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Today is May 29th, 2023. My name is Kevin. I'm with the Houston Asian American Archive. I'm talking today with Mr. Vaughn Chung. He's a Vietnamese American musician who co-founded the

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band Paper Gliders, which is an indie rock band based here in-in Houston, Texas. So thanks so much for taking the time out of your day [VC: Yeah, thanks for having me.] to talk with me. Um, so just to get into—to get a little information about

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your kind of early experiences, what was it like growing up in Alief? Man, Alief is—Alief is such like a–a trip when I think about how much I've traveled and–and how much I've thought about the experience of how—the uniqueness

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of living in a—in–in a neighborhood like that, you know, Alief is technically more diverse than Queens, New York, and I didn't really know that until after the fact. You know, I–I always thought that that type of rich diversity was just normal.

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That was like my daily life was like meeting people that were refugees from Pakistan or Iraq and meeting West Africans from as far as Ghana and to—and then all the way as far as Senegal and Caribbean people, South Americans, Central

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Americans, and of course, every type of—every type of Asian you can think of South Asian, East Asian, Pacific Islander. Um, that was my worldview, you know, and in addition to that, most of us were low income, so there

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was like a connection there. It's not just the fact that it was diverse, but it was the fact that we were all more or less on the playing field—the same playing field. I think the numbers is like 92% were like free

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lunch—took free lunch, you know? So it was–it was definitely an experience that I'll—and that I'll never forget. A lot of things haven't changed about Alief and some things have definitely changed.

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It looks like there's more support in general for the area. There's like the early college that they just built. There's like new development going on over there because it's not really a flood zone. So there's a lot of people post-Harvey that have been moving into Alief as

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well, which is very—sorry, I'm sorry about that—which has been very interesting. So, A-Alief is–is—was fascinating for—because like, it was part dangerous at times.

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You know, I'd sometimes have to walk home with a—with, you know, with some protection. You know, s-sometimes I'd have to—sometimes, like when I would leave the house I'd have to carry a pocket knife just to go to the grocery store. Just because, like, I never knew what would–what would go.

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Not the grocery store, but the corner store. But regardless, yeah, you just never know, and that was like again, like, just the daily routine and, in addition to that, I also grew up around drug dealers. My family was not one, thankfully, but

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I was around it, and it was–it was just—that was just my life. So going into college, not graduating, but going into college and then meeting the rest of the world and then finding out the rest of the world is also very white was very very shocking.

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It was a culture shock coming into the inverse for sure. And what about, I guess, like music? Was there like a music scene there? Like—

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Absolutely. The—obviously because it's predominantly African American, Black American, Latino, there's—hip hop was the dominant genre in the area. In addition to that, the secondary genre I would say after like

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maybe hip hop and like Latino music, like reggaeton, for example, I would say EDM was like—kind of like starting to be a thing because in particularly that was like a very big appeal for a lot of Asian Americans that I knew, you know, like that particular style,

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not a style that particularly drew to me, but I saw it and I noticed it. Now the rock scene, and when I say rock I mean all encompassing just alternative anything with a guitar and drums and bass was small but very active, you

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know, all of us—it was interesting 'cause all of us were doing the things that I think any bands were doing. We were playing at like, you know, dingy dive bars, playing at like terrible set times at 7 p.m.

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and 8 p.m. and stuff like that opening for–for–for a bunch of weird bands and mixed genre shows. It was—i—it's–it's a big part of the growing pains I think about being a highs-in a high school band.

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I actually—my first experience was playing bass in a band that was like a pop punk punk rock kind of group back in like—I guess when I was like a sophomore in high school. We played a couple of shows and it was like a life changing experience

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for me. Even if it was like for six people or seven people, it was just kind of like, wow, I really—I—this is like—this—it was like–it was like a calling, you know? It's like, this is what I want to do. And in whatever respect of how I want to do it, like being in the music

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industry at that age was like radicalizing me basically to think like–like this makes me happy and this makes complete sense. Now, having very traditional parents that are from not

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just Vietnamese, but Viet-vietnam War refugees, it's like when you try to explain to them that you want to do music, you might as well put your clown shoes on because it's–it's kind of like they're—they went—they work so hard they're come a-all the way out here and you

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feel like you owe something to them. That filial piety, as we call it in our culture, right, but that—I'll probably get to that at some point in the interview, but regardless, in terms of the music scene itself, yeah, it was the thing,

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and at the very least, my mom was—if she wasn't super supportive, at least she was more neutral and she'd let it happen, so—and–and so I can just kind of get out there at times and just–just get my feet wet. So it was a thing for sure.

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Maybe not as active as I would say the other, you know, districts in Texas, but for what was there we all knew each other and we alway—and we didn't really know know at the time, but it's a—we–we had a bond, you know, that years later, ten years later, it's

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like we had an understanding like that was cool, that we could do something like that in an area that is known for something completely different. I think that was like a point of pride to me, at least, as well. And you–you mentioned kind of how, you know, the hip hop, EDM that

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didn't kind of interest you as much as, you know, rock and the alternative genres. So did you have any, I guess like gateway bands or musicians or music groups that kind of spearheaded your interest in like the alternative more heavier?

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Yeah. Absolutely. Now, I want to be fair, I had listened to hip hop like everybody else, like I don't have an opposition at all and I–I respect the genre. One of my favorite groups of all time is A Tribe Called Quest, you know, like it—so, but

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anyways, it just ne—but it never like it didn't have that special thing that hit me. I just listened to it, especially in the radio or other friends that kind of exposed me to it.

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But what happened was, and funny enough, what was introduced to me was from another Asian American himself. He, in seventh grade—this—he was in my wedding as well, this–this guy named Alan. We'll just call him Alan.

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He was an alt guy from the moment that I met him, and just the way he dressed, it was just kind of like different, you know, and I was like this guy is like this skinny Vietnamese guy, you know, just like rail thin and super long hair, and I was just like

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diff—he wa-but it–it was almost like, oh, we're going to be friends. You're–you're just different, you know, and we connected, like, immediately. He was—he—his music taste was phenomenal for a kid that was like in seventh grade.

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It was crazy. It was like in middle school. He burned the CD to me, he was like listen to it. And I was like, okay, cool. So he gave me the American Idiot album.

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The American Idiot album from Green Day. That's the first time I heard like a rock album from start to finish. I listened to it and it changed my life.

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Like from the first song, just literally when American Idiot came on, I was like, what is this? You know, it was kind of like CD player headphones on and I was just like, this is different. Like when I–when I heard it, I was just like—and I just knew that at–at seventh

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gra-at seventh grade, when I listened to it, I was like, things will never be the same again. Like after this, you just don't know what–what it means and the magnitude of that moment, but shout out to Alan, thanks for him for that because we remained like friends in early high school, and then he showed me other

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bands that I would have never found on my own, like Oasis and Blur. I became big fans of Oasis and Blur like later on. These kind of not just American alt groups, but also British alt groups that I got into, and my biggest gateway, I would say,

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was starting with Green Day because that led to all the other groups, and, you know, there was this stuff in the early 2000s that was very—and mid 2000s that–that kind of like emo wave of like Panic at the Di-like especially pop emo like Panic at the Disco and Fall Out.

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Boy, they were kinda all in that vein. Funny enough, I didn't really like them when they first came out. I was very much like, you guys are posers, like in my head I was very gatekeepy because I was like a Blink 182 Green Day kid.

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So I was like, oh, you guys are all posers, in my head, not openly, but in my head I was just like, this is just whatever. I've grown to respect Panic at the Disco many many years later, you know—I–I—Brendon Urie's vocal range is phenomenal

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and–and–and Fall Out Boy has some extremely catchy songs, but you know, when you're a kid, especially as a millennial, it was—I think that's a big part of our identity is just like being very cliquey about the music that we listen to. I think I respect Gen Z kids but a lot because I feel like I

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find a lot of them just listen to genuinely like whatever and anything, but back then, listening to music was like a religious experience, you know, like you listened to an album the whole way through, yes, we skip songs, we're not gonna to act like we–we just listen to everything on the album.

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But for the most part, we listen to the whole thing the first time through, and it was just like a–a–a–a thing, a point of pride that you listen to x records and it defined a lot of who you are. You were how cool you were, how alt you were.

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It was very much like a–a–a—just a feather in your cap, so to speak. So yeah, it's–it's quite interesting when I look back, I guess like on it, but it was definitely American Idiot, and then after

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that it was The Beatles that was like the next big group for me like in high school, it was like my junior year. I really got into them and I was like, these guys are geniuses. Why is nobody else listening to them?

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And I was just like, oh yeah, I'm like a 17 year old kid in the early 2000s in Alief, of course not know a lot of people are listening to them, but I did find people that did listen to them, of course, and those people became some of my closest friends just 'cause like we're just nerding out about groups that

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were long gone and not just that, but not very popular in the zeitgeist, and it's funny 'cause in 2023, I feel like they're actually more relevant than they were at that time just because of the digital age of music. But you know, because CDs and vinyl and physical media is

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constantly re-replenished, just as digital music was, a lot of things got lost in the fold, so unless you had a cool older brother—I did not, I was the oldest brother—unless you–you had a cool older brother older sister to kind of get you into it or cool parents—my parents were Vietnamese Amer-Viet-were Vietnamese

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immigrants an-they listened to—we pla-they played like Catholic music and Vietnamese music growing up that–that was–that was all I listened to, you know? So I karaoked a lot of Vietnamese songs growing up. But that was my exposure to music in general so my discovery to music

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was very, I think, pretty atypical compared to how like some kids will just have a cool dad that's like here's the Led Zeppelin album. I did not have that moment. My dad two—knew two American songs that–that at least that he played a

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lot because he—my dad played guitar. It was The Animals' House of the Rising Sun, which was a cover. He used to play that song a lot. That was one American song, and then Oyo—Oye Como Va, which is

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technically a cover from Carlos Santana. Those were kind of like the songs that I knew that he would play a lot, and that was pretty much it, otherwise it was the radio and other friends that got me exposed into it.

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And long story short, after The–The Beatles, the next band that really really defined my 20s and what music—musical style that I wanted to really do was The Strokes. When I first heard that—the first album,

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I absolutely hated it. Like the Is This It Record, it did not speak to me at all when I was in high school. I heard—I was like what is this garbage, this is so hipster and–and the recording is so bad, the quality is so bad.

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I'm like, why do people like this? And then I—and then, you know, what happens is you–you get older, you mature, you get into art, and you understand that there was an artistic purpose behind the way that they approached things, and then you mature and you understand the lyrical

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content a lot more—what–what, you know, he was trying to say in the songs. And then you realize, holy crap, like every instrument is like orchestral in this band. You know, the bass does this, the two guitars, sometimes they both play rhythm,

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sometimes the guitar plays this thing and the other guitar plays this thing and it's like weaving and it's talking and dancing with each other, and then the drums are kind of alternate as well it's—and then his vocal style singing over like a—basically a guitar amp over this whole thing.

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It was a comp-a completely original sound that I had never heard before. Now, later on, you realize, oh, you know, he listened to a lot of The Velvet Underground and like The Cars, you can see those influences, but still, even then you listen to it you go, that's that band, like that's so original.

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So I would say a-after that journey of Green Day a-and just to kind of like condense of Green Day to The Beatles, The Strokes that was basically what led me to being into indie rock, indie pop in general, cause now I got into Arctic Monkeys, The Hives, The Vines, all those early

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2000s indie sleaze groups, and then later on the mid 2000s, late 2000s groups like Vampire Weekend, for example, or MGMT when they were first coming out. So yeah, that was–that was how, I–I guess like a long winded way of saying how I got into music and the music that I like to write

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today in general. Yeah, I think you shared some really interesting perspectives on how like cultural differences can inform like even like your musical taste and [VC: Yeah] how you go about it today.

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But, you know, going back to—I guess you mentioned that your–your father played the guitar, so is that how you started out with music then? Yeah, I used to hear him play at night and my dad was a supreme over worker as a lot of Asian men are

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famous f-for. You know, he went for overtime even when he didn't need to do it, and he would come home tired and he would never play until it was very late into the night.

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So I can remember very distinctly that I would sneak down the stairs very very very quietly tippy toe just to hear him play and hear him tune the thing, and it's like interesting 'cause I look back and I go, that was like the coolest thing I'd ever

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heard. When I heard those strings just being tuned to pitch and then striking a couple of chords, it was just like certain things just make sense to you in certain moments in your life.

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And when I heard him play regularly, it just always piqued my interest. It was always interesting. It was always fascinating. He wasn't much of a singer.

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Thankfully, my mom was a good singer, so a lot of my favorite moments were them kind of singing old Vietnamese songs together because he would play—he would accompany and she would sing and–and that was pretty much like, I think, how I got into like the idea of like live instrument

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performance in general. He never learned quite much past like your cowboy chords in terms of like the guitar, but, you know, he did what he needed to do to execute and play the songs that he needed to play.

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And–and that didn't really matter 'cause regardless of skill, it's all about how you express yourself on the instrument. And, you know, that was like a very very big part I think of like when I think about like the young version of me, like I wanted to

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also, like, follow in my dad's footsteps in that way and also play the instrument as well. So yeah, definitely played a role. So going back to kind of like the household you grew up in, you mentioned that your parents, you know, they immigrated from Vietnam so—and–and they

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were—you mentioned in your bio that they were Vietnam War refugees. So could you kind of describe like the household you grew up in and kind of sort of the values like they kind of instilled in you and some–some of the stories or like the influence they've had that kind of still

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have stayed with you to today. So my parents were second wave Vietnamese refugees. My dad was more early. My dad was like—came here in '84.

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He tried to escape, I believe, like a–a–a record number of 7 or 8 times—he tried to escape from Vietnam. He came from a very well-to-do family, so he kept—they kept bribing the Coast Guard, the guards in general.

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And eventually, you know, after a couple of island hops rescued by the American Navy and very easy transition for him to be an American citizen at that point because my grandfather, while he was alive, was a South Vietnamese Marine and a translator

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and also worked in conjunction with the US Marines at the time, so my dad had a pretty cushy way in to the American citizenship because as soon as they found out who my dad was, they were like, you're in basically. In addition to that, my mom came a little

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bit later in the kind of like mid later '80s, so she stayed in Vietnam up until she was 19. Not that she didn't want to escape, but, you know, it took some time because my—on my mom's side of the family, they didn't have as much money like my dad's side of the

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family. So at a certain point when they tried to up-you know, leave, my mom found out eventually that she had an American passport. Now, how is this the case?

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Well, my mom is half white. My grandfather did marry my grandmother in Vietnam when he was— during the war when he lived there. And my mom was born and my mom was born on a United States air

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base—Air Force base. So, again, even though that was the case, she didn't know what that really meant, but she's born on American soil au-automatically if you're born on a U .S. base. So she found out she was an American citizen when they were basically

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trying to leave the country, and they ba-she basically could have had a flight to the United States because at that point was her Grandfa-my—her–her f-father, was gonna sponsor, whereas the other ones, my–my grandmother and her siblings, they had to go through customs and they get vetting, and,

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you know, it was very tough to get to the United States just like it is now. If you want to become an American citizen, it's not easy at all. The process, then, a lot of Vietnamese people got rejected and ended up going to France or Australia and other—all the other European

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countries, but the United States everybody wanted to go. But thankfully, like they ended up being able to go through, but my mom refused to board the plane, so my mom decided to do—s-follow the same journey as her siblings and her mother cause she didn't want to be

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separated by them. So my mom did it the old school way, they went to the Philippines for a couple of months, learned English as much as they could from a limited standpoint, and then they settled in California. My dad, on the other hand, settled in Texas.

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My parents were neighbors in Vietnam. So in addition to that, they already knew each other. My father was in love with my mother I think really early on when they were younger, so my father was always calling and digging to figure out where she was.

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And, you know, small communities, small town in general at the—in the 80s at the time. So eventually he cold calls enough to find someone that knows someone that knows someone, and then eventually finds out that she's in California. He pays for her flight to come out here to meet him and his best friend at the

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time, just to hang out and see Texas, and my mom was absolutely disgusted by Galveston. She thought it was like a joke when he brought her out there, she was like, oh, this is funny, like, is–is this–this is not the beach, though, right?

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He was like this is the beach, and she's like, okay. And she's like—grew up, you know, in Orange County and like, Huntington is like the worst beach in California, and it is miles better than–than Galveston, so that was—it's a funny story when we look

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back. But, yeah, he eventually convinced her to–to–to eventually stay and–and–and–and they got married and they ended up settling here. So once—not too long after they were married, I was born and I grew up in a very traditional household, actually.

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Traditional and non-traditional at the same time, so first of all, I was only allowed to speak Vietnamese growing up. So Vietnamese was my first language, not English. I spoke Vietnamese growing up and that was like already tough because once

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I went to public school, I wasn't put in ESL necessarily because they found that my English was too good for me to be in ESL, but I refused to speak English a lot of the times. So I understood it completely in–in a lot of respects, but they had a translator just

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for me in that class. So I look back and I go, that's funny. You know, there's–there-there's the school taxes at work right there. And I'm just sitting there and–and the lady would cover for me because

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sometimes I would say not the best things about the teacher because I didn't really like her. So she would s-and then she would say, oh, he said this, and the teacher would be like, that's not what he said [laughs] or whatever. So i-it was funny, you know, it was

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funny—eventually, yeah, I—eventually I learned English, of course, and I kept my Vietnamese training mostly in church because my parents were very Catholic. And so a lot of my Vietnamese training slash religious

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training was pretty much in church and coinciding after that, which is very, I would say, traditional of a lot of Vietnamese Americans that are—were Catholic. I'm sure Buddhists have a similar thing going on just to kind of keep traditions and keep, you know, the language, of course, but at least for us, that was how we did

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things. And, it was a–it was a dichotomy, right? As a–as a lot of–of immigrant stories in general when you grow up in two worlds. Because when I come home, it's Vietnam.

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It's a dictatorship more or less. When you come home, everything you say goes—e-everything the–the parents say goes, and then you don't really have a lot of pushback. E-except, you know, I was always an alternati-alternative kid.

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So as someone that also grew up with, at the time, undiagnosed ADHD, I'm sure I was a handful to my parents in many respects and also because I questioned everything growing up. I que-including when we were at church, I questioned like,

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everything. You know, I was every—I was a very inquisitive child, you know, and anything I wanted to—that I learned about, I wanted to know why and like, why do we continue to do certain things and certain traditions and all that stuff. So that—a lot of that was, you know, came in conflict with the culture that's very much

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like, put your head down, study, listen, and don't challenge me. I was very much not like that. I was very much like, yes, respect of—I was very respective of my parents, there's no doubt about that.

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But also I pushed certain boundaries as well. It was a mix of between, and I think that's part of also being an American kid, because when you're an American, they teach you about individualism, that you are your own person in this country very early on, so that comes in

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conflict with the fact that in our culture, I'm sure you can relate to this too that we are extensions of our parents, not necessarily our own people per se, but extensions. And even when we have kids, we're still more or less extensions of our

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parents because our destiny is to take care of them. That's the biggest scam of Asian culture, by the way, is filial piety because they basically have us as the retirement plan. That's the–that's the idea.

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You know, so that's why they don't worry about Social Security 'cause they make sure, hey, if we build an entire civilization based on Confucianism and we have like our kids take care of us till we die, that's our— that's the plan B right there. It's that—you know so my parents, on the other hand, I

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will not say that they were hard core on that train per se, you know, but at the same time, they were very traditional in other ways, and those other ways like also came in conflict with like what I wanted to do because I wanted to

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plays American sports. And they were like, you're wasting your time. Go do this instead with your time, and I hadn't—I was always interested in just like a lot of things that they simply weren't.

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So I'm sure that was very confusing to them. Like, how did you get into sports? You know, how did you—why–why—how are you getting into all this music and why are you interested in politics?

00:29:22.440 - 00:29:42.800

I had a lot of interests growing up, and it was–it was definitely tough trying to balance that with–with my family. And then at a certain point, there was a lot of upheaval and uprooting in my family because my father at a certain point got heavily addicted to

00:29:42.800 - 00:29:59.640

drugs, in particular–in particular prescription drugs that really did it to him. And so my late tee-my like early pre-late preteens, all the way up to my senior year of high school, my dad was institutionalized.

00:29:59.660 - 00:30:15.910

So because he was just—he was–he was a dan-he was a danger basically to himself and to others. So my mom went from basically, you know–you know, a housewife, traditional housewife to working two jobs to saving our family,

00:30:15.910 - 00:30:33.510

and I come from four siblings, so you can imagine how tough that was raising four kids on your own, more or less on your own, and then eventually like saved her money and started her like, nail salon, started her own business. So my introduction to how I perceive

00:30:34.410 - 00:30:49.620

women in general was very impactful from watching how my mom was. It just gave me a different example of like what I feel like a lot of other Asian kids wouldn't generally see.

00:30:49.650 - 00:31:05.700

Now, that's not to say that other Asian parent kids don't see extremely independent and intelligent mothers that are like also housewives—that are still housewives. I'm not saying that at all, but my mom is different, you know, in that way

00:31:05.700 - 00:31:22.380

where—of what she had to go through. And especially since—because of her extremely tough childhood, she was like—it was very much like she turned it on and she like did wha-everything that she could to keep the family together.

00:31:22.500 - 00:31:38.370

So that leads to music in case people were very curious, you know, why music is so important to me? It was like the ultimate escape during those times, like during the times of uncertainty, and there was a lot of times of uncertainty.

00:31:38.400 - 00:31:54.720

Music was the only thing that was certain, to me. The song goes like this and it ends like this, and it takes you on this journey and every single time you play it, it will do that. There wasn't anything else in my life that was that constant, you know, even television,

00:31:54.720 - 00:32:09.080

you know, like sometimes there would be an interruption to a program when you're watching television because of X, Y, Z, but a song, an album, whatever. That was the thing that kept me going.

00:32:09.080 - 00:32:24.800

And that was also why I like played my guitar so much, and eventually because of that upbringing influenced me to write a lot of different songs as well. So a lot of my early songwriting was me in my senior year of high

00:32:24.800 - 00:32:43.310

school writing songs about some girl I was pining for that I'd never really wanted to talk to because I was too scared to talk to her, and in addition to that, writing songs about kind of like me figuring out and this coming of age experience, what the–what the hell is going on, you know, just what is

00:32:43.310 - 00:32:57.400

going on right now. And now that I'm much older, 10 11 years—12 years down the line, I can look back and I write music now that I think far more

00:32:57.400 - 00:33:15.920

encapsulates what that experience was. But that rawness at the time of like the lyrics and the rawness of the music, I think was pretty critical still in my development, especially since there was no other genre than like punk rock that

00:33:16.280 - 00:33:32.440

–that for me at the time that could also be melodic and angry at the same time, and so that was very much like why I was, you know, during those early teen years so [unintelligible] then it just spoke to me that sty-style of music.

00:33:32.440 - 00:33:50.320

And then the Beatles spoke to me and then of course later on The Strokes, but yeah, i-that was a—I would say that's where we differ in a lot of ways from a lot of other families, is that, yes, I had that traditional middle class upbringing until I didn't, you know, until it became

00:33:50.320 - 00:34:08.950

like very much like low income and trying to hold the family together, which would probably explain why music is so so important to me. And, it's built everything that I've had, you know,

00:34:09.880 - 00:34:27.190

to this day. I would not have connected with my wife and I would have not had to have this home that I just bought. I would not have the car that I paid off. I would not have anything that I have today without music

00:34:27.190 - 00:34:43.020

supplying the income and kind of like that food on the table in return. So whatever I gave to music, music gave back to me tenfold. That's pretty much like how I approach it, and I don't really care about things in

00:34:43.020 - 00:35:00.570

life really that much in general, especially when you grow up in a—in the–in the environment that I grew up, togetherness was all you have to hold it together. And so things come and go, but having a couple of things is nice at the same time.

00:35:00.870 - 00:35:17.250

It makes the life a little bit more convenient for sure. So yeah, that's–that's kind of like the Cliff Notes version I think of like the influences of growing up with my family and also connecting that to why music is wha-what it is in my life too.

00:35:18.880 - 00:35:35.170

Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing that. And you know, you mentioned music as this sort of escape where [VC: Yes.] it informed your lyrics and your songwriting. So in–in high school, were you doing this—I–I remember you mentioning that you

00:35:35.170 - 00:35:52.560

played bass for a little band you had, I think. Yeah. So, did you kind of have any aspirations after high school in terms of music 'cause you also mentioned that you went to college, so what–what was kind of like the–the plan i-if you had one?

00:35:52.570 - 00:36:08.920

Yeah–yeah, sure. Now, in my heart of hearts, in high school, like I wanted to do music on some level but the–the Asian ancestors in my brain are—were telling me you are an absolute

00:36:08.920 - 00:36:24.460

fool for doing this. And more than anything, my mom going, you need to have a practical degree, practical job. I will no-I will say my mom, unlike a lot of other Asian parents was not forceful about me being a doctor or a lawyer.

00:36:24.490 - 00:36:41.590

That was not something that like she imprinted and tried to make me do, but she was very much like, you need to get a practical degree, go be a real estate agent or go be—go get a degree in business, go do something like that. So, you know, I went to a—I wasn't a great high school student.

00:36:42.250 - 00:36:57.670

I graduated with a 2.2 GPA or something like that. I just did whatever I could to graduate, you know, I cold tested. I did well enough to to do what I—to do what I could just to get out of there because being diagnosed

00:36:57.670 - 00:37:16.410

with ADHD, in addition to the trauma and that type of life, that home life, I think contributed in a lot of ways of like my kind of like, I guess like if I think like Nietzsche in terms of philosophy, just kind

00:37:16.410 - 00:37:29.820

of like my apathy towards it all. I don't want to use it as an excuse. There's plenty of people that come from like very tough backgrounds and even tougher backgrounds that have done well, but, you know, there just wasn't like a reason for me

00:37:29.820 - 00:37:45.690

personally to feel like I needed to do this per se for whatever reason, it just didn't call to me. So when I left high school, I–I did go to Houston Community College for two years. I actually tried and I had like a–a–a

00:37:46.380 - 00:38:00.870

three point almost like a 3.6 GPA. So not bad, pretty decent, and then I transferred to U of H. I was denied from U of H the first time I got out of high school, which is—that was the–that was the first choice I had it was– it was close.

00:38:01.020 - 00:38:19.240

But I did HCC for a couple of years then–then U of H was like, okay, you're in. I came in on my second day of class of 500 plus people. I looked around and then I also looked at the student loans that were in front of me. I looked at the amount, I looked at the interest rate, and

00:38:19.240 - 00:38:32.980

I looked, and then I thought about this long and hard. And on the second day, I dropped all of my classes. I dropped every single class, and I was just like, this is not for me. I didn't tell my mom, I didn't tell my girlfriend at the time.

00:38:32.980 - 00:38:49.810

I was very much like ashamed. But at the same time I felt freed because I was just like this f or—it just–it just did not call to me like in–in any way at all. So secretly I was teaching guitar

00:38:49.810 - 00:39:08.540

lessons and just getting one student, two students, three students. And in addition to that, Uber and Lyft were very new at the time. So I was doing a lot of driving at night to supplement the teaching income that was small at the time as well.

00:39:09.380 - 00:39:25.180

I was doing all these things. I didn't really know that music was going to be the thing that I would do in whatever capacity, but after a few years, my guitar teaching business became the primary

00:39:25.780 - 00:39:40.710

income, and then it comple-and then it took off, you know, and, you know, it's 2023. I'm teaching anywhere from like on a average–on a average week 35 students to up to 46, 47 students a week.

00:39:41.130 - 00:39:55.770

So it's what I do. It's what I do in terms of like my main income. Music is still a huge part of my everyday life, and I'm thankful for it because I teach guitar, music theory, and composition.

00:39:55.770 - 00:40:11.610

It's literally like keeping me close as I'm like trying to make this band work and go. I'm still close to it and not doing a different type of day job, and I feel for those types of people that bartend

00:40:11.610 - 00:40:29.370

and barista and do other types of things too, while they want to do music. But it's tough because in those fields it requires s-a demand so much skill that's so–that's separate, I guess, from music itself. But at the same time, I do think though that those

00:40:30.780 - 00:40:45.520

types of jobs have an advantage in itself, which is it teaches you how to socialize with people, and that's a big advantage because you're going to meet new friends that will go to your shows. So I think there's plus minuses in everything on how you want to approach things.

00:40:45.520 - 00:41:03.370

You know, for me, I know what worked for me personally and doing—and the teaching thing, the one on one thing, and also because some people treat it as like a therapeutic for their life. I think that was like—it just—it was like a calling 'cause I love teaching and I didn't

00:41:03.370 - 00:41:20.200

really know it until I started doing it, and I was like, wow, I really like doing this. I love sharing information and I love getting people to the place that I was, and I didn't know it was a skill. I just thought teaching was just something that you just do, and I just thought anybody

00:41:20.200 - 00:41:31.360

could do it, and then I found out later on that it wasn't something that everybody can do. And that was shocking to me cause I just thought, oh, there's—I just thought to myself, I was like, this is easy. Teaching is easy but it's not for a lot of people.

00:41:32.500 - 00:41:48.750

F-for me, breaking down complex information to the smallest point is like the easiest thing in the world for me to do. It's–it's ju-'cause I–I feel like in my life I was so misunderstood growing up that for me,

00:41:49.110 - 00:42:08.950

a–a response is to make sure that on the other end, nothing is misinterpreted. You know, so I feel like teaching very much just kind of like hee-I is—I just heeded the call, you know, and because of that

00:42:09.070 - 00:42:26.580

it led—has led me to figure out more and more and more actually as I've older now, I'm 31, still very young, but at 31 I've realized that like I want to do music and I want to do music e-it at a even bigger capacity.

00:42:28.980 - 00:42:44.000

And that's why my band Paper Gliders is by far, outside of my wife and my family, the most important thing in the world to me right now. There's a calling for it.

00:42:44.020 - 00:42:59.710

I watched two documentaries that radicalized me the past six, seven months because I've been doing Paper Gliders since technically—since with my best friend in back in 2012, 2013. We can go far back as that.

00:43:00.860 - 00:43:18.380

We were doing acoustic sets mostly, just me and him. So Paper Gliders as we know it is completely different, but it—but that project name has been floating around, and me and him, we used to do like a lot of like kind of jazz, pop, acoustic stuff together and e ventually

00:43:20.900 - 00:43:40.520

we found some—the core band members of our group, at least four out of the six members of our group back in 2017, and then at a certain point, one of the lead singers and the bassist, for personal reasons, they had their own things going on, had to drop, and then

00:43:40.790 - 00:43:57.110

the pandemic happened and that like broke up so many bands, and it also like rooted out so many lineups. So even though a lot of bands stayed around, there are a lot of new band members in a lot of different bands as well.

00:43:57.140 - 00:44:12.290

They completely changed it and it robbed the momentum that we had in a lot of ways as well 'cause before the pandemic happened, we had played like, you know, like again, not like a ton of people, but 200 plus people at White Oak Music Hall for a local band in Houston.

00:44:12.320 - 00:44:27.950

It's pretty okay, I think, and things were going well and then that was it. It was just robbed from us, and I was devastated, and to be honest with you, in terms of the band stuff, I was like pushing it

00:44:27.950 - 00:44:45.650

away because like I knew that we were in crisis mode during this time, and then I–and then I had the biggest boon of like teaching at that moment because like I was teaching like 72 students a week at that point during the pandemic cause the explosion of

00:44:45.650 - 00:45:02.120

interest—'cause everybody was at home. The interest of guitar skyrocketed, you know ? So, in case people are curious, you know, about how a 31-year-old got a house in 2023, yeah, I worked a lot during that

00:45:02.300 - 00:45:14.570

time. I saved a lot. It was an unbelievable amount of clients for, like, that year and a half of that pandemic of just constant grinding, grinding, grinding, grinding, grinding.

00:45:15.360 - 00:45:28.410

And yeah, it was–it was crazy. It was crazy. But I hustled and I hustled. And then I was thinking—there was a serious point, man, I was serious, where I was like, is it even worth doing this band thing?

00:45:28.530 - 00:45:44.870

You know, like, for—because the band thing was always like a nurturing thing for my soul. But because what has happened and how everybody was going through tough times at the time, I was like, is it worth people putting time in for

00:45:44.870 - 00:45:55.500

this project at all? Like, what's going on? That was really tough. And it was like soul searching because I was just thinking there was a serious point where

00:45:55.500 - 00:46:12.360

I was like, maybe, like, it's time for this project to end. There's a serious point where I really thought that, just because, like, I didn't know what was going to come of this anymore, not that I–not that I felt like the band members had lost interest in the band, per se.

00:46:12.980 - 00:46:31.520

But I think a lot of us were, like, directionless, myself included, about where we wanted to go, how we wanted to market things in particular. That was the—that's the stuff that most people end up being not good at and fail at, and then, eventually, get out of music because they forget

00:46:31.520 - 00:46:40.300

and they don't know that making music, performing music, makes up maybe 5% of being a musician. Maybe. Maybe 5%.

00:46:40.300 - 00:46:58.610

The rest, bumping elbows and promoting your music on all your social media platforms and doing press runs, all these things that a lot of musicians are seriously bad at because a lot of musicians are also very introverted and

00:46:58.610 - 00:47:15.560

sensitive because we're artists. A lot of us can't understand, like, how that marriage of business and music fit together. And a lot of people don't want to monetize and think about their art that way.

00:47:15.830 - 00:47:32.240

It's–it's sometimes icky for people to think about it that way. But being a businessman in teaching guitar, I understood the value that I was bringing. So I didn't have that mentality and I learned a lot over that time.

00:47:32.250 - 00:47:47.880

But anyways, the documentaries I saw. I saw the Get Back documentary with my wife. It was a Beatles documentary on Disney Plus highly recommend it, and it was like an in—behind the scenes of them writing their very last album

00:47:47.880 - 00:48:02.010

actually, together, before they broke up as a band. And you could see the infighting and the friendship and turmoil at times and drama. And I was just like, whoa, these guys are just like us.

00:48:02.160 - 00:48:20.620

I mean, I had mythologized them in my head as just these geniuses, and they are. But these geniuses that just came together and just made stuff and–and not to say that it didn't have any issues at all, but it just seemed like it was close to perfect.

00:48:20.640 - 00:48:36.100

I knew they weren't perfect, but close to it is what I thought. And I watched the documentary and I can see, you know, John Lennon at times was disengaged and–and Ringo Starr was—didn't really talk at all, much at all, in the group.

00:48:36.100 - 00:48:50.620

He was very much like, you guys do whatever you want. And it was just like watching a mirror, you know, of like, whoa, like, this–this is not—this is–this is not unique to us, what we're going through as a group right now.

00:48:50.890 - 00:49:06.580

As a matter of fact, they were talking about just quitting as a band in the documentary before even completing the album because George Harrison had left the band at some point during this–during this recording, he just left. He was just like, I'm done with the Beatles.

00:49:07.150 - 00:49:24.690

Insane. And then—so watching it and hearing them get together and then hearing them write the songs together, I was just like, this is like incredible stuff. It was like–it was like I was like a fly on the wall, just, like, watching this

00:49:24.690 - 00:49:39.300

unfold. It was so personal. I couldn't—I can't even quantify it to you how important it was to watch that and just to reinvigorate my love for music, why I do what I do. Incredible stuff.

00:49:40.220 - 00:49:59.270

And yeah, after, like, I had—I had watched that documentary. My wife and I had watched this documentary about the early 2000's indie sleaze movement, particularly front headed by The Strokes, of course, but other groups like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio and

00:49:59.480 - 00:50:14.870

a couple of other acts, we watched the indie that–that indie rock documentary about what happened in New York City. And—incredible stuff, very relatable and music that of course—that is a lot more in line with what I actually listened to and what I

00:50:14.870 - 00:50:29.390

actually write today. And it only further cemented my thoughts. And I spent the next two and a half weeks watching an unbelievable amount of

00:50:30.320 - 00:50:41.130

videos about music marketing. I buckled down. I bought this book as well, by Donald Passman called All You Need to Know About the Music Business.

00:50:41.760 - 00:50:53.370

I read this book. It's like my music Bible. And I watched so much videos about strategies and I devised out of probably the 100-plus

00:50:54.090 - 00:51:12.090

hours that I invested in studying about music, marketing and listening to the podcasts, I devised a plan, an entire game plan of, like, releases of how we were going to structure all of our releases, the music content that we need to record, the reels that we need to make,

00:51:12.090 - 00:51:28.300

everything, everything that we need to do. We just need to execute and just do it. And in a lot of ways, it was when I realized that leadership was important for this group if we need–if we were going to

00:51:28.300 - 00:51:43.340

push it. We were a very demo-democratic band. In some way, we still are for a lot of different things. But the problem is when you're a democracy with six people, six artists that are pretty intelligent, it's hard to get things done.

00:51:43.970 - 00:52:02.630

It's hard to get things done sometimes with just one other person, much less six people in a group. And I decided that I'm going to be Emperor Cincinnatus, which is the famous Roman emperor that was the benevolent dictator who was eventually, after he did what he

00:52:02.630 - 00:52:20.510

did for the Romans, gave up his dictatorship, and they went back into–and they went back into Republic after that. I—and not to say that I'm Emperor Cincinnatus in any way necessarily, that guy did some incredible things, but what I'm–but I–but I

00:52:20.510 - 00:52:37.790

pulled one meaning I'm going to make things happen for this group. And you guys, while you're in this band, I'm going to make it easy for you so we can just get on board and just get things done. And to my surprise, in some ways, everybody was just like,

00:52:37.910 - 00:52:56.690

okay. And I think, maybe inadvertently, they needed to see that, because at the end of the day, even though this was my, you know, my baby, because I started this with Jerick, I thought about it like, oh, I thought everybody was kind of "all

00:52:56.690 - 00:53:12.970

in" in this and–not to say that they're not, but at the same time, it is something that I started. So I feel like if I'm not 100% all in on it, who else is going to be?

00:53:13.090 - 00:53:30.290

And I realized at that point how important it was for me to show that level of effort and care that was required to make this engine go. And after that, we've been recording backlog of content since then.

00:53:30.590 - 00:53:46.910

We've been working really, really hard and we have a lot in store for everybody. And as a matter of fact, we have content from today until July of content ready to go.

00:53:47.750 - 00:54:01.460

And I'm really, really excited. Not all complete, but ready to go as in, like, pretty organized and a month or two ahead worth of content pipeline, basically, of things that we need to release.

00:54:01.940 - 00:54:18.570

So yeah, that's–that's–that's the journey to now. Yeah. No, super cool. I'm excited to–to–to hear some of your new releases. I heard "Squad Goals", I saw [VC: Oh, cool.] you guys put out, like, a

00:54:18.570 - 00:54:23.850

lyric video recently? Yes. Yeah, we did. And watched that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, super cool stuff.

00:54:23.850 - 00:54:42.870

But before we, I guess, talk a bit about, like, your band's, like, current musical endeavors, can you tell me about this, like, Asians meme page [VC: [laughter]] that you created on Facebook? Like, what motivated you to make it and like the content that you put

00:54:42.870 - 00:54:55.500

out and also how you met Jerick through that? So the Asians meme page is so unique because I started when I was, like, a junior in high school. Facebook was very, like, Wild West at the time.

00:54:55.860 - 00:55:12.730

Everybody was still on Myspace, but you could feel the transition to Facebook at that time. It was weird. You could just feel that migration. It was all it was just like Facebook was like the mature social media content. And–and Myspace was kind of like the, you know,

00:55:12.730 - 00:55:31.950

let's just say it was like just candy, just like Sugar Rush, top eight friends, you know, and very, very different style. But I started to appeal more to Facebook and I saw all these pages. And back then you–you didn't become a follower of a page.

00:55:31.950 - 00:55:46.590

You became a fan of a page. That was how pages were built back then. And it was–it was a lot more organic at the time of how you can–how you can get reach. And it makes sense because Facebook was still fairly new and

00:55:46.590 - 00:56:04.650

I was going through what I was going through growing up, had all these thoughts in my head. But I also because, like, you know, I'm of mixed race, you know, I had a different perspective in terms of, like, not always feeling accepted by my Asian American peers.

00:56:04.830 - 00:56:22.050

And then at the same time having Asian American peers that were in lock step with me as well. So I've always had a very complicated relationship with like my identity you know, because of that and also because of where I grew up as well, and

00:56:22.050 - 00:56:37.730

because like I wasn't an EDM, a bass head, as they say, you know, I wasn't just one of those guys. I just–I never was. I never–and that made it harder, I think, to connect with them because a lot of those folks that I knew in school were very much of that style, you know?

00:56:37.740 - 00:56:56.190

But anyways, back to your question about the Asians meme page. So I started this page because like I wanted an outlet and I looked at it as, like, a therapeutic thing when I started it, and memes were still very new. Remember, this is like the late 2000s ish, still very,

00:56:56.190 - 00:57:14.390

very new. But I was making memes, custom memes. I was like going online and–with really terrible templates, but hey, it worked at the time and eventually the page ballooned to like–at the–at the height of it, you know, I think

00:57:14.720 - 00:57:28.790

like almost 20,000 followers that I had at the time or fans at the time. Engaged too. People were commenting on the post and we were talking to each other. No one knew what I looked like and I was just–just doing my thing or whatever.

00:57:28.790 - 00:57:41.840

And it led me to find some lifelong friends to this day. There are still friends that I have. I'll get to that in a moment. But Jerick in particular was one of the earliest people that followed the page.

00:57:41.840 - 00:57:54.680

And he commented and he liked and he was really funny. And I thought this dude was like in the Philippines, you know, I just–I genuinely thought, oh, this is cool. This guy–very traditional first and last name, obviously, like he could have been

00:57:54.680 - 00:58:10.970

Filipino-American, but based on his English, the way that he wrote grammatically, and in addition to that, some of the things that he had posted that he liked, I was like, "Oh, I think he's actually from the Philippines and not here". I just never thought about it twice.

00:58:11.270 - 00:58:25.790

Well, turned out Facebook SEO is pretty crazy because we chatted with each other for a year without knowing where we lived–each other lived. And then I eventually asked him, I was like, "Hey, where do you live?" It just-just because, just like, where do you live?

00:58:25.820 - 00:58:41.510

And he was like, "Oh, I live in Richmond." And then I was like, "That doesn't sound like the Philippines." When he said Richmond, I was like, "I don't remember the British colonizing the Philippines. Richmond?" And then he goes, "No, like, that's-that's in Houston, Texas." And I was

00:58:41.510 - 00:58:56.480

like, "Dude, you live like eight minutes from where I live." And we had no idea. So he was like the admin of this page, right? And I met other friends that I became really close with. One of my friends that I have met as a lifelong friend.

00:58:56.510 - 00:59:09.290

She came to my wedding, she was from the United Kingdom and I went to the UK to visit to hang out with her for a month. Like this is a friend I met on the internet. You know, like, the internet is a crazy place, but I met some of the craziest

00:59:09.290 - 00:59:24.690

people in a good way that were just like me, more or less. You know, the Internet is a great place to SEO all the weird people that you want to meet as well, especially in a community like my Asians page as well.

00:59:24.690 - 00:59:41.870

And what I did in my Asians page was in addition to, you know, the stereotypical cont-content that a lot of that style of content was, I like to start conversations about it with people as well, and also challenge and push boundaries of-of ourselves, of how we perceive ourselves,

00:59:42.760 - 00:59:58.850

and like also, you know, about how white supremacy directly affected us. I would always–I would also talk about those things with like some of the Asian Americans as well, which was very uncomfortable for some of those people, by

00:59:58.850 - 01:00:09.980

the way, because a lot of them feel like they're adjacent or they don't want to talk about it. So I feel like it was not just a page that was just memes. It was a true community at the time.

01:00:09.980 - 01:00:27.500

And without that community, I would have never met my best friend who was my best man of the wedding. So Jerick and I spoke to each other for a few more times after we find out that we were in the same city, and I find out he plays

01:00:27.500 - 01:00:42.330

guitar, too. And then I was like, "Hey, do you want to, like, start a music project or something? I'm looking for people. I haven't found many people that are like-minded that really want to commit to this." He was like, "Yeah, let me send you an audition video." And I kid you

01:00:42.330 - 01:00:53.210

not. He sends me this audition video of him playing, I think Dust in the Wind by Kansas. He takes it like Jimi Hendrix style. He plays the guitar backwards, right? He literally takes the guitar like this.

01:00:53.220 - 01:01:07.200

He does this and he plays Dust in the Wind. And because of that audition, which has nothing to do with our music, by the way, but because of that audition, I was like, well, clearly this guy knows a thing or two about playing guitar.

01:01:07.200 - 01:01:23.650

And then we just became like musical soulmates at that point. Jerick is one of the few only guitar players that I actually enjoy playing with. Because Jerick understands balance.

01:01:23.650 - 01:01:35.910

He understands that when you go low, you go high. When I go high, you go low. And sometimes we meet each other in the in-between. There's a communication style that, for him and

01:01:36.020 - 01:01:52.940

I, even though we speak English perfectly fine to each other, I believe in my heart of hearts we communicate with each other even more effectively through music, because music is a language. All the notes, the frequencies, how it registers, how an interval

01:01:53.090 - 01:02:08.840

sounds over a chord, or how it sounds and superimposes over a chord progression. That's a language that you have to learn t hat's aural. You can't just read it in a book. Yes, of course, I know music theory and I know music theory enough for

01:02:08.840 - 01:02:26.960

me to compose and-and–and–and get to ideas faster. But at the end of the day, you don't need like, you know, coll-collegiate level music theory to write songs, you know, unless you want to be a classical pianist or something like that, it's not

01:02:26.960 - 01:02:39.420

really required. But anyways, Jerick and I like realized like at a certain point, like, hey, like this is the thing. You and I, we have some-some rapport going on here.

01:02:39.420 - 01:02:57.270

So because of that, we started Paper Gliders with another guy, who played drums for us and we were a three-piece for some time. Then he moves to a different state for engineering school. So then our project's on hiatus, constantly on hiatus over and over and over again.

01:02:58.130 - 01:03:14.690

And then, at Jerick and I, like, saw a guy and his project was called Without a Face. We were actually watching David Choi. That was, like, our intention was to watch this performer, this Korean American

01:03:14.690 - 01:03:27.290

performer from LA. Huge on YouTube in the-the late, early 2010s. We were watching him and Henry had opened up for this guy. And-and Derek and I fell in love with his music.

01:03:27.680 - 01:03:44.570

We just, like, saw him. We were like, This guy is awesome. So I found a way to eventually, like, buy some of his things and also get his contact because I was like, I just-I just need this guy in my life on some level. I need to figure out how to convince him, the long con,

01:03:44.600 - 01:04:01.800

how to eventually get him on my side and get into music. And eventually him and I became friends and that was pretty much it. I didn't really think about him as being a bandmate over the years, after that, but him and I became friends and I would show him some of the things that I was doing and he

01:04:01.800 - 01:04:15.120

would show me some of the things that he was doing and vice versa. But I looked up to Henry a lot because Henry was doing music and he was like doing the thing. He was touring with some pretty cool acts all over the US, you know?

01:04:15.120 - 01:04:35.850

It was like he was–he wasit was like he was doing my dreams, like, in real time. Anyways, Jerick and I, at a pivotal moment of our lives, one of our best friends passed away in 2016, a music-a musician friend as well, and it was a good friend of ours.

01:04:35.860 - 01:04:47.850

I wouldn't say, like, a best friend by any means, but one of our closer friends in that–in that world. And it was devastating. He was–he is not even 22, I think, you know, he was very

01:04:47.850 - 01:05:06.530

young and we thought about our mortality and we were young and we were thinking about what that meant for us and it was worth doing Paper Gliders even after all that happened. We decided to do it after—because that friend

01:05:06.800 - 01:05:24.140

of ours was doing music full time and trying to make it. And I was just thinking to myself, you know, for my legacy, for myself, and also in addition to that, what he would think of me if I didn't continue pushing in music, I actually felt

01:05:25.550 - 01:05:39.950

guilty. I felt guilty that, like, if I'm alive and I'm not doing this, I'm not doing him justice either. So there's a lot of these complicated feelings that I had. Jerick and I end up writing 2 or 3 songs together and we looked at each other and we

01:05:39.950 - 01:05:58.870

went, "This is the best material that we've ever written together, the most inspired material we've ever written." It's unfortunate that it had to come of tragedy, but that's this long story about artists, isn't it? You know, is that artists like for whatever reason, in midst of turmoil

01:05:58.870 - 01:06:13.590

and drama, we end up producing some of the most inspired work. We wrote this stuff. We demoed it. Henry and I, a few weeks later, we end up and we eat at this restaurant.

01:06:13.590 - 01:06:29.800

And then I tell him, "Hey, I have a couple of demos here. I'm really excited. I just wanted to show you what—how they sound like." Henry sits in my car, we listen to them, he looks at me and he goes, "Can I try out for your band?" And I was just like,

01:06:29.800 - 01:06:47.710

"What?" I looked up to Henry, know, I was just like, "What?" And he was just like, "Yeah, like, this is phenomenal stuff. Like, I want to be a part of this." Just—and it was that was the moment, you know, in addition to that when I was like, I don't

01:06:47.710 - 01:07:00.270

think I'm making mediocrity anymore. It was like a funny thing because I wrote—I've written—I wrote so much music since that point. But it takes a lot of practice before you realize what really

01:07:00.270 - 01:07:15.560

feels good and what doesn't. And I think that I was just starting to hit my stride. And Henry saw that, maybe even before I did. And another guy that we had spoken to

01:07:15.920 - 01:07:30.950

after that was kind of like a local Houston legend, our drummer Adrian. He was in a band—he's in a band called Another Run. He's the lead singer of that band. Funny enough, he plays the drums for us and also sings and does harmonies.

01:07:30.950 - 01:07:47.710

But he plays—he lead sings for them. This guy was on Fuse TV, you know, he was like on his-his band was, like, on Fuse and the Buzz and like, they were doing things, too. And I—how he got into the band was an accident because I

01:07:47.720 - 01:08:00.860

talked to him because we were friends. We were in the same community, and I was like, you know, he was an acquaintance really more at the time. I was like, "Hey, dude, do you know any drummers that might be interested in an indie rock project?" He was like, "I might know some.

01:08:00.860 - 01:08:20.460

Why don't you send me a demo of or two of your songs and I'll-I'll listen to them and I'll see who might be a good fit." He messages me that same night and he goes, "Can I try out for your band?" You know, this lead singer of this group, of-of this band that I looked up

01:08:20.460 - 01:08:32.860

to, that I watched play, sell out at Warehouse Live shows, asked me to join the band. So in my head, I'm like, you know, I'm like, wow. But then I was just like, "Yeah, man, we'll see what happens." But in my heart, I was

01:08:32.860 - 01:08:50.100

just like, "Oh my God, this is insane. Like, this guy wants to—he really wants to." It was like the domino effect starts to happen where now I feel like, the-the projects that everybody else is involved in,

01:08:50.160 - 01:09:08.430

they cared about–we all looked at each other, we went—and we went, "This is something that needs to happen, like this needs to be executed. This needs to happen." That's a magical feeling when you attract people that are like-minded, but also people you really respect, that are talented, that have

01:09:08.430 - 01:09:24.760

done the thing. And later on we attracted an Abby, our—one of our lead singers, and she also plays keys, eventually joined the band with one of her close friends, Mo, who plays bass in the band, who—they also had other projects as well that are really,

01:09:24.760 - 01:09:39.970

really cool projects. Eventually they join and the band is in its current formation and I believe this is the group going forward as of 2018. After a few of our previous members had left, this

01:09:39.970 - 01:09:57.080

is the unit and it feels very much like this is a unit because we're—there's a-there's a sense of urgency and there's a sense, at the same time, of friendship that I couldn't quite quantify, you know, compared to previous groups.

01:09:57.090 - 01:10:14.880

But we all know that there's something bigger than us at the end of the day. And I think that's the most inspiring thing about all of this, is that, "Wow, these people don't think my music sucks and they want to actually come and make it even better." It's a pretty magical feeling.

01:10:14.880 - 01:10:25.560

And not just that, but now they're bringing their music and I'm contributing and that's very new for me. I've never done that before, contributed to someone else's art. I've always made my art and people contributed.

01:10:26.370 - 01:10:37.250

So, we're all learning so much from each other. So now it's a collective. It's not just Vaughn and then everybody else kind of adds their things to it. It's Vaughn, Abby and Henry now.

01:10:37.250 - 01:10:50.790

The three lead singers of the project that are also songwriters, adding something and then us touching it and it all becoming us. It's really cool and it's really weird, but it just works and I'm really stoked about that.

01:10:54.100 - 01:11:06.850

Thanks for sharing that. I think for the sake of time, I'll ask, like, two more questions. [VC: Sure.] But, you know, going back to kind of your current musical endeavors, you know, I listened to Squadgoals, you know, I love the

01:11:06.850 - 01:11:23.890

synth, I love the guitar riffs and rhythms, super flavorful. So, you know, for your new releases or your upcoming work, whenever they come out, is it going to be kind of in line with that sound? Or are you guys going to maybe branch out or-or not branch out,

01:11:23.890 - 01:11:38.160

but is it going to be, I guess, different or radically different? Yeah. So this is a great question. I—when I wrote Squad Goals like the main riff

01:11:38.760 - 01:11:55.650

and-and generally just the chord progression, it was kind of like a song that I just kind of wrote for fun. I didn't really think about it being more than what it was. As Henry and then our former band member, LaToya Johnson—Henry and LaToya

01:11:55.650 - 01:12:14.020

co-wrote the lyrics together, and then it became a monster in itself in the studio because it became like a studio production. At a certain point, we all started to have all these ideas to it. So it's funny enough, I think Squad Goals is like the most kind of

01:12:14.020 - 01:12:31.620

like old school kind of song that we have while being new at the same time because we—and I would say that harmonies, in general, are a big feature of our sound. So that's something that you will not not hear.

01:12:32.220 - 01:12:48.240

And in addition to that, the guitar lines that you hear that weave together because we're very much disciples of that early 2000 kind of guitar movement is still there. So I don't want to say that the rest of the songs are dramatically different.

01:12:48.240 - 01:13:04.350

But what I will say is a lot of the songs that we have going forward are going to be definitely more mature in terms of its themes and how we want to connect with our audiences in terms of like [unintelligible] and especially in terms of like different types of emotions.

01:13:04.350 - 01:13:19.350

And I'm happy to talk about the next single since we're here. The next single is going to be a song called Magazine Scene, and that song is coming out in—on June 30th. This song is a song that I wrote that basically depicts how I

01:13:19.350 - 01:13:37.240

feel about the social media world that we live in and how we, like, base so much of our identity around appearance and how we care about how other people feel about us. And we're doing all of this stuff at the sake and the sacrifice of not

01:13:37.240 - 01:13:54.610

visualizing and seeing our real selves at the same time. So very different from Squad Goals, whereas Squad Goals is very much like, "Hey, we're all having fun." But I will say this. A big feature of our songs is that it's—yes, our songs are indie

01:13:54.610 - 01:14:11.380

rock, indie pop, but you can dance to our music and our music is, I think, the thing that's connecting all of it is the vocal harmonies and also the rhythmic flavor of the music is very much like, "Hey, if you're sad, you can still dance to this." It's that kind of sound.

01:14:11.380 - 01:14:29.260

So I'm excited to-I'm excited for everybody to hear what we have going on because we have a lot that we have recorded, but there are a couple of songs that definitely branch out even a little bit further, but we're going to save that for a little bit later.

01:14:29.890 - 01:14:42.220

But some of the stuff that we have like going out for this year, I'm pretty stoked to see people hear the evolution of like where we are as a group and where we're headed towards for sure. Super, super exciting. Yeah.

01:14:42.220 - 01:14:56.440

No, I'm looking forward to listening to them. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. So I guess for the last question, well, first of all, is there anything that maybe we didn't cover that you'd like to share

01:14:56.830 - 01:15:09.160

or any words that— Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, I think relevant to this whole thing, I think and I've said this before, but I actually mean it this time. This is the best time to be an Asian American.

01:15:10.330 - 01:15:24.550

It's really the best time. It's the best time to be an Asian American artist in particular. When you see shows like Beef take off and you go—and you look at that and you go, "This is just a story about people at this point that happened

01:15:24.550 - 01:15:42.220

to be Asian American and it's nuanced," that, that is when I-when I realized like when I watched it with my wife, I was like, "No, we are in a different time right now." And actually, the success for Jerick and myself

01:15:42.490 - 01:15:58.960

where—don't get me wrong, like I don't discount my Asian American identity by any means. However, because we're seen more as people now because of the media content, that has a positive effect

01:15:58.960 - 01:16:14.350

in indie, where indie is, you know, kind of all and kind of left-leaning in general, but still very like white as a genre. But things have shifted so much since then where indie is not just that

01:16:14.350 - 01:16:30.100

anymore. And I feel that, like, our identity is also infused with kind of like the sound of the group because, like, the band is multicultural. We have white members, we have Latino members in the group in addition to that.

01:16:30.100 - 01:16:46.630

So it's multicultural and multifaceted and multi-economic, multi-socioeconomic as well. In terms of background and where we come from and stuff like that. So I think that it's the best time to be an Asian American in,

01:16:46.630 - 01:17:03.610

in the arts especially, you know, and I'm really excited about it because I think the success of Paper Gliders, I thought that, in a lot of ways, that we had wasted time in years ago. And actually, I'm more excited than ever about-about writing

01:17:03.610 - 01:17:22.060

stuff and releasing them. I think-I think this is the golden age. If you want to be Asian American and succeed in art and get started, this is the time to do something. Because, like, now, more and more, we're just people. And that was the ultimate goal, I think of all of us as a group—I-I can't speak

01:17:22.060 - 01:17:35.860

for all of us, but I can say this. I think a lot of us want, at least I want, to be noticed and recognized for our cultural roots, but also at the same time be visualized as Americans too.

01:17:35.890 - 01:17:51.320

We want both, and I think wanting both is fair because that's the reality that we lived in. So at the same time, yes, don't caricature me, but at the same time, recognize the nuance that—of my background as well.

01:17:51.320 - 01:18:10.460

And-and-and also understand that we all don't share the same opinions either. You know, what I want for us as a group might be different from what other Asian Americans want as a group, and especially since Asian American men and Asian American women have almost their own individual battles for separate

01:18:10.460 - 01:18:23.690

reasons as well. So this is a topic that you could speak about for weeks on end. It's-it's a semester in college in itself. But I will say this. So we're all on the same team, still, at the end of the day.

01:18:23.690 - 01:18:41.900

And anybody that's a young and budding Asian American artist that wants to do it, that's thinking about doing it, I say: I wish that it was like this in my early 20s because—but at the same time, I'll say this, I don't know if I would have been ready in my early 20s for something like this

01:18:41.900 - 01:18:54.140

either. I'm ready now, so if you don't feel ready, that's fine and that's fair. But if you feel like you're like tippy toeing around it, you got to go for it. It's-it's time.

01:18:54.140 - 01:19:10.730

It's time for us to shine, you know, it's time for us to show the world, the rest of the world, what we have to offer, and what we have to offer is a lot more than just the STEM field that people caricature us for. And those are very important fields.

01:19:10.730 - 01:19:22.270

It keeps the world-it keeps the world going in terms of functioning. But art gives us a reason to live. That's the difference.

01:19:22.680 - 01:19:41.020

You know, like all other fields and every other field of like—that pays well and gives you the stable job, I understand why people do those things. But then I ask, "What do you do with the money, though?" You spend money on

01:19:41.020 - 01:19:57.410

concert tickets, you spend money on art pieces to decorate your house furniture. You're still using money to pay people to curate your life. Or you curate your life on the way to work by listening to a song.

01:19:57.650 - 01:20:13.810

You can't escape art. Because art gives us a reason to think about why life is worth living. And so, that's why I encourage anybody in-in my shoes, if I was you and you were thinking about doing art,

01:20:13.840 - 01:20:27.910

especially for a living, if you really want to do it, do it. Just like, just do it. And that-that's the message I share for everybody. That's not just Asian American, but for ourselves in particular, especially

01:20:28.210 - 01:20:41.860

where we worry about how what our parents think of us, especially that, which is something I think a lot of immigrant kids can understand the backlash of that. Yeah, you might have some. And you-and you—more likely than not, you will.

01:20:42.730 - 01:20:55.030

But, one day our parents won't be around. That's the factor that is scary for a lot of us to think about. But one day our parents aren't around and you're not going to be able to please them when they're not around anymore.

01:20:55.030 - 01:21:07.240

And you have to ask yourself at a certain age, did I really do everything I wanted to do, that I really accomplished what I wanted to do? Yeah, I made my money and yeah, I did this, but am I fulfilled? And that's what happened to me after those documentaries.

01:21:08.110 - 01:21:25.740

And yeah, I-I-I'm wedded to incredibly beautiful and intelligent person, and I have this beautiful home. I'm very lucky, especially from where I grew up and where I came, but I am not yet fulfilled. Even after all these life stages that have happened.

01:21:25.740 - 01:21:40.500

So the people that wonder, you know, once I get my house and once I do this and once I get married, things will change. Life is a lot more complicated than that. Because at the end of the day, you're still on your own for a lot

01:21:40.500 - 01:21:57.930

of different–in a lot of different ways you're still on your own. And it's nice to have that support, that person, that partner that you can lean on and all those things. But you still have to go about life on your own. And you don't have to do it alone because you could be in a band

01:21:57.930 - 01:22:14.780

and you can also be around other artists that are like-minded for sure. But understand that there's going to come a point where you look at material things as like the reason of why you are the way that you are and that-that defines you.

01:22:14.900 - 01:22:26.700

And I just warn people that at a certain point, everything, just like in Beef, it all passes. It all passes. All of that stuff passes.

01:22:26.700 - 01:22:43.790

That new car smell of like achieving this life goal. And you go, "What's next?" And that's why I say, if you're not doing what you truly love, it doesn't have to be art, but if you're not doing what you truly love, you're not feeding your soul.

01:22:44.480 - 01:22:57.830

You're making it starve. And it's going to be very hungry for a long time and it's going to come out and manifest itself in ways that are extremely toxic because you're not nurturing your inner child.

01:22:57.860 - 01:23:12.290

That thing that-that thing that goes, "Hey, follow your dreams," that you keep pushing down. So my advice for most people, if-if my advice is worth anything, is to never

01:23:13.680 - 01:23:32.850

listen to people that discourage you from following your dreams because those people have abandoned their dreams long ago. And so, knowing where I am now, I know that following through–I know that following my dreams

01:23:32.880 - 01:23:45.750

was the best thing that I could ever do. And it's given me everything that I've ever wanted and more. So I wish the same for other potential artists that are in the–that are whether they're thinking about doing it or whether they are in the

01:23:45.750 - 01:24:01.190

midst of doing it. Keep chugging on. And be surrounded around people that are more talented than you. It's really critical that you're around people that care and that are more

01:24:01.190 - 01:24:14.000

talented because you're going to learn a lot from them. And some of the most talented people in the world are genuinely the most humble people in the world. So surround yourself around those people because they have so much to offer, and I will continue to do that.

01:24:14.450 - 01:24:31.410

I hope until the day that I decide to check out. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think what you're doing with your band is really playing an important role in changing the narrative, and you've touched on some really important ideas and perspectives

01:24:31.410 - 01:24:49.800

about, like, nuance and culture and how, you know, there's so many things like intersectionality and it's just so complex. So yeah, I mean, thanks so much for sharing your perspectives and sharing your story with us. And yeah, for spending the time to just talk with me today.

01:24:49.800 - 01:25:02.530

Thank you so much for having me. This was an incredible honor, not just to do it through Rice, but I think in a lot of ways reflective of where we are because this seemed impossible ten years ago [KC: Mhm.] to do. So.

01:25:02.530 - 01:25:16.500

I think more than me showing up on Jimmy Fallon, this moment here is much more important to me because of what it reflects about the current state of the world. It's pretty cool.