The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Boy band The East Light out with first EP album

By 김소연

Published : July 27, 2017 - 10:14

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K-pop's true big players, for the most part, consist of highly choreographed and stylized boy and girl groups. But that doesn't mean there's zero space for diversity. From Bolbbalgan4 to Akdong Musician, several breakout talents have proven that the space and demand for new music exists in the Korean music scene.

The East Light, a new six-member boy band that is an actual "band" -- as in musicians that play instruments and sing -- has emerged in that vein, with the young members (average age being 15.6) releasing their first EP album "Six Senses."

"We want to become great musicians and offer great music. We want to do music that can deliver joy to the fans," Lee Seok-cheol, leader and drummer, said at a media event held at the Yes24 MUV Hall in western Seoul on Wednesday.

(Yonhap) (Yonhap)
The album holds eight songs, of which "Holla" and "You're My Love" are singles released earlier. The title song "I Got You" is a bright reggae-style R&B dance song that incorporates a bass sampling from legendary dance duo Clon's "Kung Ddari Sha Bah Rah."

The East Light's members are very young, even by K-pop standards. Aesthetically, they have adopted a middle-school boyish look, donning colorful shorts and loose sports jerseys on stage.

The band is clearly aiming to appeal to the young teen girl market.

Lyrics don't delve into anything deeper than pretty love songs, which is probably appropriate given their target audience. But they're committed to making it big in the cutthroat music business for the long-run.

"The reason we have three singers, Woo-jin, Sa-gang and Eun-sung, is to offer diverse music that accommodates the individual colors of each singer," guitarist Kim Joon-wook said.

(Yonhap) (Yonhap)
Lee Seok-cheol started playing drums after being cast as an autistic drummer boy in the film "My Boy" (2013), while Kim Jun-wook won grand prize in the "Asian beat 2014 Acoustic Grand final." As for Lee Eun-sung, the vocalist had been praised by judges of the Mnet audition show "Voice Kids," and Lee Woo-jin was the youngest participant in season two of Mnet's audition show "Produce 101."

The 15-year-old Lee Woo-jin was actually a founding member of The East Light pre-debut. He later left the band to compete in "Produce 101" and later rejoined.

"It's an honor to be able to debut with members who I've practiced with for a long time," said Lee, adding that he feels good seeing other fellow competitors of the show making their debuts.

The band hopes to become bigger at home and dreams of ultimately becoming world-class musicians.

"A lot of people tell us that we're a band that incites anticipation about what we'll do in the future. We want to do music that delivers happiness and become world-class musicians," Lee Seok-cheol said. (Yonhap)