Spotlight Session -
Spotlight Session -
[ExClusive Interview] Meet Jay Chang The Artist Turning Life Into A Melody
In a candid interview, Jay Chang, the artist behind ‘Neighborhood’ opens up about the inspiration, creative process, and growth behind his latest album. Rooted in childhood memories and the complexities of adulthood, the album explores themes of nostalgia, personal evolution, and the freedom of self-expression. For Jay Chang the artist, music is a life-long companion; Melody discusses the immense growth he has had over the past year—through solo releases, international tours, and appearances on major platforms like ‘Boys Planet’
What was your inspiration for Neighborhood? What did the creative process look like for you when creating this album?
“Neighborhood's inspiration. I would say definitely my childhood, nostalgia, that was the main inspiration behind the album. I just wanted to convey feelings of warmth and recollection. When it came to writing the music, it was definitely a lot of me just looking back on my life where I am now…. specifically with the title track song, what I wanted to do mainly for that was kind of think about being an adult and what kind of stress it gives us or how much time we don't have anymore and a lot of responsibilities that we have now. Remembering how free being a child was; basically just staying true to yourself those are the things that I thought about while writing the title track.”
“A lot of the other songs that I wrote on the album took feelings from around the time when I was just dreaming of becoming an artist and inspired me to do music as I do it now.”
Do you have a favorite lyric off the album?
“My song ‘Four Seasons’ that's one of the songs on the album. My favorite lyric on that one is ‘with every season comes every reason to start again’. That's my favorite line off of the album; I wrote that one, five years ago and it's finally coming out on this album. I would say at least in my life that lyric has probably stood the test of time as my journey as an artist has grown and it's still very relevant to me”
What does it mean to get to create music to you?
“It's the world to me; music has been in my life for about as long as I've been on earth. And having a musician father definitely influenced that for sure. I don't really know anything other than music to be honest. If music suddenly disappeared one day. I would probably also disappear because we are one in the same”
What are some musical influences or musicians that you look up to?
“Oh there's a lot of those! If I name a few, I'd say as a musician, probably the bands that I listened to growing up, Green Day or Yellowcard. Those are definitely huge influences for me. As a vocalist, I have gotten a lot of inspiration from different names in the pop scene, definitely like Bruno Mars, Sam Smith, John Legend. In the Kpop scene, probably Taeyang, Crush, lots of different names and lots of different talented vocalists that have influenced my vocal style”
What are you top three dream collaborations?
“I would say Bruno Mars is definitely up there for sure. John Legend would be pretty cool. For a third, I would say probably this singer named NiKi
Are there any genres you want to explore?
I would love to explore many different genres with this album, specifically I ventured a little bit into soul territory. I would love to kind of dive a little bit deeper into there because I really love listening to soul music specifically like gospel music style itself and it's definitely something that inspires me a lot these days. And, I would love to pay my respects to all the artists before me and hopefully create something on my own”
How do you feel like you've grown and changed as an artist, especially within the past year having done boys planet, One Pact, build up, BDU, and even going on tour.
“Since my first debut at the end of last year until now, the entire year has been an absolute learning experience for me with a bunch of different avenues as a musician, whether it be my solo music or performing on stage with a group of guys. This year is definitely broadened my horizons as an artist and I would say that I'm very happy and honored to be able to walk down this path and I’m excited to see where it goes”