Interview'Daechwita' producer EL CAPITXN tells his own story through borrowed voices

For more than a decade, EL CAPITXN's music has reached listeners through other people's voices, from "Daechwita" by Agust D, the solo moniker of BTS' Suga, to IU's "eight." On his first full-length album, the producer, who lost his singing voice only a few years into his idol career, finally tells his own story, with other singers lending their voices.

"WHO KILLED EL?," out Nov. 6, traces the loss of his voice and the life that followed across 12 tracks spanning rock, orchestral music, gospel, classical and pop. It drops through U.S. independent label EMPIRE.

Born Jang Yi-jeong, EL CAPITXN first drew attention on the second season of MBC's audition show "Star Audition" before debuting as the main vocalist of boy band HISTORY in 2013. After losing his singing voice to an illness whose cause was never clearly identified, he stepped away from the stage and turned to producing and songwriting.

He went on to build a catalog of more than 100 songs, including BTS' "Telepathy" and "Take Two" and PSY's "That That" featuring Suga, and has worked with major K-pop acts such as BTS' Jung Kook, TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT) and ENHYPEN. He founded VENDORS Production and has performed as a DJ at UMF Korea and Waterbomb Seoul.

This year, he stepped back into the spotlight with "Breaking Through," a single featuring TXT's Taehyun and American singer-songwriter Jeremy Zucker, and took his "WHO KILLED EL?" world tour to cities including New York, Mexico City, London and Paris.

His own story

EL CAPITXN said he had been telling his own story all along, even while writing for others.

"No matter how much a song is meant for someone else, it inevitably carries traces of my tastes, my thoughts and the time I've lived," he said in a written interview with The Korea Times. "Until now, my role was to deliver someone else's story as well as I could. This time, I wanted to apply that role to myself."

He said emotions he once thought of as separate, such as love, anger and loss, eventually converged into a single question — What makes a person who they are now?

"I didn't start because this was a perfect time. If anything, I felt that if I didn't start now, I would keep finding reasons to put it off," he said. "Maybe the most important moment for a creator isn't when all the preparation is done, but when you can no longer lie to yourself."

That question also runs through the album's title, which began as the name of his world tour. Asked whether he has found an answer, he said finishing the record made him rethink the question itself.

"Some events break us down, some people change us, and sometimes the choices we make ourselves turn our past selves into completely different people," he said. "So is that change a death, or another birth?"

Because tour audiences each took the question their own way, he said he does not want to settle on one answer.

"I'm the one asking ‘WHO KILLED EL?' but the people who complete the answer may be the ones listening to the music."

Borrowed voices

The album brings in guest vocalists, beginning with prerelease single "Don't Say Love," a hard rock track featuring Los Angeles band Beauty School Dropout.

EL CAPITXN said he chose vocalists for their individuality rather than technical polish.

"More than perfect pitch or technique, it's the things unique to a person — the way they pronounce a word, the moment their voice cracks, the timing of a breath — that can make a song special," he said, adding that "Don't Say Love" needed the band's raw yet emotional delivery.

"This project wasn't just a collection of features," he said. "It was closer to different actors completing a single work together."

Behind those voices is a production approach he credits to his years in K-pop, which taught him how to hold a listener's attention and how a small change in sound can transform a track.

With rock, however, he wanted to preserve the musicians' energy and the unpredictable moments of live playing.

"I don't see these two approaches as opposites," he said. "Instinctive energy can live inside meticulously designed music, and very delicate production is possible even within raw rock music."

The same desire to shape the work on his own terms guided his choice of label. He said it was important to produce the music himself through VENDORS Production and keep control over the album's direction, adding that he holds Korea's music industry in high regard, having learned and grown within it, but wanted to build a structure that fits him.

"The biggest meaning this choice has given me isn't simply a chance to enter overseas markets. It's being able to take responsibility for, and ownership of, the work I've made," he said.

"Freedom comes with just as much responsibility, but I believe that responsibility is part of an artist's life, too."