BTS’s Suga Details How He Was Inspired By Working With PSY
Suga is the latest BTS member to release his interview with Myungseok Kang for Weverse Magazine.
In the interview, Suga touches on his journey with BTS, his solo projects as Agust D, and the collaborations he’s had with artists such as Coldplay, PSY, Heize, and IU.
In particular, he went into detail about producing and featuring on PSY’s song, “That That.” Suga and PSY had made it known in various interviews since the song’s release that the BTS member had only intended to produce the song for PSY before the veteran singer steadily convinced him to become more involved with the project.
Before Suga knew it, not only was he producing and featuring in the song, but he also appeared in the music video and participated in the intense choreography. Suga said that he did the music video with the thought of ARMYs watching it in mind.
While Suga has discussed this before, he went more in-depth about the collaboration process in his interview. Suga shared that the song “That That” was originally a song he had wanted to include on an album but couldn’t. Since he couldn’t use it, he felt the song would be a good fit for PSY. PSY provided feedback and suggestions for the song, which Suga used to rearrange into the song we know today.
That process of back-and-forth was really fun. At first I decided I would just play it for him, and if he didn’t like it, I’d just let it go, but PSY said that he had been working on music for 22 years and now he needed some young blood, and said he wanted to do the song.
— Suga
Despite PSY wanting to showcase a new sound, Suga hilariously revealed that the melody PSY wrote for the song had a classic PSY sound. “No matter how hard he tried to keep his style out of it, the parts he wrote have his fingerprints all over them.”
Suga was in charge of the verses and the hook for the song. For his rap, Suga channeled the vibe from his mixtapes while noting it’s been two years since the release of his popular mixtape, D-2.
Suga was glad the collaboration came to be because he had wants to expand his portfolio as a producer. “I’ve worked on a lot of different songs as a producer, but non-ARMY mainly know the well-known ones, and those are usually the ones by people like IU or Heize so I think they feel like the songs have similar vibes.”
Although Suga had only intended to write the song and be done, he shared that he learned a lot from the experience.
We divided up the labor and wrote separately, but I learned a lot from him. It was an entirely different production experience for me; there was something about his attitude when making music that resonated with me.
— Suga
For Suga, it is easier to write a song for other people than it is to write for himself. “I have the hardest time making my own stuff… I had trouble organizing my thoughts in the past because there were so many things I wanted to say, but now I think it’s not knowing what to say that makes it difficult.”
With each collaboration, Suga draws inspiration from the experience and is able to hone in on his craft. As for future plans, Suga disclosed that he’s working hard on a follow-up to his last release as Agust D, D-2.
There’s still so much I want to do. I have no feel for what kind of music I’m going to be making in my 30s, 40s or 50s, but I want to keep doing music until the day I die.
— Suga
Suga also discussed his new music and hinted at a solo tour. For more on that, check out the article below!
