A Crazy, Historic Ride
For Korean American Dan Suh, Psy’s day-to-day manager, the artist’s success carries special meaning.
by JULIE HA
It takes three different phone calls to complete my interview with Dan Suh, and that’s after rescheduling the interview day twice. His emails are courteous, yet carry an out-of-breath quality:
Is it possible to reschedule to next week Monday, after the American Music Awards? Let’s connect tomorrow. Sorry it’s been so nutty.
Dealing with a huge fire right now … will call you back as soon as I can!
He may not be Psy, but as the Korean singer’s day-to-day manager for the past three months, the 32-year-old has to keep pace with the now-internationally famous star with the most-viewed music video on YouTube—ever.
Since September, when Suh was hired by Psy’s manager, Scooter Braun, who also manages Justin Bieber, the Korean American has pretty much been everywhere you’ve seen the “Gangnam Style” king—from the flash mob scene in Paris, to the MTV European Music Awards in Frankfurt, Germany, to the Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to the American Music Awards in Los Angeles.
“It’s been the craziest ride,” says Suh, from his Los Angeles home, where the Chicago area native has lived on and off for the last four years. Psy had just performed with MC Hammer at the AMAs a couple of nights before—it was another headline-making score for the Psy team, which has been impressively astute in coming up with a fresh approach to a single song whose music video has been viewed 850 million times on YouTube at last count.
“I’ve done [international touring] before, [but] still, there’s nothing like this I’ve ever experienced—the level of craziness,” says Suh. “We could be in Europe, and someone last-minute will call and say, ‘Come play with Madonna at Madison Square Garden!’ Then we have to change all our plans.”
Crazy times, but also historic.
Suh with Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and Travis from Gym Class Heroes at a party in New York City in 2007.
“I say this as much as I can, and sometimes I think it gets taken seriously and sometimes not, but I mean it every time I say it,” says Suh. “I feel like, every day, Psy is making history: the AMA performance, theToday show performance, everywhere around the world, the reception he gets. It’s really exciting to be a part of that and to help make that happen, especially as a Korean American, and seeing the impact it’s having for Koreans in this culture.”
As a member of Psy’s team, Suh serves a few different roles, handling logistics so the singer can go “play with Madonna at Madison Square Garden,” as well as working with Braun to manage the artist from a strategic standpoint, helping him to make the right decisions, and working behind the scenes with production companies to make sure what is set up visually for the singer’s performances represents his artistic vision. For the AMA performance in L.A., for example, Suh worked closely with the awards show’s production company and its various departments to brainstorm ideas to bring the “Gangnam Style” video to life without simply playing the actual video in the background while Psy performed. What resulted from that brainstorm session was a gigantic screen that showcased life-size digital backdrops from key scenes in the video, such as the horse stables and the tour bus, as Psy and his dancers kept the enthusiastic crowd on its feet.
“Most of the credit goes to the AMA production company for taking an idea and making it look really great on TV,” says Suh. “But, obviously, the big thing for that performance was having MC Hammer there and doing the dance, and having Psy and Hammer choreograph the dance with their dancers. And I had nothing to do with that. Scooter [Braun] and Psy—that was their big idea.
“Hopefully, if I’ve done a good job, then nobody realizes that I’ve done my job.”
Ironically, Suh, who has long had a passion for live music and previously managed tours for popular indie rock bands Motion City Soundtrack and Fall Out Boy, left the music business earlier this year to take a stable, salary job at a Korean clean-water technology company. Then, in September, just days after Psy signed with Braun’s Schoolboy Records, Suh joked to a friend, who works with Braun, “Hey, tell Scooter, if he needs someone who speaks Korean to call me up.” Suh insists it was totally a joke and that he only wanted to meet Psy once and get his picture taken with him. But the next day, he got a call from Braun. “He’s got this crazy energy [as he’s] talking and says, ‘Hey, you know, this guy that we both know says you speak Korean and you know what you’re doing.’”
Suh was hired on the spot—with only two days to set up Psy’s Today show appearance—and it’s been trial by fire ever since. (Funny enough, Suh, who sees Psy just about every day, still hadn’t gotten his picture taken with him, as of this writing.)
“It’s been just as crazy as that first phone call,” says Suh. “We’ve been in six or seven—I lose count—different countries in the last six weeks or so. That’s typical of a worldwide superstar—someone like Rihanna doing a tour like that right now, or some of those big acts. But, really, this is exciting and, I think, historic [because it’s the] first time a Korean act has been able to do this. This is the first time there has been such a worldwide demand for a Korean act.”
Because of his touring background, Suh serves as Psy’s tour manager as the singer and his entourage travels the world. “Half of the group doesn’t speak English—they only speak Korean—so the language barrier can be difficult,” says Suh. “They haven’t been home for months. So part of my job is to help them feel comfortable, no matter where we’re at, and to keep some sort of consistency because the rest of road life is sort of chaotic.”
Suh admittedly was not that familiar with K-pop prior to his current gig, but he knows the music business and has been thoroughly impressed with Psy’s abilities as a songwriter, composer and performer.
“He’s a real pro in all aspects of music. You don’t have a 12-year career anywhere in the world by accident,” he says, referring to the 34-year-old star’s track record in Korea. “No one can really say how big this is going to be after ‘Gangnam Style,’ but I think he’s absolutely capable of doing something after this that’s going to be big. He’s got all the tools.”
Suh described flying into Paris with Psy for a flash mob event organized by a radio station in front of the Eiffel Tower. As soon as they got off the plane, they were told 2,000 people had already gathered. Later, the crowd had grown to 5,000. By the time Psy and his team arrived, the crowd had swelled to 20,000.
“It was the first time Psy was in France as a performer, and to have that kind of impact in a country where … he doesn’t speak [that country’s] language, to me, it is really amazing,” says Suh. “I think it means a lot. It shows how big of a reach he has. I think it really opens up people’s eyes about Asians, Koreans.”
Suh sees that impact within his own extended family. About a month ago, he said he attended a family wedding on a rare day off.
“I have an older cousin who’s got three young kids—the oldest is 12 or 13 years old. Her kids are so excited about Psy and ‘Gangnam Style.’ They’re like, ‘We go to school, and all the kids think we’re the coolest because we’re Korean.’ You know, growing up as a Korean American, it definitely was not cool to be Korean where I grew up, and I think that’s maybe the same for a lot of people in the Korean American community.
“So, to hear my cousin’s kids say, ‘Wow, this is such a cool thing,’ they’re proud of their heritage—that, I think, is so impactful to me. I think being inside of this crazy machine, a lot of that stuff gets lost in the minutiae of the day. But occasionally we’ll do something big and sit back and reflect, and say, wow, this is really impacting people.”
This article was published in the December 2012 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.)
