. But the song’s numbers began to fall after the song left the playlist, and Griffy was left with an important lesson: Don’t let the numbers guide the music. Instead, continue to make music that is personal to you. 

“There’s more than just numbers,” he said he realized, “and I should focus on that.” 

Perhaps the most personal two songs in Griffy’s discography come from loss.

“My songs are mostly upbeat and hopeful,” he told me. “I think that even when I write sad songs, it has that little bit of optimistic point of view.” Griffy stayed true to this when he wrote “Happy Song”, an upbeat, cathartic track dedicated to his best friend and cousin. 

it's easily one of the best, and most deeply affecting songs in his discography. Listening to it, I can imagine the scenes Griffy describes of sleepovers where the boys stayed up all night playing knockoff Nintendo and laughing. “Wish I could go back to the good ole’ days/ Like when the smallest things made us laugh,” he sings. “Dammit I miss you, can’t stop thinking about ya.” As the song reaches it’s peak, he admits tenderly, “Without you, my friend/ I’m just a mess.”  

The song that followed it, though, explored the loss in greater detail. “How do I fill this empty space?” details the grief that came from the death of his cousin. Griffy’s devastation from the loss is still evident when he brings it up in our conversation, and that song came from his inability to keep himself from writing a sad song. He tried it with “Happy Song”, but the tears can still easily flow listening to that one, too.

“We grew up together. It was tough,” he said quietly as he considered his next thought. “The song is based on that emotion, although it is not specifically about me losing my friend. It's about that feeling of emptiness.” 

But I believe this is where Griffy’s music lifts off. In his refusal to let the pain overtake him, his music becomes powerful and uplifting. For those who’ve lost someone close to them, the music’s touching vulnerability can rip you open. It’s here that Griffy’s music makes us feel less alone. 

When I asked if the song helped him sort out the emotions, he was candid. “I’m not sure about that,” he said. “I think it did help but it’s not like I thought, ‘Alright, now I’m okay.’” But it did, at the very least, allow Griffy to mine his pain into art that is messy and beautiful. 

Each of Griffy’s singles achieve a goal that the musician has set for himself. “I like my music to be very easy to understand and access,” he said. 

Griffy follows a set schedule, daily, to achieve this. He wakes up early, around 8 a.m., makes a shake, which he was drinking when we met, then heads to his studio. “When I set everything on a schedule, then I can work and feel free,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about what I forgot or what food I need to eat. There’s no distraction.” 

“I like my life simple,” he said with a shrug. 

His schedule discourages Griffy from second thoughts that might creep in about his career. “What I noticed is even if I doubt what I’m doing, I’m not just gonna suddenly stop what I’m doing,” he said. “So It’s almost pointless to think about.” 

Griffy is continuing to work, and although he wants to eventually have a home studio, the one he’s in now allows him to make great music. Later this month he’ll release another new track about a toxic relationship. It’s the darkest song he’s ever released, which he’s excited to share with his fans. 

Yet listen to Griffy’s discography and you’ll hear he’s always been willing to challenge himself. He tells us pieces of himself that are intimate, sometimes funny, oftentimes heartbreaking. If it catches you at the right moment, you might cry. But the purpose, at the end of the day, is to make you feel something; to open your heart. Hopefully, you’ll feel a little more optimistic after listening to Griffy’s songs. 

“My goal is to give people a good time,” he told me as he summed up how he views himself as an artist. “I see myself as a storyteller.”