HOHYUN Wants You to Know You’re Not Alone

HOHYUN was plagued by self-doubt for years. “But I’ve realized when you feel like giving up, it's the most important time to not give up,” he says.

It took perseverance for HOHYUN to arrive at this moment. 

For the last five years, Hohyun has released several singles and EPs, all of which amounted to varying degrees of success. There was his first release “Just Wanna Stay” from 2018, which immediately was picked up by Spotify for an editorial playlist. His follow-up “I Don’t Mind” also found a growing audience on Spotify. But then Hohyun released two underrated EPs “Stage Fright” and “Dreams” that, to his disappointment, failed to find an audience. It was not for lack of effort. Both EPs are written with the sincerity that’s become a trademark of Hohyun’s work.

“They both were something I spent months pouring my heart and soul into,” Hohyun told me in an interview from Los Angeles. “This was a few months before the pandemic and I had fallen into a slump that kinda extended through the pandemic.” 

He was discouraged but explained, “I just mustered up the motivation to keep going.” For two years, Hohyun continued to release new music even when the results were disappointing.

By the time Hohyun released “SUNSET BOULEVARD” in the spring of 2022, he was beginning to wonder what could recapture the spark of his first releases. “I was feeling pretty discouraged that year because I felt like I had been putting out my best work and it wasn’t going anywhere,” he reflected. “But I kept pushing ‘SUNSET BOULEVARD’ because I felt like it was pretty special.”

For the first few months, Hohyun tried using TikTok to promote the song. Then he switched to Instagram Reels. “I was posting the exact same content as on TikTok, but somehow the algorithm just picked it up,” he said. Quickly, the song exploded in popularity. And he was right: “SUNSET BOULEVARD” is a lighting in the bottle type of song, a sprawling ballad that Hohyun’s deep voice sounds absolutely gigantic on. 

To date “SUNSET BOULEVARD” has received over 7 million streams, bumping Hohyun’s monthly listeners up to nearly half-a-million. “It was very stagnant,” he said about the song’s popularity, “and then very sudden.” 

“SUNSET BOULEVARD” made a name for Hohyun, but what’s made fans stick by him is his sincerity. Listen to any of his music and you’ll hear the recurring theme of loneliness. Hohyun’s often writes about what it feels like to be stuck in your head, something that nearly all of his fans relate to. 

“I really think what’s really cool about my fanbase is that they’re all very open and vulnerable,” he said, noting that often fans will leave extremely honest comments on his videos where he asks fans to share what’s on their minds.” It’s me creating this safe space for people to be vulnerable about themselves or share their stories with other people. Then they can create a community of people who feel safe.” 

Maybe it’s strange that Hohyun chose to be a performer. By his own admission he’s not the most outgoing person. “My MBTI is INFP and the ‘I’ has never changed,” Hohyun told me after I asked him if he’s an introvert. “I’m kinda surprised that I’ve taken this path. I’ve never been the loud guy,” he continued. “I’ve always been shy and quiet.” I noticed this about him almost as soon as we met. Hohyun’s a quiet presence, speaking in a low, hushed voice that isn’t so far off from the one he sings with. He takes time to warm up to people, but once he does, he tells great stories. These qualities, Hohyun surmises, likely come from a life on the move. 

When I asked where he was from, Hohyun gave a small laugh. “That’s a bit of a complicated answer,” he responded. Hohyun’s from everywhere, and the memories come from both international and American homes. He was born in Japan to an Air Force family, but moved to Korea by the time he was four years-old. “And that’s kind of when the memories kick in,” he said. 

His friends in Korea were bilingual, speaking English and Korean, and Hohyun, too, learned both languages, But by the time he was seven, his father’s career brought the family to the United States. In America, Hohyun lost some of the Korean he’d learned, but quickly assimilated to life in the States. 

“Moving to the States wasn’t as much of a culture shock for me as it could be for international students who grew up in Korea,” he explained. Unlike many international students, Hohyun was already fluent in English and because he didn't have an accent, he didn’t stand out. 

In Houston, Hohyun met another aspiring musician, Townewest’s Jonum, where they played in the church band together. “Dude,” Jonum told me one night in LA, “he was incredible at drums.” Jonum also noticed that Hohyun could learn music exceptionally fast, which impressed him. “He’s always been this genius.”  

When I asked Hohyun about this, he was humble but confirmed, “I can figure out chords by ear and teach myself how to put them into a production.” By high school he was trained on the guitar, the bass, piano, drums, and even the flute for the middle school marching band.

After a few years of playing music, Hohyun felt he had enough experience to try playing shows. His first concert was at a Chinese bank for a small festival that included food vendors and a small stage. His mom came to support him, and so did a tiny crowd. “I was very stiff up on stage,” he remembered. “But a year after that, I got the opportunity to perform at K-Fest in Houston.” Hohyun was the second to last performer at K-Fest, at a time when people were starting to leave. But then something unexpected happened: as Hohyun sang, people started to come back. He laughed when he remembered this but it was affirming. The next year Hohyun returned to K-Fest as a headliner. 

“Usually when I make songs, I do it right here in my room,” Hohyun said as he motioned around him. “I’ll just pick up my guitar and play progressions when I feel inspired.” Occasionally Hohyun will collaborate with others, but he’s “pretty strict” on those he works with, preferring the comfort of close friends. He’s released some great music this way: “Faded”, the new single with Patrick Hizon, “Alright!” with Juju B. Goode, or “My Summertime” with Luxid all come from these collaborations. “Usually the people that I work with I can sit in a room with and talk to for hours,” he said  But for the majority of his career, Hohyun has written, produced and recorded his music all on his own. It’s easier to get all of his thoughts out that way. 

“This man, literally,” Jonum told me with a sense of awe, “plays every instrument, is good looking, is a hard working spirit, and a kind soul.” 

Hohyun even directs his own work, telling me that long before he was a musician, he worked to become a cinematographer. “That was my dream,” he said. “When I first started I never went to any video people,” he explained. “I just shot my own music videos and had one of my friends man the camera.” 

A still from the “Demon” music video

In 2021, Hohyun shot one of his favorite videos for “Demon” off the “Dream” EP. “I spent, like, months filming that with my friend and doing cool effects on it,” he said. “That was some of my best music video work and it just didn’t really get any traction.” The video is evocative of zombie thrillers, as Hohyun battles to not change into a demon. But demonology is a metaphor here: “I know I’m someone you wouldn’t be proud of,” Hohyun sings in the pre-chorus before warning us that he may “look like a human/ But I’m a beast inside.”

In the video, Hohyun finds himself in a field, struck by whether he should sever his hand to end the madness. “I just want to make this stop,” he says, as tears fill his eyes. But - spoiler ahead - at the end of the video, Demon Hohyun meets Human Hohyun. Both are broken and screwed up. For a moment they regard each other with suspicion, until they embrace each other. As Demon Hohyun hugs the “bad” parts of him, his hand becomes healed. And Human Hohyun, in turn, becomes healed, too. 

It’s more than tenacity that has gotten Hohyun to this point, though. It’s also the grace he’s given himself to fail, which he depicts in “Demon”. There were many days he thought about giving up – “especially during those times where I feel like I was working as hard as I could and nothing was coming out of it,” he told me. In those days, he’d beat himself up about how little traction his music was getting. It was demoralizing to put so much hard work into a song or video, only for no one to listen. “But I’ve realized when you feel like giving up, it's the most important time to not give up,” he said. “It feels like a sign. Every time I’ve reached a peak where I think this is the worst, something has happened that makes me think, okay, here we go again.”

Grace is something that I see in Hohyun’s most autobiographical song “Meant To Be”.  “I actually wrote it during one of my lowest points in late 2022 where it felt like everything that could've been going wrong was going wrong,” he explained. The song gives Hohyun’s insecurities a human form, much like in the “Demon” video, as he wonders if a career in music is meant to be. “Maybe he’s right,” Hohyun theorizes about the voice in his head. “Maybe I’m a fool.” 

Hohyun decided to incorporate memories from his childhood all the way to present day into the song’s video. The video reaches an emotional peak as scenes from teenage Hohyun performing at festivals and at home flash across the screen. These moments aren’t just earnest, they demonstrate the perseverance that has brought him to today. “Through the song I found new courage and motivation,” he remembered. “I found myself going down a trip down memory lane and really seeing how far I had really come and becoming quite emotional. Through that process I had found a new meaning for the song.” 

I thought about the closing lines of the song – “I’m not enough” – which plays as clips from Hohyun’s videos that he directed brilliantly cut across the video. There’s a poignancy to the clips in this context: He always was enough – it just took him finding a belief in himself to see it. 

“Self-doubt is something I feel a lot of the time and it’s something that I feel a lot of artists don’t share about,” he continued and wondered, “Maybe it’s viewed as weak or that you’re not confident in yourself.” But, he insisted, it’s not a weakness because everyone experiences self-doubt. Hohyun wants to be honest about his struggles and insecurities. It’s what connects his fans to him, after all. “I don't like bottling it up,” he added, “and telling people that everything is okay when sometimes it isn’t.”

Hohyun wrote “i can’t escape the rain” because of these feelings. On this song, it’s just Hohyun and his guitar as he admits, “I find it hard to communicate/ The things I like and the things I hate/ I try to find peace inside of me/ But something’s holding me back I can’t receive”. 

“I just put it out and didn't expect anything of it,” he explained. “But now I realize there’s something really special about the content of the song and that it resonates with people.” He paused and then said softly, “It still resonates with me a lot.” Recently, the song has become a fan favorite. Many times fans will quote the lyrics on their Instagram Stories which they’ll tag Hohyun in. The chorus is something Hohyun is particularly proud of. “Tell me why I think this way,” he sings in a near whisper. “It’s complicated/ I’m spiraling/ I lost my mind/ I can’t escape the rain.”

Hohyun hopes he can bring this music on the road next year and meet the fans who connect so deeply with him. “I want to have that connection because then you’re no longer just listening to a musician through the screen,” he explained. “You're seeing them right in front of you and you realize they’re a real person.” Concerts have always been a way for Hohyun to connect with his favorite artists, and he’s eager for his fans to have the same chance. 

“Also, tours just seem really fun,” he said with a little bit of excitement. “Just hanging out with your friends and playing shows then going out for dinner.” For someone who’s spent his whole life traveling, touring feels natural. But so does sharing his story as honestly as possible. 

The more Hohyun thought about it, the biggest honor for him as a musician is knowing that his fans can see themselves in his music. This is why he continues to share more, to push himself to be open about his life. “I guess the way I approach any art is I wanted to tell stories in a way that would resonate with people,” he reflected. “I want to bring meanings out of things they weren’t aware of and to make people think.” 

Hohyun wondered what it would look like to share these experiences on tour with friends or to look into the eyes of the fans who also feel lonely and for them to know he’s right there with them. Alone in his apartment in the OC, it was hard to imagine just how life changing those experiences could be. But for a moment he allowed himself to dream.