Kim Gun-mo says guitar carried him through 6 years

Kim Gun-mo has released 'Where Am I Going?' after 10 years, SBS Entertainment News reported, describing it as a remake of Jeon Young's 1977 song of the same name. The report said Kim, who had worked for nearly 30 years as a singer and had set a world record through album sales, spent the past 6 years away from the performance routine associated with his earlier career.

In the interview, Kim said he had played piano every day for 28 years but had barely played it during the past 6 years. He told SBS Entertainment News that seeing the piano brought back what had happened, and that he had not planned to perform or make music. He said he had thought honestly about stopping.

Kim said the turning point came when he watched MBN's 'Oppa Generation' and heard 'Wings' performed on the program. He said the lyrics 'rise up' and 'youth, run with your dreams' struck him, and that he later met the singer who had performed it. Kim said the sequence made him think, 'God has not abandoned me yet,' and that from that day he felt he should make music again.

The report said Kim practiced guitar at least 4~5 hours a day without missing a day, and rode a bicycle 100km a day before playing guitar from evening to dawn. Kim said he rode every day and did little else, while his manager stayed with him almost every day for around 3 years. He said he had suddenly become someone with no concerts, no schedule and nowhere to go after waking up, but the guitar kept him going.

Kim said he first approached the recording with the thought, 'let us just try recording once,' not with a plan to release an album. He said he practiced the guitar he had taught himself from evening until dawn, then called the performer of 'Wings' around 5 a.m. to ask questions about whether he could play a passage that way. Kim said the explanations drew him deeper into guitar, adding that the new song is not a 'revival' or a 'comeback' but the debut of 'Kim Gun-mo playing guitar' after 'piano Kim Gun-mo' had ended.

Kim said the recording that remained on the release came from a time when he was at his hardest point. He told SBS Entertainment News that he sang and played guitar comfortably in the studio, and that when he tried recording it again later, it did not have the same feeling. He said the natural emotion of the earlier recording sounded better to him afterward.

Kim said he wanted the song to reach people who have lost family members, people who have lost loved ones and people going through a difficult time. Citing the film 'Coco,' he said he believes people continue to live while others remember them. He also said he hoped listeners would look back and ask themselves, 'Where am I now?' and 'Have I lived well so far?'

On his Busan concert after 6 years, Kim said he knelt and cried because he was grateful to see people who had waited for him. He said he later heard that staff members who had waited since the concert halted in 2019 also cried, along with a younger colleague who came to Busan to support him and the manager who rode bicycles with him every day. Kim said he now plays guitar for 4 hours a day, calling piano an instrument his body already remembers and guitar something he is still learning from the beginning.

This is not a revival or a comeback. To me, it is like a debut song in which piano Kim Gun-mo has ended and Kim Gun-mo playing guitar greets the world for the first time.

The guitar seems to have helped me endure.

I want to make music that is fun for me and also fun for the people who listen. That is who I am now.