The Reincarnated Idol Hard Carries an Indie Band - Chapter 37

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Past Life Idol Doing Hard Carry in an Indie Band
Episode 37
Anyway, I’d heard that Jo Hyeon-seop gets a lot of calls these days.
Inquiries about booking us or signing us as exclusive artists.
Requests for us to appear on Entertainment Talk Shows.
All of it was unnecessary for us.
“Sir. I wanted to ask Jo Hyeon-woo something. Is it possible to reach him?”
“Yeah, it’s possible. Why? You writing a song together?”
“No, we want to go on a broadcast.”
“Pfft!!”
Why’s he spitting out coffee like that in surprise?
“Huh, a broadcast? Not a song?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, what kind of broadcast?”
“It’s called Killing Band—a YouTube band live stage content.”
“Killing Band? Is that trending?”
“No, it’s pretty rough.”
“Then why…?”
“Why what?”
Jo Hyeon-seop stared at me with a vacant expression.
The moment the neighborhood high school kid standing in front of him was suddenly recognized as Cha Seo-ha of Oktatop.
“Ah, so you’re going to get roasted?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
When did we get this close?
He just knows from a look in my eyes.
“Alright, I’ll talk to Hyeon-woo about it. Of course it might not work out, so don’t get your hopes too high and just wait.”
“Thank you so much.”
With that cooperative response from the manager, I tidied up and left the studio.
Of course, this didn’t mean everything would go through.
Killing Band was originally supposed to end at episode three.
Jo Hyeon-woo Band hadn’t achieved any notable results either.
Which meant that right now, we couldn’t appear on Killing Band.
The production team hadn’t contacted us, and we were just high school kids who’d barely done a broadcast or two, in no position to be making requests.
To make this happen, I’d need to have it out with the production team.
Because we had to be the ones to shoot episode three.
* * *
The break room at Dango Music headquarters.
Kim Min-sang, the producer of Killing Band, didn’t look pleased.
“The view count is pretty dismal, huh?”
“See, I told you bands don’t work.”
“Obviously I figured it’d do worse than hip-hop, but not this bad…”
A week had passed since the first episode of Killing Band, featuring Nabitsumo, went live.
View count: 41,000.
It was pathetic.
Usually, even the worst Killing content series pulls in fifty to one hundred thousand views on the first day alone.
Killing Band, barely surpassing forty thousand after a full week, had gotten off to a disastrous start.
Episode two was already prepared—Bullyangppa, a band with a similar image to Nabitsumo.
It was already filmed and edited.
The production team at Dango Music couldn’t help but think they’d kicked off a pointless project.
And as it was, only the planner was dying inside.
Episode two didn’t look like it would do well either.
-So these are the songs these people sang. Everyone looks way too old
-Did Dango run out of taste? Why are they making content with all these old guys
-When are they gonna call people from? Who’s even gonna watch lol
-Is it true all the comments are from middle-aged dudes
That was the extent of the hate comments on the content.
The rest were supportive, but it was just nostalgic interest from the older generation, nothing more.
Everything else meant viewers had watched it, or rather—started watching and turned it off.
For people unfamiliar with them, Nabitsumo and Bullyangppa tasted the same.
Episode three, planned with Jo Hyeon-woo Band, was the only one worth betting on.
Lately he’d released an album after a long time and appeared on music broadcasts—shouldn’t that give it some firepower?
But the reception for Jo Hyeon-woo Band’s new album wasn’t great either.
In this era dominated by idols and hip-hop, Jo Hyeon-woo Band was pulling respectable numbers within the band scene itself.
But looking at the music market as a whole, even that wasn’t impressive.
“Ugh, it’s a flop. Do I need to write an apology memo?”
“Hey, just scrap it. Let’s do something else. Remember that Killing Dance idea I mentioned?”
“Maybe…”
So bands really don’t work.
He’d been pretty serious about it.
He’d even harbored dreams of sparking a band boom.
That’s why he’d hyped it up beforehand.
He’d roughly mapped out who to cast after Jo Hyeon-woo Band’s episode three.
He’d even sent out preliminary inquiries to several teams.
Maruru Band, Han Ye-jeong, Midori Blues—bands with solid credentials in the Hongdae indie scene—or maybe Destruction.
He’d naturally assumed the content would do well.
That’s why he’d already sent out those advance inquiries.
He’d thought the core fans would come running mad with energy.
Why had he ever thought something so naive?
Did he really expect idol-level fandom momentum from this tiny scene that’s down to just the core fans?
And so his sighs grew heavier.
Bzzzz…
“Hello?”
-Hi PD. This is Jo Hyeon-woo.
“Oh, yes. How’ve you been?”
-Good, thanks to you. Actually, I called about the Killing Band thing—I was wondering if we could grab a meeting sometime?
“A meeting?”
-Do you know of a band called Oktatop?
* * *
After appearing on a music broadcast, we at Oktatop got serious about working on an album.
I mostly wrote the songs, with the others giving feedback and suggestions for revisions.
Kim Ji-hu wanted to try writing a song, so I gave him an assignment to work on one himself.
Usually he was taciturn about everything, but watching him work on his own song, he smiled often—it was nice to see.
At first I thought he’d work alone, but from some point on he stuck with Kang Min, and the two spent whole days just talking about music.
I was genuinely curious what kind of result those two would produce.
While we spent our time like that, working on songs and busking at Banwol Park, the call I’d been waiting for finally came.
-Seo-ha, Hyeon-woo called and said the production team wants to have a meeting.
Hyeon-woo didn’t want us to go there at first.
He was sure we’d get ripped apart, and it’d be pointless anyway.
He even painted a grim picture where the production team wouldn’t write us in.
Naturally we explained that we were going to get roasted on purpose.
We did that while laying out the whole path Oktatop had walked so far.
In the end he sighed and said he’d pass the word along.
But apparently he spoke pretty well about us, because the meeting actually went through.
Now I just need to go into the main game and lay out my pitch right.
* * *
A few days later, Jo Hyeon-seop and I headed to Dango Music headquarters in Yeokgsam-dong.
Has he decided to just be our manager now?
He said we could take the subway, but now he says more people recognize us, so he drives us there.
I’m not quite at that level yet.
In my past life, when I was really big, I had to bundle up whenever I went to the neighborhood mart.
Still, there were one or two people asking for autographs…
Never mind, why am I digging up old memories.
“It might not work out.”
Jo Hyeon-seop started laying out his worries instead of old stories.
“Why?”
I naturally played dumb.
“Did you see episode two when it dropped?”
“Yeah, I saw it. Bullyangppa appeared, right?”
“The view count is terrible. At this rate it’ll be hard to keep going.”
No matter how much a place deals in art as its main content, its real purpose isn’t art—it’s capital.
A company can’t deliver inspiration if there’s no money to be made.
“Hyeon-woo likes you guys and spoke well of you, and we got the meeting, but don’t expect too much.”
“I understand. But it’s fine anyway. That’s exactly what we’re going there to break through.”
I smiled at the manager, and he smiled back like he found it amusing.
The manager probably had that same bold confidence back in his younger days.
“Right, I like the nerve. Let’s do well this time too.”
Somehow his reaction is good.
I really like Jo Hyeon-seop. He’s been so cooperative with us.
After a long drive, we arrived at our destination.
Dango Music headquarters, a place I’d never visited in my past life, felt more like a typical office than I’d expected.
When we got to the meeting room, we exchanged greetings with a producer who was already waiting.
“Hello, I’m Cha Seo-ha. I’m the vocalist for Oktatop.”
“I’m Jo Hyeon-seop, managing this guy.”
“Hello. I’ve heard a lot about you both. I’m Kim Min-sang, the producer in charge of Killing Band.”
This Kim Min-sang, I understood, was someone Hyeon-woo had recommended us to.
The first impression wasn’t bad.
Hyeon-woo must have spoken well of us, like Jo Hyeon-seop said.
But today’s meeting had a high probability of going badly.
Normally, a meeting like this would have the whole band present.
But the production team said it was fine however many came.
And now only Kim Min-sang alone was here from the production side, no other staff.
They weren’t seeing potential in us.
This was just a formality conducted through Hyeon-woo’s recommendation.
More precisely, they thought no one could save this program anyway.
Of course, just these circumstances weren’t proof.
But I know what happens to this program, so I’m saying this.
“Look, to cut to the chase, we did set up this meeting on Hyeon-woo’s recommendation, but it’s kind of a provisional one.”
Kim Min-sang explained the situation matter-of-factly.
What he was basically saying was that we were provisional casting.
The two episodes already uploaded had poor view counts, and if episode three didn’t cross the critical threshold, it would be difficult to produce the next one.
Internally they were probably already considering ending the show, though they didn’t say that outright to us.
“I see. You must have a lot of concerns.”
“That’s how it is for everyone making programs.”
Hearing their situation, I felt like I could be more aggressive about pushing.
“So the main thing is that episode three has to do well, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then we’ll do episode three.”
“Excuse me?”
Quite the bold kid.
After hearing from Hyeon-woo, Kim Min-sang had looked up a bit about Oktatop, but there wasn’t much info apart from their stage performances.
Was he nice and well-behaved? Or an arrogant high schooler?
He’d imagined many scenarios, but it seemed to lean more toward the latter.
“Look, student. We can’t just do that when contracts are already in place.”
“Right, but I understand YouTube channels work pretty differently from TV scheduling. And from what I know, the contract just specifies filming and upload details.”
What? Does this kid know something about the inside?
If this had been a TV program, changing episodes would’ve been a headache.
There’d be plenty of things to consider depending on the cast—scheduling fixes, ads, broadcast standards—all necessary constraints.
But with YouTube? Switching that would take just a few mouse clicks.
But for us, everything depended on what came after episode three.
That’s what we’d been told from above.
Who appears in episode three is a critical question.
“You’re right that it’s not hard to do that, but like I said, episode three is crucial for us—we really need someone with name recognition.”
“Didn’t the earlier episodes also have people with great name recognition?”
He’s poking at the sore spot.
This bold kid’s starting to get on my nerves.
The guy who came with him was apparently famous way back when.
Is he banking on that connection to be so cocky?
He appeared on a music broadcast for the first time not long ago, so did he catch the celebrity bug?
I get that he’s stirred up some buzz lately, but it’s not like he’s Jo Hyeon-woo Band level.
Arrogant kid.
Without that guy sitting next to him, I’d have just sent him home by now.
“I’m not making an unreasonable request either. If you could take a look at this, I’d really appreciate it.”
Cha Seo-ha handed over his smartphone.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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