BettyAss Returns: Injecting Local Pride into Gwangju’s Punk Scene – February 2025

By Jon Dunbar

BettyAss, one of Gwangju’s first punk bands, dating back to 2002, reunited last year after about seven years apart. Just as their breakup was a major step back for the local music scene, their return is a big leap forward.

At their height about a decade ago, the four- member band was playing nearly 30 shows a year. This included local shows they organized as well as shows across Korea and even a Japan tour. All this while juggling jobs and in some cases family. “During this time, we started to burn out,” Ji Hong-bum, the band’s guitarist and backup vocalist who referred to himself, appropriately on brand, as Bum, told the Gwangju News.

The fatigue built while working on their last five-song EP, Local Pride, for which they had to, ironically, travel up to Seoul frequently to work on the album. They reached the breaking point, deciding abruptly to take a break even before starting to promote that album. “The break wasn’t meant to last so long, but with the pandemic and other delays, we missed the right timing to return,” Bum said. “At the start of our hiatus, things felt a bit awkward between us, but after a while, we reconnected and started hanging out like before. As the pandemic ended and demand for live performances surged, we received some good offers for shows. That naturally led us to start talking about performing again.”

They officially reunited with a comeback show on July 21, 2023. Bum emphasized that the four bandmates had all known each other since they were young. During high school, he and BettyAss bassist Yong-woo were fans of bands on Seoul’s Drug Records, including Crying Nut and 18Cruk, as well as No Brain and other bands on its own label, Munsadan. They found themselves drawn more toward skate punk, including international bands like NOFX, Hi-Standard, and Pennywise – the latter whom they opened for at the House of Vans Seoul 2015 show. Bum also cited domestic bands like GUMX, Skrew Attack, and Propeller21, which helped shape the band’s direction.

Bum and Yong-woo started BettyAss 23 years ago, becoming only the second known punk band in Gwangju, after Nakzzang. BettyAss started as a trio with a drummer, and later added a fourth member in 2006. In 2009, they added Boo-jin on lead guitar, and in 2014, Kyung-chun joined on drums, cementing their current lineup.

The band is widely reported to be named for the first time Bum saw a pornographic film, but he denied that in our interview. “That story was something we made up to share as a fun anecdote about the band name during a broadcast back then,” he said. “In reality, BettyAss is a parody of the U.S. reality slapstick comedy TV show Jackass, which the band members liked.”

He was quick to add that the name was never meant to belittle or objectify women. “While this might seem hard to understand or even absurd from today’s perspective, our intention with the band name was never to be disrespectful to women, neither then nor now,” he said. “The early 2000s in Korea was a time when political openness and explosive cultural diversity led to a rebellious and defiant attitude towards traditional norms and authority, including previously taboo topics like sexuality.”

He added that they even considered changing the name, for completely unrelated reasons, in the mid-2010s. “If we had, we might have gotten more opportunities for broadcasts and performances, maybe even become rock stars by now,” he said. “But to us, the name BettyAss carries the legacy of the years, emotions, friendships, and memories we’ve shared. That’s more valuable to us than rebranding for broader appeal.”

To date, BettyAss has released three albums, starting in 2010 with The Greatest Hits, a pretty audacious – and hilarious – start to a discography. Their 2013 EP, Mudeung Mountain Bomber, was named after local hero Sun Dong-yeol, the legendary pitcher for the Haitai Tigers (now Kia Tigers). “When we were deciding on the album title, we thought it would be great to incorporate something with a local feel,” Bum said. “As a local band, we wanted to reflect on the emotions and sentiments that our community experiences.”

They continued with local references in their last EP, Local Pride, released in 2016 amid their breakup. Bum explained how the first four songs of the five-track album were intended to express the events of the May 18th Uprising in Gwangju in 1980: “The intro represents the resolve before the battle, the two main songs symbolize the battle itself and the outro conveys the emptiness and bitterness after the fight.”

Regarding his own feelings of local pride, Bum said it’s a bit complicated: “As a local, I am proud of Gwangju’s historic democratic uprising, but I also feel a sense of fatigue with the political culture here.”

He also spoke frankly about the local music scene. “The Gwangju scene has always been in a state where there’s not much left to get worse,” he said. “Honestly, we don’t expect much more from it; we just keep doing our thing as we always have. We’re simply grateful to the club owners who keep things running, the bands who keep going despite the tough circumstances, and the audience members who come out to support the shows.”

Now with all members in their early 40s, they currently have five songs in the works for an upcoming fourth album. “Of course, as always, the issue is money,” Bum said. “If you want to invest, feel free to send a DM on Instagram.”

Follow @bettyass_sk8 on Instagram for more about this band.