To finish off the Fan Talent segment for April, we’re looking at Ronnie Icon! Starting off his YouTube career in 2013, he has gathered over 25,000 views from all his videos collectively and his ever growing subscribers is close to reaching an impressive 1,000!
For those who may not be familiar with him, Ronnie Icon is from the Netherlands, he’s a very talented K-pop inspired artist, singer, composer, songwriter and producer which paints the picture of a versatile man of many talents! He regularly posts videos onto his YouTube channel, for example he posted a G-Dragon Tribute cover video which included a range of hit songs from the K-Pop idol from Big Bang and more recently, he uploaded an English cover of EXO’s 2015 comeback song ‘Call Me Baby’!
G-Dragon Tribute Cover Video
EXO – Call Me Baby English Cover
Taeyang – Eyes, Nose, Lips English Cover
1. Can you briefly introduce yourself to those who may not know of you?
안녕하세요. I’m Ronnie Icon, an artist that combines K-pop with European dance music. I’m currently in my senior year of music college. I started listening to K-pop about two years ago when I was looking for inspiration for my solo music and became instantly intrigued and heavily influenced.
2. Which was the main K-pop group that caught your interest?
Initially a teacher of mine showed me Big Bang’s MV for Bad Boy, so I knew it existed. It wasn’t until I saw EXO’s MV for Wolf that I started digging deeper. I fell in love with EXO and K-pop soon after.
3. What is it about K-pop for you that’s different from other types of music?
Obviously the visuals are really intriguing and catch your eye immediately, but also from a songwriter’s point of view, in general, K-pop is extremely well written. It’s a style of music that has to be actively listened to, because it constantly asks for your attention. I think a lot of Western music styles lack that attention grabbing aspect. As I started listening to K-pop more, I just found a lot of Western music to be a bit boring, honestly.
4. Out of all the K-pop groups out there, if you could only pick three favourites, which ones would they be?
EXO, because they were my first and they continue to deliver awesome music.
Big Bang, because I’m a huge G-Dragon fan and Taeyang’s Rise album was phenomenal.
iKON, even though they haven’t ”officially” debuted yet, I love their songs and I love their fire.5. What inspired you to start posting covers on YouTube?
I used to only post my own original songs on Youtube. I entered the Eyes, Nose Lips contest last year and all of a sudden I started getting tons of positive reactions to it. That’s when I realized that covering K-pop songs works really well. It’s a lot of fun to do and it’s good to give fans something familiar before you present them with an original, entirely new song of your own.
6. How long is the process of planning out, recording and editing the cover videos you post, like the G-Dragon tribute video for example?
The time it takes is becoming increasingly short. The G-Dragon Tribute Video took me about a week, but I made similar video for 2NE1, which took me only three days. Because it’s only my voice and a piano, it’s easier to do than a full production. I like doing these tribute videos, because the process is really intuitive, but I also love doing entire productions because I get to control and create my own sound.
7. What future covers are you planning to do?
Since I did the G-Dragon Tribute video, I’ve been getting tons of requests for other tributes for other groups. I have a lot of different ideas. The next tribute video will probably be for B.T.S. when they come back in May. I want to alternate between releasing cover videos and original songs. I plan to release an original song called ‘Yellow Light’ next, for which I got to use footage from the short movie ‘Missing Seoul’ by Filbert Tanuwijaya.
8. If you could collaborate with anyone in the K-pop music industry, who would it be and why?
I’d love to work with B.I. from IKON. I’ve seen a bit of how he works in WIN: Who is Next and Mix & Match and I love his character. He seems extremely driven and creative and I think we’d be able to feed off of each other’s ideas really well. This is actually a real ambition of mine.
9. What is the main goal you hope to achieve from posting videos on YouTube?
Besides being an effective creative outlet, it also helps build a following and gain more exposure. Obviously it’s not just about gaining more fans, but with more exposure also comes more opportunities. I hope that in the future, more doors will open for me. But what it all comes down to in the end, is being able to make a living off of my music, so that I can keep doing what I love for the rest of my life.
10. What’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone who aspires to post K-pop covers on YouTube?
This might come off as a bit rude, but I think a lot of people are a bit delusional when they post covers on Youtube. Aside from the clearly talented ones (I really like DaehoTV for example) that clearly know what they’re doing, a lot of people put videos online that are of bad quality and act surprised when they don’t get views or likes. I sometimes get this question, and usually I ask them what they hope to achieve by posting videos. Why would you even want to record yourself at all and post it for the world to, potentially, see? Some people think they’re going to get noticed and recruited by big companies. Others that say they just want to see what people think are often afraid to come clean with their ambitions.
My advice would be to be self aware. If you’re just starting out, chances are you suck. It takes a lot of time and effort to refine your talent. And that time is going to be what sets people that are ambitious apart from those that aren’t. If you put one video online and expect to get 1000 views, you’ll be disappointed to see that’s not gonna happen. But it’s those that do not give up and keep going at it for many years on end that will eventually become the bigger Youtube stars.
For those who are interested in listening to some original songs from Ronnie Icon, check out ‘Yellow Light’!
If you want to get to know Ronnie Icon more, he has posted a few other Q&A’s on his YouTube channel, or if there is a question that he hasn’t yet answered yet, go ahead and send it to him on any of his social media accounts, the links are all listed below at the end of the article!
For all the important links to keep updated with Ronnie Icon!
