Boy band hits with hate
By Tatat Bunnag
Photographs by Varuth Hirunyatheb
Did you know
Kyung Tae Park was a high school kendo champion.
More than two years have passed since exciting boy band XIS worked their way into pop fans’ hearts with their mixture of Thai and Korean members, their unique dace moves and catchy hits like “Reverse” and “Deception.”
Now the boys are back with a groovy new electro dance single called “Honey, I Hate You.” The group — Pichayut Sirawongprasert (Pichy), 19, Vorakorn Sirisorn (Kang), 18, Kevin Wong, 17, Pakapol Loychilakul (Kwang), 17, Jiho Kim, 16 and Kyung Tae Park, 18 — will soon follow up their latest single with a new album called X-ing (Crossing), to be released by RS subsidiary Kamikaze.
Student Weekly recently caught up with XIS to chat about their new music and about how they feel being hailed as the next K-otic.
Student Weekly: How long have you guys been together as a group?
Pichy: We’ve been together for almost four years. We all met after we passed auditions for the RS label. We were still high school students at the time.
Student Weekly: How did you first get signed to the Kamikaze label?
Kang: Somebody from the casting department of the label came to check out students at our school, and they found us.
Pichy: We all studied at international schools, and they often have dance and music competitions at those schools. Talent scouts usually came to check out young talent at the school fairs. But I was actually contacted by the label after I’d been in a lot of commercials and magazines.
Kevin: It was funny for me — a talent scout just approached me one day when I was buying soda at the school cafeteria. They said they were from the RS label and asked if I wanted to go to an audition. They also asked me if I could show them some dance steps, so I did! [Laughs.]
Student Weekly: What kind of music were you guys into back then?
Kang: We all listened different artists, but we shared an interest in R&B, hip-hop and dance music.
Pichy: I’m a fan of Chris Brown. I also listen to a lot of old school hip-hop.
Kwang: I love Bruno Mars. His voice is so sexy. [Laughs.] I mean sexy for girls!
Student Weekly: Why did it take XIS so long to release a new single?
Kang: We spent a year improving our singing and dancing skills.
Pichy: Two years ago, we were still too young to come up with original ideas or to develop our own character. We had to work hard.
Student Weekly: Can you tell us about your new single, “Honey, I Hate You”?
Pichy: It’s a fun dance song about feeling stunned by a beautiful girl.
Kwang: Mild from Kiss Me Five acted as the charming girl in the song’s music video.
Student Weekly: Lots of your fans have commented XIS will be the next K-otic. How do you feel about that?
Pichy: We’re definitely not the new K-otic! [Laughs.]
Kwang: We don’t want people to compare us to K-otic. They’re like brothers to us and we’re with the same label.
Pichy: It’s nice of fans to say that, but it’s not fair if people think we’re here to replace K-otic. They had their time and they did really well. We just want to show that we have our own unique style.
Student Weekly: When can fans expect your next album?
Pichy: We plan to release one or two more singles first. Hopefully our full album will be out by the end of the year.
Vocabulary
- subsidiary (n): a business company that is owned or controlled by another larger company
hail (v): to describe somebody as being very good or special
talent scout (n): a person whose job is to find people who are good at sport, singing acting, etc. in order to offer them work
approach (v): to speak to somebody, especially to offer them something
old school (slang): something that is old-fashioned; from an earlier era
character (n): an interesting or unusual quality that a place, person or group has
stunned (adj): very surprised and impressed by something
charming (adj): very pleasant and attractive
