LØREN IS NOT ALONE

The South Korean prodigy found comfort in alt-rock's universal depths; now he's sharing space with his heroes

- Riddhi Chakraborty

It's 1:30 AM in South Korea when Løren appears on my Zoom screen. He's dressed in a black sweatshirt with his dark hair loose, no makeup, and his smile is radiant. Tucked in his studio with keyboards and a sound booth behind him, he assures me the ungodly hour isn't an issue. "This is like midday for us," he explains with a laugh, spinning a sleek little vape between his fingers. "Our company operates very late, so this is perfect timing." Overall, it's a softer image than I was expecting. His Instagram and music videos paint a more intimidating picture as he blazes across our feeds - impossibly tall and cigarette in hand, draped in tattoos and oozing confidence - it's exactly the kind of glamorous image that pop culture connects to the traditional 'rockstar.' But behind the scenes, he's happy to relax and let that larger-than-life version of himself recede so that the shy emo inside can take over.

Løren is towards the end of what he calls the 'longest day' but in truth, it's been a whirlwind of action for the 28-year-old a lot longer than that. Along with the release of his debut EP Put Up A Fight in March and signing with Asian-American music giant 88rising for its distribution, 2023 has been packed full of performances at some of the world's biggest music festivals including SXSW, Head in The Clouds and Coachella. In fact, getting a hold of him for this interview involved a few months' coordination between our teams before we realized that waiting for him to return to his home base in Seoul for a breather between trips seemed like the best bet. "I just recently flew back. I did a show in Taiwan. It was fun," he says cheerfully. He's set to fly out to Berlin two days after our conversation for a Saint Laurent show and has several more performances planned over the next few months. "It's like straight back to rehearsals after this, because we have a couple of other events coming up in like July, August-ish."