Interview: R&B Artist Justin Park (S1NE) Discusses How His Music Career Got Started, the Meaning behind His Latest Single April’s Fool, and His Upcoming Projects
By. Alicia Zamora
A Conversation with Justin Park
Alicia: Alright we can start now!
Justin Park: Hi! Nice to meet you guys my name is Justin Park. I also go by S1NE on Spotify whatever you want to call me and yeah S1NE on all platforms.
Justin Park: Nice to meet you, Alicia. I’m glad to talk to you right now!
Alicia: Nice to meet you!
Alicia: Diving into the first question with where it all started how did music become something that you wanted to do? and what led you to pick the path of an artist?
Justin Park: Yeah so for me it’s pretty crazy because growing up I was always that loud kid bursting into song and incoherently just saying random stuff and I kind of got into this relationship with music where I was trying all these different things.
Justin Park: My parents put me through piano classes, guitar lessons, and cello. Pretty much every instrument that an Asian parent would want their kid to play but nothing really stuck for me so I kind of found my stride in just saying random things and I got into music when I… cause I grew up in the church so I was actually one of the praise team people so that kind of showed me that “Oh.. I really do like performing and singing”. That kind of helped me.. It was like my vocal lessons. Now it’s just a process of meeting the right people.
Justin Park: I’m from Toronto for those of you who don’t know but Toronto is a very creative city so it’s really easy for you to meet creative and like-minded people so it was something that I never really set out on writing music and pursuing it full time. It was just something that I did for fun and it still is. I still have a lot of fun doing it now. But yeah honestly it’s a really good way for me to express myself.
Alicia: Oo okay okay!
Alicia: Going into your release of your new single ‘April’s Fool’ what was the inspiration behind it?
Justin Park: So April’s Fool is a lot of different things. April’s Fool is funny because when I was doing it I kind of have been writing it for three years and it has three different versions that I came up with and it was different stages of my life so I was writing this about somebody and the first version of it was like “Oh I’m the fool for being so head over heels and only focusing on you.. Like I’m completely yours.”
Justin Park: April’s Fool again was more of the rocky stages and so I’m a fool for fighting you on this or whatever and now it’s like April’s Fool is the song about seeking forgiveness and redemption and so I guess that’s where it ended up and that’s kind of the message that I think really resonated the most. I think that’s the best version of that song. So that’s what came out and yeah. I mean it’s about love obviously but this is seeking reparations and that’s the inspiration behind that.
Alicia: When creating music what does the process look like for you?
Justin Park: Yeah so it starts with.. I have a producer that I worked very closely with for my recent releases his name is Dice and we have a studio here in Toronto so we would just hop into a session. It’ll be like 10 pm and we would go all the way until like 6 am sometimes.
Alicia: That’s insane.
Justin Park: Yeah we would just be there and he would just ask me “What’s the vibe for today?” and I would tell him exactly what I want and he produces it live so as he’s producing it I hear the loops and the vibe that he has so I’m essentially writing it at that moment. So, when I’m at the studio we're vibing together kind of talking it out and then getting a general feel for the song.
Justin Park: So we start with our scratch vocals so a bunch of mumbling.. A bunch of incoherent stuff but we're just trying to get the melodies down and then it starts with feeling in those compositions and making sure the lyrics make sense and then after that just polishing everything together. It’s a pretty procedural process. There’s the scratch. It’s pretty common our workflow has become efficient these days so we're doing scratch, composition, and then polishing the vocals and then making sure everything sounds good and that everything makes sense.
Justin Park: The one thing you do not want is lyrics that make no sense
Alicia:* laughs*
Alicia: When it comes down to musical inspirations do you have any group or artist that you get inspiration from?
Justin Park: I think inspiration comes from all over. In terms of specific artists, I can’t really pin it down to one. There are artists that I like listening to and then there are also artists that I garner my sound from.
Alicia: oh okay
Justin Park: I’ve kind of been going down this pathway of more dark R&B and I want to say there’s a lot of creatives in this space as well but one of the biggest inspirations for me is Josh Makazo, Daniel Di Angelo, and in terms of songwriting and lyrics I think it would have to go to Giveon or 6lack. It comes from all over. There are different elements of production that I really enjoy and just the general vibe of the message I want to communicate as well.
Alicia: When it comes to creating new songs what inspires you the most? Is it personal experiences, movies, or imagination?
Justin Park: A lot of my songs come from personal experiences. Sometimes my friends would tell me about what happened to them and I would be like “Oh that’s great.. I should write about that.” My song ‘Hate Me Too’ is something that actually happened to my friend. The lyrics for that one are “All your friends hate me.. If that were me I’d hate me too.” Everyone that listens to that is trying to bring it to a place of like “Oh you’re just a toxic self-aware kid” but it’s not me.
Justin Park: So it does come from a lot of personal experiences and I want to say that ‘April’s Fool’ is probably the one that is closest to my heart because that’s something that you know.. That is all me. I’m inspired by my surroundings, my situations, and pretty much the tea and gossip that other people tell me.
Alicia: * laughs*
Alicia: How long does it usually take you to write a song?
Justin Park: It varies! Usually, these days I finish one verse, one pre-hook, and the choruses all in one session and I usually get too tired to finish the second verse or I just want to keep it open-ended if I want to work with anybody else.
Justin Park: So, in a session on average it’s about four to six hours long so it would take that amount of time. Usually four to six and then we can get a good composition based on that. It’s pretty interesting because it really varies. Sometimes I’ll hear a beat and I’ll automatically know what to say but sometimes it’ll take a little bit more time. ‘April’s Fool’ was so many different variations because I was coming from a place where I did three different versions with three different meanings. That one is probably the longest one and probably the fastest one that I wrote is ‘Hate Me Too’ just because that had literally been the day before and I had an idea for it already. When I heard the beat I was like “This is exactly what we need to do.”
Alicia: What genre do you typically go for?
Justin Park: I want to say it is such a weird grey area for me because if you listen to stuff that I released in early 2021 and 2020 it’s this cute and poppy Bosanova type of stuff but now it’s more of a dark R&B with dramatic finishes.
Justin Park: All of that.. Well, I really wouldn’t know how to classify it but I definitely enjoy writing in the R&B space more because it gives me more liberty to take more time with the lyrics and not just repeat the same thing over and over again. It gives me a nicer medium I guess to write about things that actually apply to my life and so in terms of that, I would want to say in the R&B space. I don’t know the technical term for it but a lot of people have called it dark R&B,neo-futurism, or feature-soul.
Justin Park: Definitely it’s kind of weird because I don’t put myself as a Korean R&B artist just because I am Korean and write R&B music that doesn’t automatically make me K-R&B. Like a lot of people refer to me as a Korean R&B artist so it’s kind of weird but I would just keep it in that R&B space.
Alicia: Seeing that you are gaining more attention, first I would like to say congratulations and now ask how do you feel.
Justin Park: Thank You! Appreciate it!
Justin Park: Honestly, I’m not at a place where I can confidently say “Oh I’m an artist”. I’ve been doing other things as well like photography. A bunch of different things. So I wouldn’t say fully that yet where I’m in this position where I can fully do music but it makes me feel hopeful for the future. I think going into doing more work in this space as it’s building a fanbase and talking to people that enjoy my music. It’s really a fulfilling and rewarding feeling. People have texted me saying “Oh I showed my friends your song.”
Justin Park: Like my younger sister she lives in a different city than me and when we talk she’s saying “Oh I showed my friends your song and they really like it and I’m so proud to have an older brother that’s so talented.” It makes me feel very fulfilled and it makes me feel proud of what I do and happy with the songs that I write. It inspires me to want to make better music and I write primarily for myself but I would like to cater sounds that are actually enjoyable for other people. It’s a very fulfilling feeling.
Alicia: Where do you see yourself in the future? Do you see yourself touring or possibly collaborating with other artists?
Justin Park: I would love to. Performances are on the roadmap for me and in terms of collaborations I have a lot of friends in the music space it´s just that we haven’t found any projects that we align with. I feel like my sound is a bit niche and a lot of my friends are in different streams so once we find a project that we are interested in I would love to collaborate.
Justin Park: Also, I don’t want to only limit it to making music with my friends. One of my dream collaborations in the past was with Jimmy Brown. We talked briefly about working on a song together but at the time I wasn’t heavily making music hopefully in the future we can rehash that. I do hope theirs a lot more in store for the future. I feel like I want to diversify.
Alicia: Oo okay okay!
Alicia: With the interview coming to an end I wanted to say thank you for letting me interview you and I wanted to ask about future plans. Do you see yourself releasing more music, working on new projects, or just taking time for yourself?
Justin Park: So right now I’m on this plan to release one single every month which has been pretty challenging because there’s a lot more than writing music. Theirs the distribution process which takes an insane amount of time. You have to plan your release a month in advance and that’s on the lighter end. Realistically if you want to give them the most time to make sure everything goes smoothly you want to give them at least a month.
Justin Park: But theirs also the artwork I have to do and the marketing stuff but it’s been a really good disciplinary practice because having one release a month keeps me consistent and right now I have two projects lined up. I’m working on a third one too so I think I’m on a good path to releasing more music.
Justin Park: I hope that those of you watching will listen to it in the future as well but yeah I’m definitely here to stay. I’m going to do everything I can to make this music work out. Please be on the lookout for future projects.
Alicia: Yes!!! I’ll be linking all your stuff !!
Alicia: Thank you so much !! I really appreciate this!
Justin Park: Thank you for having me!