If you want to see something truly different at this year’s Chester Live, you need look no further than South-Korean rock duo ‘57’. Pronounced as ‘Oh Chill’ in Korean, the two-piece band consists of guitarist and vocalist Junhong Yun and drummer Seol Kim. The duo have received glowing reputations in South Korea, winning first place in the KT&G Band Discovery auditions as well as performing at various major festivals there. Heavily influenced by Scottish alt-rock giants Biffy Clyro, 57 insist they will be bringing with them a performance ‘like seething lava’.

They are set to rock the Saddle Inn on June 23rd. Chester Live caught up with 57 to discuss Chester Live as part of their UK tour.

First of all, how are you guys doing? What have you been up to recently?

Seol: Everything’s going pretty well. We’re having to do a lot of English interviews at the moment, so I seem to be spending the majority of my time with my nose stuck in an English dictionary!

Junhong : Hello, yeah everything is pretty good at the moment. We are super busy getting ready for this tour and at the same time we’ve been recording a new single and preparing demos for our next album as well! So we’re pretty tired, but having fun at the same time!

Chester Live is going to bring you all the way to the UK. Have you played in the UK before, and what do you like / dislike about playing here?

Seol: The only thing I disliked was having to lug around so much luggage. That was a real pain in the ass. Everything else was amazing! This year we are going to have a car, so it should be a bit easier on that front.

Junhong: We went over to the UK last year for a couple of shows, including an appearance at Liverpool Sound City. Everything was really great, there wasn’t anything I didn’t enjoy about the experience at all. One really cool thing that happened was that I got a gift from an Artist. Right after we finished playing he came up to me and gave me this really cool oil painting. It was really touching and although we could not communicate so well because of language difficulties, it was great that we could communicate and make a connection with our art. Oh, and the sound engineers …. All the engineers we met were so enthusiastic and serious about their jobs. That was really cool to see, and something that is quite different from here in Korea.

Are you excited to perform?

Seol: Yes, of course! There’s nothing more fun than a performance.

Junhong: Sure~! I cannot wait to get out there and start playing. This tour is really our first serious tour. Until now we would go and play just a few shows somewhere before coming back to Korea. But this time we are on the road for almost two months and have 25 shows. It’s going to be exhausting but I think it will be an amazing experience. I hope that we grow as a band, and we are of course really looking forward to meeting loads of other bands and hopefully making lots of new fans along the way.

What sort of energy are you going to bring? Mosh pits or something calmer?

Seol: We flow and sometimes explode, Just like seething lava.

Junhong: We’ll give you a bit of both i think! Some of our
songs are high energy and will hopefully get a few people moshing about, but we have a few slower, calmer ones to give everyone a rest as well. We’ll give you lots of energy and emotion!

What are your plans after Chester Live? Are you moving on elsewhere in the UK or are you going back overseas?

Junhong: Our tour actually starts in May. We will be playing Focus Wales Festival and then taking in shows all over the the UK before going to France, Germany and Poland for some gigs as well. We actually have 18 shows booked in the UK at the moment, and will hopefully add a few more if we can (you can see the full tour dates below). We are looking forward to playing them all, but in particular we are looking forward to playing at the legendary Dublin Castle in London (May 17th) and The Prince Albert with our friends Atlas Wynd who we met out here in Korea when they came to play last year. We also have a big show up in Edinburgh at a place called Stramash. That show is being put on by some of our friends in a band called Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5 as part of their Yellow Movement charity show series. It’s going to be great! Of course, we’re looking forward to Chester Live as well. We’re super excited when we found out we’d be playing. Our show at Chester Live will be one of the last shows on the tour. After Chester, we have two shows in Wales and then we will head back to Korea. We better start working to pay off the debts! Once we get back home we will step up production on the new album and hopefully do a tour in Korea as well. Once we have recovered anyway!

Is there anything you’d like to say to get everyone hyped up for your performance?

Seol: Come along and have a beer with us! We like drinking!

Junhong: Hey!! Chester~! Come on out to The Saddle lnn on June 23rd. Come and make fire with us and our friends Patients & Shin Seol Hee. It’s free! See you there.

57 will be playing the ‘Korea Rocks’ event at The Saddle, Chester as part of Chester Live 2017.

The event is FREE entry.

More information can be found at www.chesterlive.co.uk