Hello and welcome back to HallyuTones – always focused on sound, stage and substance.
Today I am honoured to bring you a very different kind of interview with an artist that I feel truly deserves her chance to shine in the spotlight. Yesterday, I had the chance to speak to YOOMEi via video call to discuss her upcoming re-debut, her inspirations, her song writing process and her goals for the future. Below follows an abridged form of our interview with additional comments based on our conversations.
Personally speaking, I believe that true artists shine through with their words, actions, and music. The sincerity in YOOMEi’s words, vision and resilience could be felt through the screen throughout the entirety of the interview.
Her background is very diverse. YOOMEi trained in both the K-Pop and J-Pop industry, initially starting out as a member of a group called ZIOLETTA. She then debuted as a J-rock/J-pop soloist in 2022. She has auditioned for many top K-pop and J-pop labels including MODHAUS, HYBE, WakeOne, and AKB48. She even passed the initial auditions for AKB48’s 18th Generation. After this, she took a hiatus, returning to America to start a brand new chapter on her journey.
With her redebut tomorrow with her new EP ‘Echoes of Love’ featuring title track ‘Ever Begin’, we are so excited to share with you the start of YOOMEi’s new journey. Trust me, you do not want to miss this upcoming release!
Interview:
Q1. Please introduce yourself and your music!
Hi everyone! I’m YOOMEi. We actually changed the pronunciation – we used to pronounce it like ‘YOO-May’ but it sounded like the word ‘famous’ in Japanese, so now we pronounce it as ‘OO-may’.
I am redebuting as a City pop inspired idol. I formerly was doing a little bit of K-Pop and a little bit of J-Pop/J-Rock, but now I am doing a global thing with a city pop inspiration. I am super excited to start this new music journey!
(When I asked YOOMEi how she would brand herself as an artist, she told me that she feels the label of ‘City pop idol singer’ suits her best).
Q2. You have a long and storied history within the music industry – could you tell us about your musical journey so far?
Even though I’m now doing more of a global debut, we still have a lot of East Asian influence in the new concept. We still have little bits of K-Pop, J-Pop, J-Rock in there. We want to pay homage to the things I was doing before while not erasing my past. Our styling, concepts and promotion styles will have a little bit of the idol culture from Korea and Japan.
Q3. Could you introduce us to your new title track ‘Ever Begin’?
‘Ever Begin’ is a song with a city pop and synth pop influence. It is about a sweet first love between two childhood friends who both dreamt of becoming musicians together. People have got to watch the music video to see what happens, but it’s a very story driven concept. It relates to my life, with a little bit of fiction mixed in.
Q4. Your new track has clear city pop influences, from the production through to the music video. What do you love the most about city pop as a musical genre?
I’ve always loved everything retro style – the retro sound and visuals. I think it’s really cool to make people feel like they are time travelling to another era. In anime I really like ‘Isekai’ concepts where you go to another world, and I feel like that relates to my music too. City pop makes me feel like I am travelling to another era, and I think that is what I love the most about it as a genre.
Q5. Your first EP, ‘Echoes of Love’ will feature 4 tracks – can you give us a hint as to what fans can expect from this release?
Each song has it’s own unique sound but still fits into the retro concept. All the lyrics follow the same storyline, so I think it will be really fun for people if they read into the lyrics, because it all comes together like puzzle pieces.
Q6. Who would you say is your biggest musical inspiration and why?
When I was in high school, I especially loved K-Pop and J-Pop. For K-Pop I really liked GFRIEND and LOONA. Those groups really meant a lot to me. For J-Pop I’ve always really liked anime soundtracks. Right now, my biggest inspiration in the current day would be YUKIKA. I think she really inspired me to create City pop inspired songs because I was actually listening to her songs during a time when I felt a little lost and wanted to give up on my dreams. But I started listening to her songs and felt like this is a pretty cool concept, maybe I should try it out?
Q7. In the past, you have trained as both a J-Pop trainee and a K-Pop trainee – did you notice any significant differences between K-Pop and J-Pop training styles?
I think there are actually a lot of similarities. I think with the idol culture you have to maintain a clean image like not to party too hard, and I think I still carry those things with me today (laughs). It’s different stepping back into the western scene compared to what I was doing before.
Q8. What piece of advice would you give for a new artist looking to debut within the K-Pop or J-Pop industry?
If someone wanted to debut under a prestigious company in K-Pop or J-Pop, these days you have to start really young. I personally don’t really support that, but I hope that my company can also grow and eventually we can make people’s dreams come true without having such tight age ranges. But that is the advice I would give to people as that is how it works these days. However, as we are doing a western thing, age isn’t really as big of a deal here, so I think that this fits me better, and I hope that we can normalise debuting people that are a little bit older.
Q9. What does music mean to you?
To me, I associate music with storytelling. I have always loved writing stories, whether based on my life or fictional. I always keep notebooks with me; I have huge stacks of notebooks in my room because I write too much. But it’s really cool to turn these stories into songs and music. I always want to keep that as a concept – making each song story driven and pulling from the songs from my notebook. I write stories first, then I will take those ideas and they will become songs after.
Q10. With your diverse experience within K-Pop, J-Pop and acting, where do you see yourself in the future as the artist YOOMEi?
I would love to eventually pursue on screen acting and also voice acting, hopefully even sing songs for videogames or anime. I think that I would like to dabble a bit more into the nerd culture. I would also like to be a creative director or manager in the far future for another artist, working with another person who is in a similar situation as myself. Perhaps someone who feels a little bit lost and wishes they had some guidance – I would love to be able to help someone else on their journey.
Q11. If you could choose any artist to collaborate with, who would you choose and why?
If YUKIKA didn’t retire, I would probably pick her. Since I don’t think I can choose her, I would love to collaborate with a videogame series, anime series or cartoon. That would be really fulfilling to me, my inner nerd would be really happy if I did something like that.
Q12. In the past, you have contributed to the writing and composition of your songs. What is your typical songwriting process and what influences the lyrics of your songs?
I take a lot of ideas from stories that I’ve written. One of my hobbies is writing poetry, I also pull a lot from that as well. It makes song writing a whole lot easier when I have a bunch of poems that I have written. In regards to the song writing process, when I compose I play it on the piano first. I am a self-taught pianist, I compose first and then the lyrics come later.
Melodies come to me when I am most relaxed. In the middle of the night I wake up at 3AM and think “That’s a good melody” and open up the voice memos in my phone to record it so I don’t forget. Art can be really random sometimes!
Q13. What do you enjoy the most about performing on stage?
I like a lot of things about performing on stage, but one of my favourite things is getting to dress up all cute. As a teenager, cosplaying was a serious thing for me. So I love makeup, choosing outfits, hair styles and colours. I have always been a visual art person so putting together stage outfits is really fun. I collaborate with my sister on this – she is my stylist most of the time! She has styled me for most of my album covers and concept images.
Q14. You are a big anime and videogame fan. Do you feel that either of these interests impact on your song inspirations/idol image?
I personally really love anime and video games, especially those that are very story driven. I want all of my songs to be like this even in the future. For the next concept we are going to go even harder on the plot and the storyline is going to be more complicated. It’s going to be really cool for people to read into it. In my spare time, I love going on my phone and reading into videogame lore. We’re making the ‘YOOMEiverse’, just like LOONA (laughs).
Q15. Lastly, do you have a message for your fans, or any new listeners?
I just wanted to say thank you so much to all the MEIBE (pronounced ‘Maybe’), for waiting for me for 3 years. That’s a long time, you guys are so dedicated and I am so, so thankful for all of you. To anyone who’s new, I also love you guys so much, and I hope that you all stay tuned for the redebut of YOOMEi on July 30th! I am really excited to share it with you guys, thank you!
Thank you so much to YOOMEi for taking the time out of your schedule to talk to us. Our site is all about platforming artists with a unique sound and story, and to be able to showcase an artist with a different genre and a rich musical background was truly an honour!
Please stay tuned to YOOMEi’s official channels for her ‘Ever Begin’ music video on July 30th, and the release of the ‘Echoes of Love’ EP on the same day! Links to socials and album sales are below:
Preorder Link: https://www.youand-entertainment.com/category/all-products
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoomei.official?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=NmtnM2kwcDFtM2ty
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YOOMEi
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