Quotes from Eric Nam

I thought it would be so cool to be a musician, but I always thought it was impossible, because I would never be accepted in mainstream media. The fact that I'm able to tour North America and around the world is an incredible blessing, and I am thankful every time I do it.

So the first thing I do when I get out of bed, I will check my phone real quick because I live in Korea, but my stuff is split between L.A. and Korea.

I think K-pop bands rock, and their success raises my spirit to perform better on stage.

I feel like I've always been drawn to a very diverse range of music and I've always enjoyed experimenting, so I'm not quite sure where exactly my music will go.

Even within K-pop, there should be more representation. It's not just groups, and it's not just incredibly produced, highly choreographed pieces. There are vocalists, there's R&B, there's hip-hop, there are other types of people and voices. There's space for all of that to be shared and to be appreciated.

I've done commercials and won awards, but I know that this won't last forever.

It's so wild to be able to say that I can do shows in front of thousands of people and have them sing my songs in Korean and in English - that is wild to me.

I actually received a lot of messages from Central and South American artists who complimented my songs and showed interest in collaborating with me.

It's easy to talk about how great love is or how you feel heartbroken after a breakup, but it's not as easy to talk about the process of going through the end of a relationship.

When you think of Gallant's music and his voice, you don't automatically think, 'Oh, Eric Nam would be great a fit' or 'Hey! Tablo would be an amazing fit.'

I had accepted a position as a business analyst at Deloitte Consulting in New York. But before I went into that workforce, I decided to take a year off and went to India to do a social enterprise fellowship. It wasn't the best fit, but that was where a TV show in Korea found me and invited me to first come perform.

Typically in Korea when I perform I have a full band, a ten-piece band, and that's a completely different monster in itself to prepare and rehearse.

I was criticized a lot when I was singing in Korean. The producers and people from my agency would point out my accent and tones, and would tell me I sound too American to fit the local market.

I think representation is something that's absolutely needed. I felt like with K-pop being so hot, we could leverage that to potentially do something bigger with music in the States that people could latch onto.

Even if you look at 'American Idol,' or 'X-Factor,' or 'The Voice' or anything, it was always difficult to see an Asian or an Asian-American make it to a certain point.

When I first toured North America, everyone was saying that it was working because there is such as a solid Korean fan base here. The truth is, that is less than five per cent of the audience, which is mixed of all backgrounds.

I'm grateful that the public think of me as a sweet guy, but there are times when I get worried that my behavior would disappoint the public. I'd like to show them that there are different sides of me.

What works in the States doesn't easily translate to the Korean market.

One of my first interviews was Robert Downey Jr. for 'Iron Man.'

We recognize that there have been acts in the past that are Asian or Korean who tried to go, 'Hey, I'm a huge star in Korea, I'm a huge star in Asia so you guys need to respect me for being a huge star there.' But I don't know. As much as we may be big, we have to be very humble and start from the ground up in the States.

I learned Spanish as my second language from middle school through high school. I grew up volunteering at homeless shelters and tutoring kids of Latin immigrants in Atlanta, who didn't speak any English. That prepared me for when I traveled.

I am so excited for where and what K-pop is doing and how it's growing. In the music industry it's not a trend, it's not a quick 'oh this is cool for a minute,' this is a full genre, which is exciting and cool.

I'm just looking for that one song that I know everybody's going to be like, 'Damn, that's a good song.'

I think Korea is so focused on just the charts, and what's going to chart and what's not, and I'm sure it's like that way in the States as well, to a certain degree. But I enjoy working in the States a little bit more. Because it's more about making music that is the right sound and the right fit to me, not so much just chasing the charts.