Korean rock band HarryBigButton: 'We have the bigger button'
HarryBigButton
By Jon Dunbar
When U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to compare button sizes with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korean musician Lee Sung-soo laughed.
Kim, in his New Year address, said he had a “nuclear button” on his desk that could launch an attack on America. In response, Trump tweeted, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
But Lee is the singer and guitarist of the South Korean hard rock group
.
“Good for you both,” Lee said to Trump and Kim. “But your big and powerful buttons won’t be able to make people rock ’n’ roll. We have a way bigger button called HarryBigButton which makes people rock ’n’ roll all night long!”
While Trump is clearly speaking figuratively about a part of his anatomy, rather than referencing
the actual red button on his desk
, Lee says the name HarryBigButton comes from Cockney slang for a vintage car radio with chunky big buttons. And he’s answered that question in every media interview.
“I’ve never thought or heard about my band name reminding of something dirty or any part of the human body before,” he laughed.
Trump and HarryBigButton have one thing in common: they both owe their high profiles to reality TV. While Trump hosted 14 seasons of “The Apprentice” from 2004 to 2015, HarryBigButton competed on KBS audition show “Top Band” in 2011.
On the show, one judge suggested replacing Lee as singer, but he didn’t let it bother him.
“The judges are always making things controversial, aren’t they?” he said. “At the end of the day, we gained more supporters.”
Lee yearns for the old days when he could easily see rock and heavy metal on TV.
“I don’t really go for music audition shows on TV,” he said, “but if it's the only way to show your music to the general public, it would be better than nothing as far as it shows real music. Especially for rock music, which is rarely shown on Korean TV.”
There are still shows: he cites “All the Music” on KBS and “Space Gonggam” on EBS. “The problem is, you can only watch them very late at night,” he said.
Lee is a veteran of the Korean music scene, having joined the
in 1993 and leaving in 1997 to start
, which he says is Korea’s first hardcore band. Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Metallum list him with Crash from 1996 to 1999, but according to Lee this is fake news. Sad!
HarryBigButton was a long time in the making, taking about seven years by Lee’s count before he put together the right guys in 2011. The current lineup includes Lee Siwon on bass and Keem Taegi on drums.
Today, there still is a significant amount of heavy metal in HarryBigButton’s DNA. It differentiates the hard rock band in a crowded field with a limited audience. Their music is often labeled “post-hard rock” but whatever you call it, it doesn’t really matter.
“I don’t care too much about genres,” Lee said. “For me music is just music. Genre doesn’t really matter.”
Their song “Angry Face,” from the 2012 album “King’s Life,” demonstrates their unforgettable sound.
Starting with the Jisan Valley Rock Festival in 2012, they’ve been regulars on Korea’s rock festival circuit, touring overseas to Japan for the first time in 2015. And not unlike Trump, they’re no stranger to Russia, having
toured the country extensively last year
They’re kicking off 2018 at a show with Spanish hard rock band
on Jan. 27. Next month they embark on a Korea-wide tour branded “
,” starting in Busan on Feb. 3.