Quotes from Eric Nam

In the States I might be an Asian face, look different from everyone else in TV and in music, but in Korea I look like everybody else, in Asia I look like everybody else.

Whenever I write my music, it's always been in English first and then I take it into Korean.

I'm active on social media because that's such a big reason why K-pop and Korean music performs the way it does.

My parents, or Asian parents in general, they're like, 'You should be a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker' - all that's laid out. As a kid that's what I bought into, which is why I ended up going the corporate route initially.

I don't know why I feel the need to try and do everything. But I kind of have this mentality that you live once, and I have a lot of things that I want to do and there's a lot of things that I want to try. So I have to at least give it a shot before I don't try at all or like, give up on things.

Korean, yes, I am now fluent in Korean. I was not always. When I got to Korea, I was constantly put on TV shows not knowing what was going on. So that forced me to learn Korean so I could stop looking like an idiot.

For the first four or five years I was in Korea, I took a lot of direction from my management and label in terms of what people want. I found myself trying to fit into that thing I never felt comfortable with because the critique I got was that I was too American, and too sophisticated and polished in terms of my musicality and it won't sell.

I know people are going to be like, 'why do you have so many songs with the word 'you' in it? 'Idea Of You,' 'Into You,' 'Like You,' 'You-Who'... Well, sorry, but it just works out that way.

You know, we never grew up with Asian American role models in the entertainment industry, unfortunately. I'd never seen an Asian face singing on TV.

Korean-Americans, Asian-Americans are so unbelievably underrepresented in the U.S. entertainment and media industries and I don't think we are given a real shot.

I want to position myself as a great singer/songwriter in Korea, then jump off that into different markets. South-east Asia, China, Japan - I've done nothing even though I speak four languages - English, Korean, Spanish, and a little bit of Mandarin.

People around me tell me that I need a bigger persona and to act a little more A-listy because 'that's where you are but you don't act that way, so people undervalue you.' But that's not me.

I was part of the Atlanta Boy Choir probably like fourth and fifth grade. I personally didn't enjoy the type of music that we were doing. I was more into like whatever was on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

Nobody looks good getting out of bed.

No matter what job or industry you're in, life is hard, but we're all going through a difficult time and the best thing we can do is pick each other up and move on together.

Traveling has been a really big part of my upbringing and I've been fortunate enough to travel for different reasons. I'd like to think that it has had an impact on my character and personality, which ultimately affects my music.

Being a hungry artist, you don't have the luxury of buying whatever you want. There were years of me doing a lot of odd jobs, this and that just to make ends meet.

Oftentimes you're breaking out because your face is lacking moisture or hydration.

One way I deal with stress is when I feel a certain way, I just do it. It's like, I want a hamburger, so I'm just going to eat a hamburger. I don't want to answer your phone call right now - I'm not going to answer your phone call. Just be able to say, 'This is how I feel. This is the way it is, deal with it.'

From a strictly business perspective, it's like, 'Even if you leave Eric alone, he'll do stuff. He puts his own album together, he gets his own gigs, he does everything on TV. Let him be, he's fine.'

I'm the type of person that if I feel strongly about something and if I really want to do something, I'm just gonna do it. And if it works out, amazing, and it's like 'I told you so,' but if it doesn't work out, that's fine.

Even throughout college and post-college, I've always been incredibly hyperactive. Even at Boston College, I was involved in so many different organizations and initiatives.

In a way, I'm overly ambitious, selfish in a way. I think because I am so active, I think that's what keeps my brain going and I can bounce things off of each other.

So Mandarin, I picked it up, I spent a year in Beijing studying but then when you don't use it, languages, you just kinda forget it all.