Kacheru Excerpts

[Kacheru]

Excerpt from Kacherun Documentary

 

The room was relatively dark, owing to the dim lighting of the recording area. Vague outlines of concert posters and graffiti made up the wall decor, obscured by a bright light spotlighting the center room. On a couch sat four adults, approximately around their mid-to-late-thirties, looking at a younger interviewer across from them. They looked to be in their upper twenties. One of the members wore a leather jacket with scattered piercings, while the rest wore T-shirts etc. The interviewer began speaking:

“So your band did not begin as Weird Clanging, correct?”

One member, Seok, shifted around for a moment before answering.

“Yes, ah, well we started things in Ilsaedall. It was just the two of us… Hana and I, back in 2007. We wanted to make a sort of punk band then. We called ourselves Yuropa Wurld Order. I guess it was meant to be sort of like, “back off our turf”, we were thinking about places like Anglia, you know? These great big places which just control everything. Yea, but it was just us two. We didn’t have Yong then, so we just used a drum machine to set things up.”

“And you two met through the Kacheru Culture Club there, right?”

Both opened their mouths and looked toward each other. After a moment's pause, Hana responded:

“Well, we met at a Camera Class concert there, yeah. We didn’t really play together initially, but then we both worked at one of the dockyards there, and then we started playing. We were mostly just letting off steam then, hah. I don’t think we even released anything.”

Seok shrugged.

“Just made a couple songs. I think we used parts of them in some other “real” releases. They weren't very good.”

“Yea, pretty much.”

The interviewer shifted in his seat before continuing.

“And so after that the actual band formed?”

“Yea, yea. We met Bora, who did drums. And Myeong. Myeong did a bit of everything. The sort of glue, really. That was when we started calling ourselves “Weird Clanging”, pretty much once he, uh, sort of started taking charge.”

“And so Myeong really started the band down the path of your releases?”

“Yea essentially. It was him who really encouraged us to start actually seeing venues. It was just off-times at KCC for a while, not many. I guess there were never too many. But then we put out the first single…”

Camera pans to the interviewer.

“"Take On Love."”

 

The video transitions to a blurry home recording. In it, the various band members played their instruments with the backdrop of various parts of Ilsaedal. Overlaid is the chorus of “Take on Love” before fading back to the interview, returning to where it had left off.

 

Bora moved to answer:

“Yea. And then that was that for a while. We pretty much just threw it online and left it. There wasn’t any labels at that point. No-one was really looking for… for what we were trying to do then.”

The interviewer consulted his notes before responding.

“But at the same time you had groups like Automotiv who were really making it big, and there are a lot of people who grouped you in with that style of sound. Were you looking to try to build your way into the, I guess, the motopunk scene?”

The bandmates shifted around for a second before Seok answered:

“We got that. It’s funny because we didn’t actually even listen to them, pretty much until someone said we sounded like them, yeah. It definitely put a bit of perspective.”

“Yea, we didn’t want to sound like someone else. So we took it in a different direction. Uh, looking into more complicated drumming and that. A lot of people didn’t like it, though. It was probably the hardest point for us.”

Hana leaned forward with a concerned expression.

“I remember when we played at KCC, we actually had a pretty large group. We did two new songs we were trying and there was just no energy. A couple of people left outright. It was really challenging, but a lot of people were still really supportive.”

Myeong then finished.

“Yea, those people were probably the ones who helped us out the most when it came to really finding our sound.”

“And so what eventually led to getting signed by Crane Port?”

“They just liked what we were doing after a bit.”

“As in your new sound?”

“Yea.”

The interviewer paused for a moment, contemplating asking more about what factors led to signing to the label, before ultimately deciding to move to the next topic.

“And so you recorded your first album, then?”

“Yea. We made it pretty fast because we had already figured out half of the songs. So then we finished it.”

“And it got pretty big, it ultimately got to 24 on Kacheru Independent Chart.”

 

The video transitions to the music video for “Catscratch” from the first album, Three From Real. Based on the portion, it appeared to tell the story of a team of burglars, played by the band members, stealing a diamond from a large house. After a bit, the video fades back into the interview again.

 

“Yea. It was a big surprise. We didn’t expect to really have anyone care. No-one was really seeing us at KCC before then.”

“But that release changed things?”

“In that, we had made an album, yea. There were definitely some more people at the Culture Club, but not so many. Apparently there were a lot more fans in the, like, south. More around Hanggudol. So some people would travel up to see us, but most were just messaging us about concerts.”

“We got a lot of people on Wittier after a while. They wanted us to play in Hanggudol. Which was really interesting to just be getting that kind of attention.”

“And you did end up going down there after a bit?”

“After a while. We were pretty hesitant about going outside the KCC. Myeong got pretty bad stage fright sometimes, and he was pretty hesitant about just a totally different place.”

Everyone looks at Myeong, who smiles awkwardly before agreeing.

“But we did, and actually it went really well. I think that was the point when we felt emboldened to start working on our second release…”

Each band member leans intently toward the interviewer.

 

End of excerpt.