Charting the New Frontier
Think YouTube artists are just kids who croon popular covers from their bedrooms? Think again. Singer/songwriter/video producer David Choi is a pioneer in the YouTube music scene, and he’s helped pave the way for independent artists to be seen, heard and compensated.
story by ADA TSENG
photographs by BRIAN KONG
David Choi is jet-lagged. He’s just flown back to Los Angeles from Korea, after being invited to attend the YouTube Music Awards in Seoul, and he has the KoreAm Journal cover shoot the next day, which leaves only 24 hours for a juice cleanse that will hopefully undo some of the bodily damage that a trip to Korea can bring—late nights, mouthwatering gluttony and all. A master of social media, Choi Instagrams his Chomp Eatery bottle of leafy green liquid for his fans. Over 3,000 people “like” this photo, but according to the comments, they seem more interested in his watery eyes, his hint of a smile, his unkempt brows and his spiky hair, rather than his diet.
The boyish Choi is 27, but could arguably still pass for a teenager, especially sitting cross-legged on the floor of his Los Angeles home with a cozy blanket wrapped around his shoulders, waxing poetic about the importance of not letting the practical rules of songwriting (or the world in general) stunt your creativity and apologizing when he rambles wistfully off topic.
For any skeptics who might still assume YouTubers are naïve college kids who record themselves in their dorm rooms for fun (or for vanity), David Choi may just prove you wrong.
Music runs in his blood. If he hadn’t found fame on YouTube—Choi’s videos have more than 117 million views, and his two channels have more than a million subscribers combined—he would have found a way to work in the music industry some other way.
Choi basically grew up in his parents’ music store, Grace Music & Violin Shop in Garden Grove, Calif., which sold and repaired instruments in addition to offering private piano and violin classes that Choi was forced to take as a kid. But as he explains, when you grow up surrounded by something, you don’t really appreciate it until later. “I remember at one point, I hated practicing so much that I recorded myself playing violin for 15 minutes on a tape recorder, and I’d play it [on loop] from my room,” remembers Choi. “I’d just sit there, scared that my parents would find out, because I didn’t have a lock on my door! That’s how much I hated music. Practicing was the worst thing in life.”
It wasn’t until he discovered songwriting in high school and realized he could express himself creatively through melodies that he became obsessed with wanting to be a better musician. Holing himself in his room with a Yamaha EX5 keyboard, Choi started experimenting with electronic music and instrumental pieces. Curious about whether his compositions were good or not, he started entering music competitions, first winning local contests for his school division and eventually winning a “David Bowie Mash-up Contest,” where, out of thousands of applicants, he was chosen the winner by David Bowie himself.
Choi’s first big break was when he was signed as a staff songwriter for Warner/Chappell, a division of Warner Music Group, not too long after he graduated from high school. He found himself surrounded by established songwriters who had written music for Celine Dion and Disney (“songs that people are still singing today,” says Choi), and he produced many demos, but it was still tough to get one of his songs placed with their singers. As a young songwriter eager to improve and make a career out of music, Choi started posting YouTube videos to share his original songs. To him, it was just a social experiment to try to elicit honest feedback from random strangers. But when his video, “YouTube A Love Song,” was featured in 2006 on the front page of YouTube, his life changed dramatically. He was initially horrified when someone called him up to tell him.
“I was super embarrassed,” remembers Choi. “I hadn’t even shown my friends! I didn’t know that many people would watch it. And then it was like, ‘Well, David, you’re the one who put up the video. How can you call yourself shy if you’re putting yourself out there?’ But to me, I just wanted people to tell me what was wrong with the song, so I could make it better. And then I freaked out, because it was like, ‘The world has watched this.’”
He had always been pitching himself as a behind-the-scenes songwriter/producer, and as he tells it, he only sang on his own demos because he couldn’t afford to pay demo singers. But suddenly, with all these new subscribers to his YouTube channel (after a week, his song had half a million views), he had a built-in fanbase, so he figured he should take advantage of it.
“To be honest, it was just all fun for me that year, putting up my own songs and seeing if people liked it or could relate to it,” says Choi. “It was so hard to get into Warner/Chappell, and it was a huge honor for me [to be there], but I realized when I started doing YouTube, controlling my own music, and selling CDs, I made so much more money. Here I was, signed to one of the biggest music companies in the world, yet I was more successful taking things into my own hands.”
It’s 2009, and Wong Fu Productions and Far East Movement are hosting their annual International Secret Agents concert to showcase Asian American talent. It’s in the San Gabriel Valley, less than a mile from San Gabriel High School, from where many of the young concert attendees are undoubtedly being dropped off by their parents. At the time, I had never heard of David Choi, but to be fair, I hadn’t heard of most of the lineup, which included big shots like Kina Grannis and Kevin Wu (KevJumba).
Choi gets up onstage. He looks tiny, just him and his guitar. As he starts strumming the beginning notes to “That Girl,” there are high-pitched screams coming from all over the packed auditorium. When he gets to the lyrics, I look around at the sea of Asian American fans, and they are singing along to every single word of the song. This was even before Wong Fu Productions filmed the music video for “That Girl” in 2010, which would eventually garner almost 8 million views on YouTube. If they weren’t all teenagers singing an adorably catchy ballad about heartache, it might have seemed like a cult.
“That Girl” was the song that first made Amber Chen a Choi fan. A sophomore at Pacifica High School, the same school in Garden Grove that Choi himself attended from 2000 to 2004, Chen remembers following popular YouTube vlogger Ryan Higa (Nigahiga) on YouTube in middle school and coming across the comic video “BEST CREW – The Audition.” It featured Choi as the only awkward dancer who made the cut for the fake dance crew that Ryan Higa and Kevin Wu were putting together. Curiosity led her to search further and discover Choi’s music on YouTube.
“He’s like that shy guy who sits back and watches things unfold from afar,” says Chen, of Choi’s appeal. She not only likes his self-composed music, but admits that even when he’s covering Top 40 hits, she prefers his melancholy, acoustic guitar covers more than the original songs themselves. Chen, who is also a fan of Kina Grannis, Clara C and John Ofa Rhee, gets most of her entertainment from YouTube. “So much of mainstream music nowadays is so degrading,” she says, sighing. “It’s all about drinking, partying, getting laid or going out to clubs. The music on YouTube is just more relatable, especially to teenagers, because it’s more about feelings that everyone has, like love and heartbreak.”
Though Choi gets emails from fans of all ages, it’s undeniable that the majority of his YouTube viewers are of a younger, more tech-savvy generation. There are multiple reasons someone like Choi feels more relatable than your average celebrity. Not only does Choi represent a fellow Asian American face in media, but there’s also a more tangible connection between fans and YouTube stars that you would never get with mainstream artists, no matter how much they tweet about their lives. Chen recalls a friend of hers writing a comment on one of Choi’s YouTube videos, telling him that she was attending the same elementary school he went to—and how cool it was to have Choi respond excitedly, asking her to say hi to one of his old teachers.
Choi has been touring since 2009, and after every show, he makes sure to do a meet-and-greet with his fans. “Sometimes the meet-and-greet actually takes up more time and energy than my concert,” he says. “There are times I stay two hours after my show has already ended because I really want to meet my fans. These are the people who support me, so the least I can do is say hi.”
These direct connections can be so easily established because Choi is essentially the boss of his own small business. There aren’t public relations people that need to vet his comments; he can control the length of the tours and meet-andgreets; he decides what music he wants to release online, often taking into account fan reactions to judge whether it’s a good song or not.
“At first, YouTube was all about having fun and connecting with people, but eventually you realize, ‘If this is what I’m going to do, then I have to protect it,’” says Choi. “I’m essentially running a record label for myself. You’d never guess it, but a lot of YouTubers are extremely business-savvy. It’s our livelihood.”
And backed by sales of his music, concert tours, brand deals and sponsorships, Choi has become one of the most successful YouTube artists.
While Choi relishes his freedom, he also recognizes that YouTube and the mainstream music industry are still two different, largely separate, worlds. There is more and more overlap happening—Choi himself collaborated with Macy Gray on a Radiohead cover song last year, and he points to Wong Fu Productions directing a Wang Leehom video and Jason Derulo singing with YouTube musician Tyler Ward as examples of collaboration that would not have happened six years ago—but it’s a slow process.
“There’s definitely value in YouTube, and we’re trying to hold onto the homegrown organic feel, but also dip our feet into the retail world,” says Choi. “Because there are a lot of things that the traditional music industry can offer that YouTubers still can’t really access right now—like film placement, money for promotion and things that are really important for getting your music out there. But it’s still a wild frontier, and there’s a lot to figure out.”
He’s currently working on his new album, which is planned for release in 2014. Though he self-released his last three albums—Only You (2008), By My Side (2010) and Forever and Ever (2011), which hit No. 2 on iTunes in the singer/songwriter category—he’s looking for a potential indie label to sign with, one that will respect his artistry but help him share his music with as many people as possible. “I feel like I’m at a point in my career where I’ve been doing this for so long, and I’m a little burnt out having to take care of everything myself,” admits Choi. However, there’s comfort in knowing that there’s always the option of self-releasing the album if the right opportunity doesn’t present itself. While the future is uncertain, it’s the longest he’s spent on an album so far, and he’s determined to make it his best one.
“It’s going to be darker,” says Choi. “It explores a lot of negative emotions, like confusion, anger, sadness. Dealing with being cheated on in a relationship. Because that’s what happened in the last couple years of my life.” Though he finds it easier to write the sadder, darker songs, he’s still happy when his love songs have the power to cheer people up.
“You know what’s great?” says Choi. “One of my songs, ‘By My Side,’ has been used in hundreds of weddings around the world. That’s pretty amazing for me to think about. For me, it was just something I was feeling at the time that didn’t end up working out, but people are using it as a time capsule for a special moment in their lives. Once in a while, I’ll even get emails telling me that listening to my music has helped them get through a depression. And it’s so rewarding, but it’s also a weird feeling because what am I being rewarded for? Singing songs for a living?
“But that’s what I’ve discovered in the last few years,” he continues. “Even though I write songs because I want people to relate to me, to understand something that I went through, it’s a two-way street. It’s not only healing for me, but it can be healing for other people, too. And it makes it feel like we’re going through this together.”
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Epilogue: ‘Like Father, Like Son’
Though he shunned piano and violin lessons forced upon him by his parents during his childhood, David Choi should probably give his father some credit for his musical talent. Ray Choi, a Korean immigrant, is a champion autoharpist and was featured in KoreAm’s March 2012 issue. The two shared a stage together at the Kollaboration talent showcase in L.A. last year, with David singing and playing guitar, as the elder Choi plucked his autoharp.
And there’s more they share.
In 2008, as David was building his YouTube career, he won a YouTube cover contest held by the band Lifehouse. The reward was a plasma TV and home entertainment system. When David brought the giant TV home one day—he was still living with his parents at the time—his father told him that, when he was young, he had actually won a television from a singing contest as well, though his TV was black and white. In fact, Ray Choi entered many music competitions in his youth and won quite a bit of prize money for his family, as well as a washing machine.
“It was so random,” says David, still baffled. “I had no idea! I didn’t even tell [my parents] about the contests I was entering, and turns out my dad did the same thing when he was a kid. It’s like we’re living parallel lives.” He laughs. “Maybe I’ll have to play autoharp when I’m 50.”
This article was published in the December 2013 issue of KoreAm. Subscribe today! To purchase a single issue copy of the December issue, click the “Buy Now” button below. (U.S. customers only. Expect delivery in 5-7 business days).
