Exclusive | InterviewMusic

[Exclusive] Royal Pirates sat down for a fun interview with K-popped!

Royal Pirates in Malaysia

It has been more than a week since we last saw Royal Pirates in our home ground but it feels like it was just yesterday our team met them in both Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. The 3-man band from Korea was in Malaysia for their Love Toxic Tour, officially brought by Universal Music Malaysia and Hotlink.

K-popped! was so lucky as we managed to meet them in both venues. And on Sunday, right before their showcase in Bentley, an exclusive interview was held right after the official press conference. Check out our fun interview with them!

If you could be another member (in Royal Pirates) for a day, who would you be? And what would you be doing as him?

James: I think I would want to be Moon because..I can do whatever I want (laughs). When I’m in my own body I always have to worry about dieting and stuff like that, so when I’m in somebody else’s body actually I don’t care, I will eat whatever I want and just go back to my own body.

Moon: For me I think I’d be James. I want to see how it feels to live as a 197cm tall guy. I want to see how the world is from that high.

James: It’s not too bad (laughs)

Sooyoon: For me I think I’d be.. (long pause) .. Moon. I’ll just hang out, and chill out. Because that’s what Moon does best all the time.

Royal Pirates James in Malaysia
James

 

Is there any food that you definitely cannot eat?

Moon: I can’t eat fishy food. Like oysters, shrimp or those that smells like the ocean. And do you know Korean’s sundae (stuffed pig intestines)? I can’t eat that too.

Sooyoon: I can eat almost everything I guess but I can’t with food that looks too raw? For example like chicken feet. And I definitely can’t eat dog meat, because I love dogs.

James: I can’t eat raw tofu. In fact I just found out that I’m allergic to a lot of food. And when I did Law of the Jungle recently I found out I was allergic to nature. (laughs)

Moon: Mr. Allergic. That would be his superhero name. (LOL)

What’s your favorite subject in school?

Moon: History.

Sooyoon: I think mine was Maths. And Literature. Even though I’m not that good in English, I just like to talk about my story like what I was writing for essays.

James: Me too. I like English Literature.

Royal Pirates Moon in Malaysia
Moon

 

If you are a girl, would you date any of your members?

James: First of all, why does this question come out every single time we do interviews? (laughs) It would be weird to be a 6’5” girl.

Moon: Nah, I don’t think I would ever consider these guys.

Sooyoon: We know each other too well. It would be weird.

Aside from music, what are you into lately?

Moon: I’m crazy about Gundam. Right now I’m collecting Gundam figures and also Star Wars figurines.

James: I realize today I’m like the sports nerd. I love NBA. And currently I’m into MMA (mixed martial arts) and boxing. I did MMA back in California for three months and I’ve been boxing for 6-7 months now. But I’m going to start MMA again when we go back to Korea.

Sooyoon: For me I recently start working out more. I’ve been going to gym a lot lately. I got some tips from James so I’m trying to be buff and muscular like The Hulk (laughs).

Royal Pirates Sooyoon in Malaysia
Sooyoon

But all were not just fun and laughter during the interview. Royal Pirates also answered some serious questions regarding their music and how they cope in the industry.

Promoting among idol groups in music shows, with some of them are even dominating the charts. Does that ever been a worry to you?

Moon: I think it’s not really a worry because right now we are focusing on defining our sounds, developing our fanbase. As for the charts, yeah it would be awesome to top them but now we are making our own color and path in the industry.

Was there any difficulties in adjusting to the culture, in terms of performing in Korea as opposed to when you guys performed in the States?

James: I think personally I had to adjust. In the beginning it was fun and interesting, but I had to adjust myself when performing for the TV. You have to think about how you look (on stage). I’m not used to doing that before but now I realize that the whole performance is the whole experience for us and the fans.

Moon: Culturally I don’t really have any trouble adjusting. But I think performance-wise, the vibe in Korea for example, is different. Korean fans they come to have fun, but they expect you to have fun on stage first. So we got to focus more.

Sooyoon: I think for me it was pretty hard (as a drummer) because in Korea we don’t have that many professional stage for bands. There are those kind of stages but for now we played a lot of our shows in smaller venues so at first it was hard to adjust to that. But it’s so fun now, learning new things as we go.
Royal Pirates

Are you close with other similar kind of bands in Korea like FTISLAND and CNBLUE and have they inspired you guys in any way?

Moon: Seeing them work so hard is definitely an inspiration. I haven’t really met the other guys but I’ve met CNBLUE Jonghyun a few times, he’s a great guy. Since we are all bands, we were thinking about creating bigger markets for bands. And rather than competing, we think that we all should work together as a team.

You have songs in Korean and English. What are the challenges singing in multiple languages?

Moon: Definitely different feels singing in different languages. I think English is a better language for singing because it has a flow and in Korean the words are cut out. So expressing the lyrics in Korean is more challenging. Even when we’re talking, expressing ourselves is easier in English.

Sooyoon: I think the harder part for Moon is that he’s got to memorize all the lyrics (LOL). In three different languages because we have our Japanese releases too.

 

Thank you Universal Music Malaysia for the wonderful opportunity to interview them. And to Royal Pirates, thank you for having us again! Also to Dal.komm Coffee for the great venue.

 

Leave a Reply