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| Deadbuttons / Courtesy of Deadbuttons |
The psychedelic punk band Deadbuttons has fared pretty well this year, releasing a 10-song album and a single and unveiling a slight modification to the band's name.
Maybe to differentiate itself from numerous other band names, most notably The Dead Kennedys but also Korean bands Dead Gakkahs, Dead Chunks and Dead Chant, the band took the space out of its name. It seems small, but makes sense from a search engine perspective.
"Always wanted to put them in one word and it seemed to be the right time," frontman Hong Ji-hyun told The Korea Times.
So as the newly rebranded Deadbuttons, the band released a new album on July 15 titled simply "1," featuring 10 songs already released on previous albums, recorded in the band's new style. As the album goes on, the songs increase in complexity, as well as length, with track 1 clocking in at 6 seconds and track 9 hitting almost 14 minutes ― extremely rare for a punk band.
Back in 2012 when Hong co-created Dead Buttons, it was just a duo and their sound was aggressive but spartan. They've since doubled in size, adding a bassist as well as a synthesizer, which is played by Kim Ji-won of the ska-punk band Skasucks and blues band Billy Carter who also adds percussion and vocals. The additions really filled out their sound, but also left the old recordings sounding unrecognizable.
"We wanted to present our sound in 2020 and the only way we could do it as a band was rerecording them all by ourselves," Hong said. "We restructured the songs and recorded, mixed and mastered them at our studio. It took a lot of time to build the environment where we could practically proceed with all those steps. The album is full of old songs but they are just as new as Deadbuttons now."
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| Dead Buttons perform in Hongdae Playground on Halloween 2012, in an early configuration of the band. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar |
This isn't Deadbuttons' first release this year, as they also put out the single "Bing-ee," June 7. The original plan was to time it for after the album, but the band members released it early to raise funds for the Black Lives Matter movement.
"We already had two complete singles to release at some point and the lyrics of Bing-ee were talking about freedom so we brought it forward and pre-released it," he said. "We had not much we could do but at least we thought we could support the movement with our music this way."
The day before the release, Hong and Kim marched in a BLM solidarity rally in downtown Seoul. Hong wore a shirt with the message "Strongly Dislike the Police ― N.W.A," a comically bowdlerized version of the rap group's classic profanity-riddled song released in 1988.
Korean American rapper Dumbfounddead retweeted an image of the shirt, which went viral, even getting an Instagram share by Public Enemy co-founder Chuck D.
Although it was likely shared as an example of a silly English shirt in Korea, it came out that Kim, also pictured in the photo, bought the shirt for Hong while visiting the U.S. in 2017.
"A meme is just a meme," Hong said of the experience. "I had so much fun though."
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| This image of Deadbuttons frontman Hong Ji-hyun, left, marching in a Black Lives Matter solidarity march June 6 went viral because of his NWA shirt. The shirt was bought by band keyboardist Kim Ji-won, front. / Korea Times photo by Michael Hurt |
It was a change of pace for Hong, a hardworking musician who isn't used to the big spotlight. By day he gives lessons on computer MIDI tools and sometimes makes commercial music.
Kim, meanwhile, keeps busy with her three bands, which keeps her busy but hungry. "I often work part-time as…whatever, but I don't have quite enough time to do something regularly and that's why I'm poor," she said.
Meanwhile, their drummer Won-seok does drum lessons and works part-time at a restaurant, while hoping to make the jump to full-time musician. And bassist MJ used to work for a video production company, but ever since he quit, "I've just been hanging out."
It's been a slow year for everyone, but Deadbuttons has made the most of it.
"Our French tour in summer is canceled," Hong said. "We don't have as many gigs as we used to do. But we finished an album. We hope this pandemic ends as soon as possible and we can finally enjoy the gigs and the festivals again."
Deadbuttons' next show is at Club SHARP on Aug. 22, with Daegu skatepunk band Drinking Boys and Girls Choir and Seoul band Gumiho. Only 50 tickets are available.
Visit deadbuttons.bandcamp.com to hear the album or fb.com/deadbuttons for information about the show.
