Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Exclusive: Recording Love Story with Rain

Double Dragon talks to K-popped! about Rain and what went on behind the scenes during the recording of the English version of Love Story and Rainism.

On the day Rain recorded the English version of Love Story, the singer had to record the Japanese and Chinese versions as well. Phew!

Roy Chong of Double Dragon Productions said: “We were booked at Velvet studios in Gangnam, Seoul. It was going to be a two day affair. The first day was slated for Love Story.”

Makin' music: (L-R) Elmo Chong, Rain, Roy Chong and one of Rain's
in-house producers Tae

Rain was running late and when the 27-year-old Korean sensation arrived, he looked every inch the superstar: black leather jacket, aviators and scarf complete with a superstar strut.

“At first, we thought, ‘Oh boy, he will be hard to work with'," Roy recalls, "but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He was a little shy at first but we all warmed up to each other once we started working.”

Of Love Story and Rainism

Love Story and Rainism were recorded in the same session. While the former track took about three hours to record (Rain struggled a little with “R” and “L” sounds), the latter was recorded in about 20 minutes.

The Chong brothers were very picky with Rain's pronunciation, but the star was patient. It was important to them that Rain sounded as natural as possible. While in the studio, they isolated a lot of the common problem sounds Korean people have.

“For example, Koreans tend to pronounce 'V' as 'B', 'R' as 'L', 'F' as 'P', and 'Z' as 'J'. Every word that fell into any one of these traps we kept recording until Rain nailed it. It took some time, but he was patient and didn't get too frustrated – he’s an extremely hard worker,” Roy says of the Energizer Bunny.



The elder of the brothers goes on to explain that singing and speaking in English are very different and they had to coach Rain on how to pronounce certain words “to give them more swag.”

“For instance, in the line: My heart’s gonna wait forever... the word forever sounds too hard when you sing it with the 'R' sound. So instead by singing: My heart’s gonna wait foreva...the phrase isn't over pronounced and sounds much better.”

Meanwhile, Rainism was much easier to record because most of the song was already in English.

Rain (the) man

As the day wore on, Rain became more comfortable with the brothers, who discovered that the Ninja Assassin actor is quite personable.

Personable Rain?: I guess it's something you'll
have to discover for yourself


“He asked us about our life in Canada and we got to share our backgrounds a bit. He was (even) yelling, ‘Double Dragon!!’ in the booth, imitating how hip-hop artists drop our moniker in their songs.”

Well, that won't be the last time Roy and Elmo Chong meet Rain - or hear him yell "Double Dragon" - as the pair are planning to work with λΉ„ again on his next album ;-). Cool bananas!

Related:

Exclusive: Double Dragon talks music and Rain

Rain's original Love Story translation

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