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[HBX] Interview with Oh Hyuk and Kuo Kuo (November 2024)

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[HBX] Crossing Borders And Industries With HYUKOH x Sunset Rollercoaster's AAA Capsule

This interview belongs to HBX. November 4, 2024. By Jessica Yim.

Photo: Han Dasom

After more than one and a half year, HYUKOH and Sunset Rollercoaster’s collaborative album is here, complimented by an AAA tour and a stellar AAA capsule collection, available now at HBX. With a creative relationship that crossed the borders of South Korea and Taiwan, the collective’s expansion into the world of fashion was the only natural follow-on from their joint album.

“We hang out a lot. So I think all the creative ideas, just naturally happened during hangouts,” lead singer of Sunset Rollercoaster, Kuo-Hung Tseng mentions. “ I think Oh has a lot of vision for the fashion and streetwear side. Most of the time I just wear what I want to wear, but Oh has dived into this kind of territory for a long time, so I just kind of follow his ideas. [HYUKOH] all have this kind of special vision so it was pretty natural.”

Ahead of the capsule arriving at HBX, we caught up with lead singers Kuo-Hung Tseng and Oh Hyuk to discuss the groups’ multilingual band culture, and how the universal languages of music and fashion narrate the best of Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster.

A Capsule For Performers

“Oh’s style is a little bit avant-garde. I’m still laid back and low-key,” Kuo laughs. This is a sentiment that can be seen throughout the collaboration, which showcases minimalistic design tastes with subtle AAA logo branding. In fact, it’s the retail-exclusive stage outfits where the groups’ unique collaborative charm is truly highlighted. Kuo explains, “On stage, we’re really open to this kind of cool style. For Sunset Rollercoaster, we usually just be ourselves on stage. But this time, because the concept is a little bit like we’re a group of aliens traveling around the world trying to make a living from music – it’s almost kind of character stuff. So when I’m on stage, I feel like I have another personality to go into, to kind of free myself from originally who I am.”

It’s this freeing approach to fashion that shows itself in the design language of the collaboration between the groups. Oh recalls, “I think it was like 2018 when we were working in Berlin to finish some mixing processes, and we went to some military shops and bought some vintage clothes from there. We really liked them. So I tried to use these kinds of military patterns to create different designs.” Oh also details, with rampant speed and enthusiasm, a feat not often associated with the frontman, about the film, I’m No Longer Here which inspired his design process. “There’s a specific genre called Cumbia, and people who listen to this kind of music are wearing a specific kind of style – I think in general, it’s called Cumbia style. I really liked that and was influenced by this movie, too.”

While it might be their universal love for music creation that originally united the duo, fashion could have also been a catalyst in building this partnership; their explanations alone demonstrate that to call this AAA capsule “merchandise” would be a disservice to their creative relationship and history.

“My favorite piece is the oversized cargo pants. Because I’m getting older and I have a huge beer belly now, I think they cover really well,” Kuo laughs. “But they’re also folded with a special pattern, so it feels a bit like a belt but more natural. I noticed that when I’m on stage singing, having this kind of belt helps me hold onto the note for longer.”

Perhaps these cargo pants might be the secret recipe to Sunset Rollercoaster’s unique vocal tones.

It’s at this moment that Kuo leaps up from his seat and exits the room, reemerging with a jacket in tow.

“I also want to introduce the jacket, since I’m wearing it today. It’s got a special kind of hand design near the sleeve,” he demonstrates, putting his hand into the jacket, which features fingerless glove detailing. “So you can style it like this, like this, or like this,” he eagerly displays whilst flexing his fingers to the camera.

It’s clear that the band’s approach to music translates to their sartorial efforts; where different musical instruments are layered together to create a rich sound, it’s the details of this collaboration and a little help from HYUKOH’s stylist, Ye Young, who has created this meticulously thought-out concept.

“There’s an interesting design feature that I really like which is the size tag we did. We don’t say size 1 or 2, or X or L. Because people normally ask, “What’s the size the band member is wearing?” So we put the size tag as our name, and if some people like my size, they can wear the size with my name on it.”

Interestingly, the AAA capsule rounds itself off with 10 Asian Young Men, a book by the artist Chanhee Hong featuring 100 AI images created during the making of the artwork for the album. “Chanhee and I started to create some images from last year. And then it was almost like 150-something images. We liked the whole idea and the whole process, so we decided to make a book to kind of archive it,” Oh details to HBX.

The Meaning of AAA

Despite English not being their native language, Oh and Kuo’s enthusiasm shines through the language barrier, communicating through a mix of Chinese, English, Korean and Google Translate. Equally, their AAA logo created by graphic designer, Na Kim, takes on the same multi-faceted approach. “We wanted to try to make it look like some alien word, [a bit] like Mandarin, Korean or Japanese. Basically [all the symbols] are AAA, but we just want to make it look like we don’t know where it comes from, but people can still tell it’s AAA.”

Among all the meanings AAA can be defined by, it still has a meaning of being “ the best quality,” Kuo answers. “We try to shape multi-meaning ideas so people can bring their own experience into the things we create.”

The Future for HYUKOH and Sunset Rollercoaster

But despite it all, it’s music that has allowed both HYUKOH and Sunset Rollercoaster to communicate deeply in a manner that transcends languages.

“We’ve been discussing a lot of ideas with Oh and every time Oh has really good ideas, but they’re usually a little bit too big,” Kuo jokes. “ From the very beginning when everything started, it was just making some music together… in the end, it’s like this, and now we have a clothing brand. I think everything keeps growing.”

HYUKOH x Sunset Rollercoaster [AAA] is available now on HBX.

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