“It’s been crazy,” Tseng Kuo-Hung says with a laugh. The Taiwanese musician and frontman of soft rock band Sunset Rollercoaster immediately sets a tone for NME’s interview: serious yet full of smiles. He’s sat alongside Oh Hyuk, the frontman of South Korean indie band Hyukoh, and the producer JNKYRD, having just wrapped up intensive group rehearsals in Seoul for the two bands’ upcoming world tour. It’s mania for a momentous occasion: ‘AAA’, the surprise collaborative album by Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster, two bands at the forefront of Korean and Taiwan’s respective indie rock scenes.
This weekend, they kick off their tour with two sold-out nights at Seoul’s Olympic Hall; the two shows the following week in Taipei are fully subscribed, too. After more dates in Asia, they’ll head to Australia, where they’ll play the John Cain Arena in Melbourne. So it’s no surprise that it’s all hands on deck for both bands right now. “We haven’t really stopped meeting each other,” JNKYRD says, referring to the international rehearsal schedule they’ve shared for the past few months. But the energy feels fitting: ‘AAA’ – the acronym for ‘access all areas’ – has the hustle and bustle of touring in its DNA.
Sunset Rollercoaster. Credit: Zhong Lin
They first met during Hyukoh’s first Asian tour in 2017, when the Korean four-piece checked out a Sunset Rollercoaster show in Taipei at the recommendation from their compatriots The Black Skirts. The Taiwanese outfit, who’d just released their breakout record, 2016 EP ‘Jinji Kikko’, were starstruck. “When they first came to our show, I thought, ‘Wow, now this is really a superstar!” Kuo recalls.
Over subsequent visits, the two warmed to one another, as Kuo began casually showing Oh around Taipei. “I was just a tour guide,” Kuo admits, recalling how he would bring them around on the capital’s ubiquitous motorcycles. There, their positive impressions of each other grew. “I already knew he’s really a smart guy. My impression was that the music is super good – and I was super good too,” Oh shares. On his part, Kuo says: “I just realised he’s actually always a shy guy and really easygoing.”
Their blossoming friendship turned naturally into collaboration. That relationship began on Hyukoh’s 2020 EP ‘Through Love’, where Sunset Rollercoaster delivered a lush remix of the track ‘Help’. Oh returned the favour by contributing a bridge to ‘Candlelight’, the centerpiece on the Taiwanese groovemasters’ 2020 album, ‘Soft Storm’. Eventually, the stars aligned for a proper project and both groups convened last year at a retreat in Gapyeong Music Village.
“We are all super nerdy music lovers” – Tseng Kuo-Hung, Sunset Rollercoaster
There, their shared chemistry created an organic, productive atmosphere – and strong momentum. “I remember the first week, we only got four days to do the recording. And our goal was to make one song per day,” Kuo says. With no expectations, the bands simply began jamming together, a dynamic which quickly gave rise to opener ‘Kite War’.
Soon, both bandleaders began contributing their own demos to the process. “We thought maybe we would start with an EP. But in the end, things were going too smoothly, so an EP became an album,” Kuo says. JNKYRD, who co-produced the album, describes the process as “all in one room”, noting how half the record was created with all ten members of both bands in a tiny, crammed recording space.
Developing those demos together, the two bands seemed naturally attuned to each other – a dynamic that surfaced as they worked on the synthy ‘Y’, which began as an Oh Hyuk draft. “Once he played the demo to everybody, I think all ten people got the vision,” Kuo recalls. “So the whole process was kind of like: enjoy the journey and naturally the music [will show] up.”
Hyukoh. Credit: Zhong Lin
‘AAA’ glows with this chemistry – as well as the bands’ shared affinity for analogue warmth and equipment, which the record’s highlights feature prominently. ‘Antenna’, for example, came from exploring presets on a recently purchased Eventide H90 pedal, while ‘Young Man’ bounces on a ARP 2600 synth bassline. “Sounds like I’m bragging about how much equipment I bought for the whole session,” Kuo quips.
Having grown up in China, Oh’s Mandarin-speaking background also helped build a cultural bridge between the two acts. (“He’s a little bit weird, as well,” Kuo jokes, “but this kind of weirdness connects these people.”) Representation wasn’t necessarily their goal with ‘AAA’, but Oh does acknowledge the unconscious role it played: “We are not trying to represent Asians, but working on something with Asians was one of the main ideas of this project.” Both bands have toured North America and Europe; Hyukoh played Coachella in 2019 and Sunset Rollercoaster in 2023. They found common ground with each other as Asian bands touring the West, which was not common in the circuit at the time. “We can kind of feel the same emotion, the same aspects and same experience.”
And when it came to picking visual collaborators, two threads emerged: chemistry and top-class Asian talent. Japanese star director and former Sunset Rollercoaster collaborator Pennacky helmed the video for ‘Young Man’, which captures the two bands joyfully jamming in a subterranean studio with a retrofuturistic sound machine. The clip for ‘Antenna’, by Korean director rafhoo, features watery dreamscapes and major star power in the form of Hong Kong indie darling Leah Dou and Taiwanese actor Greg Hsu. And at Gapyeong, both Oh and Kuo lent their creative powers to another leading figure: BTS leader RM, who was recording his second solo album ‘Right Place, Wrong Person’.
“If we just love the music, then we don’t have these kinds of weird superstar problems” – Tseng Kuo-Hung, Sunset Rollercoaster
‘AAA’ is a fitting title for Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster’s collective standing in Asian indie music. For Hyukoh, the record is even more notable, given they last put out a full-length album – their breakout release ‘23’ – way back in 2017. But Oh and Kuo are quick to stress how their collaborative creative process helped ego and pressure fall away.
“We are all, like, super nerdy music lovers. When we get into the studio, we are all kind of mentally, ‘ego-ly’ naked,” Kuo notes. “Because you have to show your songs to other people, so we don’t have these ego burdens… If we just love the music, then we don’t have these weird superstar problems. We just concentrated on music and tried to make the best of it.”
The “most impressive” thing about the ‘AAA’ collaboration, Kuo says, was reaching a state of “full trust” that’s already difficult to achieve in one band. “I see the tour list, we’ve got 45 people all together… [With] the music, we can unite these 45 people.
“[Having] this kind of trust in each other, this kind of friendship, I think is a really amazing thing.”
Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster’s album ‘AAA’ is out now. Find more info on their tour dates here
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