You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Eric Nam is a Korean-American pop singer from Atlanta.
He currently lives in Seoul, South Korea, where he's found fame as a K-pop star.
He was named 2016 Man of the Year by GQ Korea,
and Forbes named him one of their 30 Under 30 for Asia.
But Eric's success in Korea has been complicated a little bit by what he wants to do with his career versus what he's felt he was allowed to do.
As his career as an artist has evolved,
he's gotten closer and closer to making the music he wants to make.
In November 2019, Eric released Before We Begin, his first album entirely in English.
In this episode,
Eric Nam and producer Rabbit break down a song from that album called Love Die Young.
My name is Eric Nam.
I've been in Korea for about eight years now.
And it's kind of like an accident that happened and I ended up becoming a K-pop singer.
And I think it took everybody by surprise.
because originally I was supposed to be a strategy consultant at Deloitte.
And life happens, and I ended up on a TV show similar to X Factor in Korea,
got to the top five, signed a record deal, quit my job, and then I started putting out albums.