Brown Inbound #4: Yoonsang Doo [ABUSE OF POWER, FAZE, SOCIETY ABUSE] 

Damn, this completely debunks my closing thoughts to the tough guy article that I was going to be posting less frequently. All I can say to the teeny tiny amount of readers who noticed this total contradiction, is that I haven't just been sitting bone idle in the time between now and the Rucktion piece! Trust me, I have this series reasonably planned out in advance and there should be plenty of 'brown' content to be shared when the time is right.

This is the first interview with one of my own contemporaries and will be a refreshing bathe for younger readers who have either seen Yoon's bands play in the UK or for older heads who crave the retro fix of hardcore that the above mentioned acts have reinvigorated. For me, this is an opportunity to interview one of the first people I befriended from the USA (originally acquainted via the violent arena of OG band shirt trading groups on Facebook that are now much better regulated to my knowledge) who not only survived two insane weeks touring up the East Coast with a bunch of of abominable Brits abroad but actually remained as close as an overseas friend can be in the years following. All of this without even having to mention Abuse of Power - the band Yoon is best known to have drummed for - being one of the most influential hardcore bands of the last five years, mastering probably one of the trickiest styles to get right. Lets get into it.

Hi Yoon, thanks for agreeing to do this interview with me.

 

Of course Ben. It’s my pleasure to do so.

 

I'm gonna start with some quick questions about yourself starting with your family background, could you give us a quick history?

 

I am 100% Korean, at least to my knowledge. Who knows what a DNA test would tell me. I was born in Gunsan, South Korea and migrated to the U.S in 1999. My immediate family consists of my parents (still together) and my older sister and I. My extended family is much larger since my grandparents on my mothers side had like… 10 kids or so?

 

Did your parents listen to a lot of music growing up at home? What did they listen to and how much of an impact had this had on your development? Any particular records you still stick on from time to time?

 

Yoon reminded me just how important this band were
for our generation accessing heavy music and revisiting
Linkin Park's early output, I couldn't fault it one bit.

Not really no. My parents were both musically inclined since my mother is a very talented pianist who taught music back in Korea and my dad knows how to play guitar, but they weren’t really too into listening to music at home as far as I can tell. If anything they really just listened to non-secular gospel music. I can safely say that the only influence either of them have had on me was my love for classical music from my mother.

 

Were they into alternative or punk music at all?

 

Never, they actually hated it and anytime I would turn it on.

 

What was your perception of punk/hardcore if you had any as a child or adolescent before you fell into the subculture? Did you see it a certain way that clashed with your identity/place in your community before you came to know more about it?

 

If I can remember correctly, my first perception of punk and hardcore would be from the Tony Hawk soundtracks. I had no idea what punk or hardcore was but I’d listen to the songs while playing the games and think “wow, this music is really fucking cool”. I definitely had a weird feeling that I was ‘different’ from my peers because I was into heavier music, since Linkin Park was my first CD I’ve ever gotten at the age of 6 and it was way different from the other pop/rap songs that were mainstream at the time. My peers would call me “the kid who listened to screamo”.

 

What are your biggest musical, aesthetic and cultural influences in your approach to the art you have produced?

 

In short, I guess the encapsulation of the 90’s and early 00’s would be the biggest influences into a lot of the aesthetics, culture, or art that I’ve produced. With that as the foundation, I also am influenced a lot by my peers. I feel like I have the most talented group of people I’m honored to call my friends.

 

What was your first and/or most memorable experience of racism, if any?

 

The first was being called the classic ‘Jackie Chan’ as a child. None are actually memorable as they all sort of blend together. I suppose the most memorable is when someone just was super relentless on trying to tell me that my uncle was Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee or whichever Asian person they wanna relate me with.

This response reminded me of Jackie Chan's own admission of how Westerners identified him,

albeit hilarious as is always with anything Chan related.

 

How did you eventually find out about punk and hardcore and what was the process that eventually got you going to shows and playing in bands?

I've lost count of the amount of times this game has been
referenced as a direct access point for discovering hardcore.
My other band, Stages In Faith often is described as
 "something you'd hear on the soundtrack".

I was 14 or 15 in January of 2010, and my best friend at the time had a car. We were both in a pop punk band at the time and started to try to be more involved in our local scene. There was a local band that I wanted to see and they happened to play one of the best shows to happen in Jacksonville, FL at the time. It was a fest with Kids Like Us, Down To Nothing, Trapped Under Ice, Naysayer, Forfeit, Cruel Hand, and a few others. Ironically enough, I missed the one band I actually went there to see and my friend had to leave briefly to settle things with an ex girlfriend or whatever but I decided to stay. I was a small young kid watching people beat the shit out of each other and go crazy and it was nothing like I’ve ever seen before. The only band name I remembered after that night was Cruel Hand so I naturally went on their MySpace and found many other bands through their top friends list. Naturally Have Heart was one of my favorite bands in the beginning and so watching their last show video and the bands that played that basically shaped my hardcore music taste.

 

I actually didn’t play in any hardcore bands until a few years into becoming a part of the hardcore scene. But the first core band I was ever in was Society Abuse that I started with Justin and Tyler.

 

Which types of people did you gravitate towards when you began going to shows? Did the social aspect of it affect how you experienced the scene?

 

I gravitated towards anyone who would give me the time of day. Hardcore is a very elitist scene, especially in Jax where a lot of the older crowd thought I was just a lame new kid and didn’t really give me the time of day or respect. Justin and Tyler were really the only people who initially did and I met my first group of friends in the scene through them. The social aspect definitely affected how I experienced it. When I was younger and back in those days, I just chalked up diet racism that I experienced such as names or whatever to just “oh they’re just messing with me but don’t mean it, its cool”. Weird sort of brainwashing I suppose.

 

I know from my own experience of US hardcore that ethnic diversity is a lot more present in the hardcore, punk and metal scenes than say, the UK. You yourself are a first-generation immigrant which sets you apart from many others. Do you feel there are any acute differences between yourself and US-born ethnic minorities? How has your own experience shaped your journey that may be different from others or did this contribute very little to the successes in your life?

 

Yes and no. I think it mostly depends if the US-born ethnic minorities parents were also raised in the US as well. A lot of the differences really depend on how you were raised, and since I was raised in a very traditional Korean household, it’s way different than someone who was raised in an American hybrid ethnic household if that makes any sense. It was honestly a big reason I really didn’t feel much connection to any of my hardcore ethnic peers. While they definitely experienced similar things to me, it just wasn’t the same. I think it contributed largely to any success I’ve had in my life. I was able to take the good parts of being raised in my Korean household (such as the emphasis on respecting other people) and mix it into the more American hardcore DIY ethos and create my own ideal moral code.

 

Society Abuse were probably the closest thing to what
Blind Authority sounded like around 2015/16 but with a
slightly punkier undertone. The lyrics to Rights Denied
linger in my head to this day:
"Are you gonna run or are you gonna FIGHT?"

I remember when I first met you was in 2015 when you were playing drums in Society Abuse. The guitar player of that band, Justin was from a Filipino background and went on to join you in Abuse of Power. I know from my own experience that there is a certain solidarity I would feel with other people from ethnic minorities even if they were not the same as my own. Was there this bond in SA/AoP and if so, did it work its way into your music, aesthetic and band values?

 

Absolutely. I met Justin when we were both in High School art class together and the reason why I was so interested in developing a friendship with him is because when I saw him in the halls, he was an Asian person who looked alternative. It’s a huge reason we became so close in my opinion. He’s been in almost every single band I’ve been in.

 

 Separate from music, you have an astute entrepreneurial mindset which I’ve garnered just from our interactions and conversations about music, art, business etc. Do you have any business advice that you have learned specifically from the hardcore scene or beyond? Can this advice be applied to hardcore and punk as well as everyday life tribulations? Do you think hardcore involves a commercial edge just as much as any other business setting?

 

It’s a weird and awkward conversation to have but hardcore does indeed have a commercial side to it. I think it just depends on how far you’re willing to really ride and stay on that train that separates it being okay from disgusting in my opinion. In a perfect world, we would all be able to get by doing the things we love, but you really do give up a lot just to be able to write and tour in a hardcore band. There are people who do it for the wrong reasons like popularity, or wanting to be the cool person wearing a tour laminate at every show, but there are also people who do it just because they feel the desire and need to do it because they love it. Going back, I think it’s important to support hardcore bands that you think are worth supporting because let’s face it, being compensated and able to live off of what you love doing the most is a good feeling. I like it, I’m sure you like it, and I can go as far as to say most everyone would like that. I just think it’s important to keep your expectations real and not get too greedy. As far as other advice, really just do it yourself. There’s a huge reason why that ethos is very important in hardcore.

 

For me, Abuse of Power specifically was really a band that grew completely in their own over time ending with one of the best hardcore LPs of the last ten years. You sort of opened the flood gates to a lot of bands that are reaping a lot of popularity now (One Step Closer, Wise etc) What do you think was the one sole factor that made AoP such a unique and pioneering band? Was it a question of pure musical study of hardcore traditions or was it letting your own personalities and ethos shine through?

 

What I'd argue is the "template" record for 
Abuse of Power's full-length LP. It's genuinely difficult
to pull off this style without the songs either being
flat out boring or leaning too harshly into the emotional
cringe factor. 

I’ll be honest- despite what anyone else might think about why we did the things we did as a band, Kaleb, Haylen, Lucky and I really started Abuse of Power because we liked the style of music we made (demo era) for a long time and we all just had great musical chemistry from playing in Pain Tolerance and Criminal Instinct together. We did what we did for ourselves, not to be like “oh let’s start a (name band) type of band.” Atlanta is known for starting trends and being ahead of the curve and I suppose it just happened to work that way with Abuse of Power as well in 2016. Look at Foundation and Criminal Instinct for example, nobody in hardcore was playing 90’s style when Foundation started and nobody was playing fast hardcore when Criminal Instinct came out, but once people started realizing, ‘wow this is awesome and a lot of people fuck with it’ all of the clones followed. My point being is, do it because you want to do it, not just because it’s the cool new thing to take advantage of.

 

Further on into AOP’s career, we just started to evolve as musicians and people in general and during the time we wrote our full length, it was just a product of our lives in that specific point of time. People can relate it to this or that and while we do take influence from many things, I can’t really think of anything it really sounds like.

 

 

Tell me about the sketchiest/wildest gig you've been to that comes to mind.

 

Either Merauder in a 100-cap room or Cro-Mags in a 150-cap room, both in Jacksonville FL. Lot of scary biker gang members at both shows. I was in a Cro-Mags pit and during ‘Malfunction’, I saw a gun fall out of one of them in the pit and I respectfully bowed out and stood on the side for the rest of the show.

 

Favourite bands with ethnic members and why are they important to you?

 

I’m going to keep this US exclusive since I feel like it’s pointless to say Bastard from Japan or something because the local color there isn’t white. I’d honestly say Turnstile is a really good example. Being a band with (almost) all original members still, they have a black bass player and an Asian drummer. I think it’s really cool how they create inclusivity in their crowds, and even their bands itself. There are many other bands with ethnic members but just being Asian makes me put Turnstile up there. I’ll throw Have Heart up there too. I always thought it was cool since I was a kid seeing Kei playing for them, especially since they were of my first favorite bands. I was fortunate enough to tour with Free/Have Heart get to know them as people and they’re definitely not just cool band guys - they are genuinely some of the coolest people I’ve met in hardcore.

 

And lastly, how have things changed for the ethnic involvement in punk and hardcore since you started going to gigs? Is there a noticeable difference, have things got better or worse? If you had a child growing into their teens now, would the scene as it is be a place you would want them to be? Could it be made safer? does it need to be?

 

Blind Authority discover fire in Richmond, VA. This
was taken on the Society Abuse 2015 East Coast Tour
by Augie Ruiz.

It’s definitely the most consciously safe place it’s ever been in my opinion. I wasn’t technically around before 2010 but I can only assume how bad it was considering the fact that even my early days it was very annoying for me to deal with racism. We can all do better and put more effort in though, while it’s at the best point it’s been, it’s nowhere near from perfect. It’s bittersweet that the recent BLM movements have opened a lot of people’s eyes into looking inside and trying to right their wrongs, but it’s very sickening that lives were taken away for people to realize it.

 

Do you have any ingenious plans in the works or will we blink and see that you’re either the president of the USA or living the rest of your life on a private island?

 

No real plans right now. I’m just trying to live my life the best I can to be as happy as I can be. I fucking hate politics and think the world would be better if everyone just had respect and concern for their fellow people but, I suppose the bare minimum is a hard pill for some to swallow.

 

Any last words or anything you want to air, please do!

 

Obviously, this interview was mainly focused on racism and my personal experiences from it, but for those who are reading, please try to look deeper into yourself and not just fixate on overcoming and defeating racism, but also misogyny as well. There’s been a lot of misconduct, especially from men to women and it’s saddening to see all of the trauma people have had to go through from lack of respect and selfishness.

 

Thanks for the interview Ben, peace and love to you and everyone reading. <3

 

 

 

Ruining holidays 101. BA and SA in 2015 [Augie Ruiz]