Feed the Boats: Indie Rock on a K-pop Sea

By Maeve Storey
Photos courtesy of Feed the Boats

It can’t be easy being an indie band in Korea. Far from the realms of anything alternative, the Korean music scene is more than dominated by that ever-infectious genre of music known as K-pop – beloved of some, but hated by others. So overwhelmingly homogenous is the world of Korean music that it’s impossible to even walk down the street without being assaulted by the blaring bass of the latest K-pop superstar’s single. Taking a stroll through downtown Gwangju, the humble shopper’s senses are immediately submerged in a tidal wave of electronic beats and chirpy singers crooning – half in Korean, half in English – about love, life, and designer haircuts.

So entrenched is the culture of K-pop, it’s not just the stereos of Korean teenagers that have been infiltrated by this infuriatingly catchy genre of music; it’s the very language they speak – the very language I teach them. In my English classroom, I ask my students every morning how they are. Their response of “fantastic” is each and every time followed, after just a brief pause, by an exultant “baby!” On a daily basis, my female students regale me with tales of their favorite groups. “Teacher, today Super Junior will make a comeback.” Didn’t that happen last week, I wonder.

While Korea never really experienced the 60’s – in a cultural rather than chronological sense – the levels of pop music mania here are similar to that which The Beatles ignited. This mania is certainly not directed at The Beatles, though. Nor, for that matter, is it directed at any of the myriad bands they left in their wake. A teacher friend of mine once asked his class of Korean students what they would do if they could travel back in time. One young student replied that he would kill The Beatles. On discovering that two of them were already dead, the boy was rather, if somewhat morbidly, pleased.
So just how can an indie band hope to compete with such murderous hoards of young of K-pop fans? I caught up with Gwangju’s indie-rock quintet Feed the Boats to find out. “I’ve been involved with the indie music scene for a number of years, and though it has improved, it’s still very poor. Gwangju, for a city of 1.5 million people, has very little worth mentioning when it comes to indie music,” laments drummer Dan Lloyd. Guitarist Mitch Shively notes more optimistically, “There is not a strong scene in Gwangju, handful of rock bands and a hip-hop group. But it’s a decent start”. Jon Amey (also on guitar) agrees: “It’s unfair to compare the music scene here with those in the UK or the USA, which are obviously very well-developed. Gwangju suffers from a severe lack of small- and medium-sized venues for live rock music. I think the music scene here could be labeled ‘room for improvement’.”

And improving the music scene in Gwangju is exactly what Feed the Boats seem intent on doing. Having just released their first album, the band members are dedicated to putting their sound on the radar. The album, also entitled Feed the Boats, is an original, eleven-track explosion of punk- and indie-rock with powerful guitar riffs and still more powerful vocals from lead singer Jo Brooks. Reminiscent of Hole’s (Courtney Love’s girl band of the 1990s) “Doll Parts”, the album begins with “Plastic”, in which Jo repeatedly belts out the mantra: “I am selfish and fake.” Brooks rips through lyrics in the style of rock heroines like Brody Dalle of the The Distillers, whom Jo cites as one of her influences. (She is quick to add, however, “I’ll never reach that caliber.”) Here in Korea, Jo’s rough and raspy vocals come as a breath of fresh air compared to the sugary tones of 2NE1 or Girls Generation. But perhaps ‘a breath of fresh air’ isn’t quite the right expression – when asked what influences her powerful singing style, Brooks jokes (or maybe she coughs), “too many cigarettes”.

According to Amey, the group formed over a few drinking sessions during which he discovered that fellow band mate Chuck Mueller played the bass. “It all spiraled from there,” he recalls. Since then the band has undergone line-up changes with the departure of their old drummer, Park Sung Bong, and the recruitment of long-time musician Lloyd. Now with their album recorded, produced, and packaged in plastic, and a long string of gigs behind them, the band will be taking a break from touring throughout August.

Has the glamor of the recording studio turned them against playing live? Absolutely not, insists the band. “Going into the studio was amazing,” says Amey. “But while it’s awesome to have a memento to keep forever, playing shows is why this band exists.”
“Recording is fun, but it’s a slow, often frustrating process,” adds Lloyd. Meanwhile Brooks describes playing live shows as “addictive”. “I guess I enjoy people seeing me sweat,” says the front woman. “If I’m a sweaty mess on stage – which I usually am – then I know that I’m working hard and trying my best to make a great show.”

When asked about their favorite tracks on the album, the band have varied opinions. Lloyd and Amey champion the fast-paced “Welcoming All Ghosts”, while Brooks cites what she describes as the more “complex” “Ammonia” as her favorite. For Muller, “Who the Hell is Robert Goulet?” tops the track list. Finally Shively chooses “Bury the Dead” for his top spot – the powerful lyrics of which he penned himself. According to Amey, this difference in musical opinion is a key part of the band’s sound, which he describes as “a distillation of all the tastes combined”.

One thing the band does agree on when it comes to musical taste is K-pop. When asked if they like K-pop all five members give a resounding ‘no’ – with Mueller adding the odd expletive to make his view completely clear. But the band has far from shunned Korean music altogether. “There is a lot of excellent Korean music that I wouldn’t put in the category of K-pop,” notes Amey. “For example, Guckkasten, Achime, and Goguryeo Band.” In fact, Feed the Boats have recently recorded a cover of Korean group F.T. Island’s “Barae” (“I Hope”), and during the interview, bassist Mueller even points me in the direction of a YouTube video featuring Amey embroiled in a dance off with some K-pop dancers at the end of a gig. This cover just shouldn’t work, but Feed the Boats manages to add a punk rock edge to a track of pure bubble gum pop. Brooks herself manages to belt through the lyrics so perfectly (her gravelly tone in stark contrast to FT Island’s high-pitched warbling) that you’d wonder when the band are going to release their first bilingual album. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them…