If you ask the real-life singing voices behind the “KPop Demon Hunters” group HUNTR/X for their favorite songs by fictional bands, the answers will vary — from “The Goofy Goober Song” of “SpongeBob SquarePants” fame, to anything by “Gorillaz.” But these days, it’s HUNTR/X’s “Golden” that’s making the list of average movie fans — and lighting up the Billboard charts.
On Monday, the song — written by EJAE, who also served as the vocalist for Rumi in the film, and Mark Sonnenblick — marked its 8th week atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the entire soundtrack notched its second week atop the Billboard 200 albums chart. The film has spawned dance trends on social media, and countless covers of “Golden” by other singers. There’s one cover in particular, though, that let EJAE know the song and film truly made an impact.
“It was a video of end of life [care]. And there was a nurse who was playing guitar in his own version of ‘Golden’ and he sang her basically a last song for her,” she recalled to TheWrap. “And lyrically, she changed it to fit for the patient, but that made me be like, ‘Wow, this is why we write music.’”
“Because that was the last song she heard before she passed. And to be ‘Golden,’ I’m just so honored for that to be the song. Oh my God!” she continued, fighting back tears.
Fortunately, EJAE had her fellow HUNTR/X vocalists, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, by her side. All three have their own music careers, though EJAE’s has largely been more on the writing side of things in the last decade or so. She’s penned multiple songs for real life K-Pop groups and, in addition to “Golden,” she co-wrote four other songs for “KPop Demon Hunters,” including “Your Idol,” “How It’s Done” and “Hunter’s Mantra.”
Working alongside directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, music director Ian Eisendrath, and her co-writer Mark Sonnenblick, EJAE noted that communication was key in devising the lyrics, especially as she wrote for fictional characters, as opposed to her normal real-world clientele.
“They gave us very detailed guidelines of what the characters are going through during a scene, or what they’re feeling … and that helps a lot with the writing process,” she explained. “And thankfully, I already connected with the characters, and especially Rumi, on so many different levels that I was able to put personal emotional experiences into the lyrics.”
Getting the songs exactly right was a process, and according to Kang, often a long one. Sending copious details and talking in-depth about them was necessary.
“We never really signed off on a song until all the story elements were working with the lyrics, but also it met the kind of K-Pop standard of it being a real bop, and a really great song,” Kang explained to TheWrap.
“So that was a process for all the songs. It took a while to kind of learn that, and all the songs were equally challenging — well, not equally, some of them [were] more challenging than others — but we would sit there and even think for hours on one line of lyric, because all of those words are just very, very important.”
For the record, yes, EJAE recognizes exactly how hard it is to sing along to “Golden.” She laughed as she noted that difficulty was an explicit instruction from Kang and Appelhans, who wanted Rumi to sing “unrealistic high notes.” That said, EJAE didn’t quite realize how high it was until she put the melody down on paper and had to sing it herself.
But fans are looking deeper into the songs of “KPop Demon Hunters” than just trying to belt along with “Golden.” Rei Ami, who serves as the singing voice for Zoey, has a whole series of videos on her TikTok account in which she breaks down the 3-part harmonies for each HUNTR/X song. It was an idea that came about specifically because listeners were curious.
“It took a lot of time, and thought, and blood, sweat and tears to really build these songs vocally,” she told TheWrap. “So seeing the fans really be interested in that process, and ask you, ‘Well, what was Mira’s harmony?’ ‘OK, well, Mira has the low harmony in this song, but she actually has the high harmony in that song.’”
“So they’re doing their own little comparison and analyses, and it’s just so beautiful to watch them completely immerse themselves in the music,” Ami continued.
First released back in August, “KPop Demon Hunters” has only seen steady growth, shattering records with both viewing metrics and music charting — it’s the most-watched Netflix movie of all time (it is produced by Sony Pictures Animation). At this point, there’s a fairly large portion of the fandom that would like to see HUNTR/X make the jump from fictional K-Pop group to real life.
The love for the trio seems to be indication of a goal completed. Along with Ami, director Chris Appelhans also cited Gorillaz as a favorite “fictional” group, noting that he “instantly bought into” the virtual group from Blur frontman Damon Albarn, and he wanted the same for HUNTR/X.
“It was kind of a seamless thing right away. And I think we talked about [Gorillaz] a lot making this film, because we wanted that same seamless quality of like, you don’t think about the craft of bringing these fictional creations to life,” he explained to TheWrap. “They just feel like a band.”
That’s part of what got Audrey Nuna, who served as the singing voice for Mira, to come onboard, after being pitched several K-Pop-related projects over the years.
“It was really at the core, just the concept and the message,” she told TheWrap. “I felt like, when I was pitched the plot and meaning of the movie, it just felt like, ‘Oh, this is, in some way, shape or form, my life story and something that I’ve always been really passionate about,’ pushing this message of just be your full self.”
On Tuesday fans will get their wish for HUNTR/X to make the jump to real-life — kind of. EJAE, Ami, and Nuna are set to perform on “The Tonight Show,” marking their first full, televised performance of “Golden” since the film released. The women performed the song in part on the season 51 premiere “Saturday Night Live,” but this will be a complete performance.
From there? Who knows what the future holds for HUNTR/X. No matter what, though, they seem to have cemented themselves in the fictional band hall of fame.
You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna in the video above.
“KPop Demon Hunters” is now streaming on Netflix.
