But it’s a very humbling experience, I learn a lot about myself.”Ī self-confessed perfectionist (“I gotta learn to let go, I’m such a hoarder,” he says), you can see it even in the way he meticulously adjusts his hair throughout the call, setting a strand to fall perfectly between his nose bridge and the start of his right eyebrow. I feel like I’m constantly upgrading as an artist, it’s definitely taking a lot out of me, it’s insane. “I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’ but I just keep reminding myself it’s for the story. “A lot of times I do question myself,” IAN says. Very few people have a skillset as wide as his, much less the sensibility and courage to transpose the personal into the universal, and tie it up with a result that is both easily engaging and deeply meaningful. While IAN, in his disarming modesty, would likely be thankful but laugh it off, REM’s words ring true. It truly feels like you’re witnessing a genius at work.” I’ve watched him do all this and more from the sidelines and no one I know can do all of this to the level he does. Over email, DPR REM says that he’s witnessed a lot of great artists, but that “as unbiasedly as possible - IAN is a different breed. ![]() It was honestly very embarrassing in the beginning, but to sell the picture I did what I had to do, pretended no one was in the room and shhh let’s go,” he laughs. “All these people that I was shooting with, they were so used to seeing me as a director, but now I’m all glammed up and I’m acting. Not only did I have to play, this character that I was manifesting for so long, that so much energy, but I also had to get the set up, the lighting, the scene, the composition of it, and I had to make sure that was perfect,” he says. “Directing and being in front of the camera was such a big hurdle. He reveals that releasing his debut EP last year brought up a lot of fear and doubt. For many years, IAN was mainly behind the cameras as their in-house director and editor, working with names like iKon’s Bobby (“HOLUP!”) and Mino (“Body”), but his multifaceted nature knew that it was time to stand under the spotlight again. They handle all the gears on their own, from business management to visual arts, and have proven how an independent label can thrive in the Korean music industry. The letters “DPR” in front of his current name stand for Dream Perfect Regime - a multimedia collective he runs alongside DPR Live, DPR Cream, and DPR REM (who also produced this album). “It gives me a more clear understanding, and feels like I’m on a journey with this character.” “Overall it’s me, but I’m not the same as I was 10 years ago,” he says of this multiplicity. Then came simply Christian, a character for the phase where he was “trying to find my artistry,” ultimately leading him into today’s DPR IAN. When he was 18, he moved to South Korea and eventually became Rome - the leader of K-pop group C-Clown, which lasted from 2012 to 2015. As a teenager, he was part of a heavy metal band and later a keen b-boy, posting videos on YouTube under the alias B.yu. “I’m so into characters that I consider every stage of my life to be a different me, therefore, a different name,” he says.īorn Christian Yu in Sydney, Australia, he attended to his Korean name, Ba-Rom, throughout his early years. It’s not that it’s easy for IAN to burn everything and start anew, but he’s been doing it for all his life. ![]() And when I’m up too high, I start plummeting. “I’ve always felt like I was burning when I went down, and it goes with that perfectly. ![]() “I have ‘Burn’ on my left hand,” he tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ over a Zoom call, inching his hands closer and caressing the ink letter by letter. Although not intentional, the 31-year-old multi-hyphenate found in the Greek tale a mirror to his experiences, and consequently to the path of MITO. Like Icarus, who saw his wings melt as he hovered near the sun, IAN knows that he will fall. It foreshadows an even deeper dive into the universe of MITO - the leading character of both albums, created by IAN to process his struggles with bipolar disorder and transform them into art. But while it resigned and spiralled ( “I lost myself under the sun / I got too close and now I’m burning,” he sings), “Seraph” is intentional. The track picks up right where “No Silhouette,” the burning closer off DPR IAN’s 2021 debut EP, Moodswings In This Order, left.
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