I never expected to end up singing George Strait in a basement bar in Hongdae. But here I am—boots dusty from a shoot in Gyeonggi, a borrowed Fender in my hands, and a Korean audience humming along to “Amarillo by Morning” like it’s been theirs all along.
My name’s Daniel Kim. I’m a 29-year-old Korean-American from Austin, Texas, raised on BBQ, Bible camp, and Willie Nelson. I moved back to Seoul two years ago—initially to work in branding for a music startup, but I stayed for something else entirely: country music.
Yes, that country music.
The Soundtrack of Somewhere Else
I grew up thinking country was synonymous with the American South—tumbleweeds, denim, dusty roads, and heartbreak. But after years of bouncing between tech jobs in San Francisco and Seoul, I started noticing something unexpected on the edges of Korean youth culture: steel guitars, harmonicas, cowboy boots. Not ironically. Not mockingly. Earnestly.
There’s a small but growing underground scene in Seoul where country, bluegrass, and Americana have found surprising fans, especially among Gen Z and young millennials. They’re remixing it—not just mimicking the Nashville sound, but folding in Korean lyrics, blending it with trot and indie pop, and channeling it through their own generational anxieties.
You’ll find them in places like Rootstock, a basement bar in Itaewon that hosts monthly Americana nights, or out in the countryside of Gangwon-do, where hobbyist songwriters gather for weekend songwriting retreats inspired by Johnny Cash and BTS in equal measure.
Finding My Band
I joined a band last spring—one that calls itself Chilgok County Revival, a nod to both our lead singer’s hometown and the Grand Ole Opry. We’re five musicians from different walks of life: a jazz bassist who studied in New York, a drummer who used to tour with a K-pop group, a sound engineer turned fiddler, and a Korean lit major who writes our lyrics in a blend of dialects from Daegu and Jeonju.
When I asked why they played country, our lyricist Min-kyu just shrugged and said, “It feels honest. Even the sadness is simple.”
We perform mostly in Korean, sometimes switching mid-verse into English. The audience doesn’t mind—they sway, cheer, and sometimes cry. It’s not about understanding every word. It’s about feeling something real.
Why Korea, Why Now?
It might seem odd that country music would take root in Korea, a place with little cowboy history. But in a way, the emotional terrain matches perfectly.
Many of our songs are about longing—for home, for someone gone, for something lost in the churn of a hypermodern society. Country’s themes of heartbreak, working-class struggle, family ties, and faded dreams resonate deeply in a Korea grappling with economic uncertainty, a collapsing birthrate, and rising social isolation.
According to Statistics Korea, the number of single-person households reached a record high of 33.4% in 2023. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, and mental health is an increasing concern. Country music—melancholic, grounded, emotionally direct—offers a salve.
It’s also a rebellion. In a society where conformity is often expected, donning a cowboy hat and playing outlaw songs becomes a quiet act of defiance.
The Global Remix
What we’re doing isn’t just mimicry—it’s a cultural remix. Korea has long excelled at absorbing and transforming global influences: jazz in the 1950s, rock in the ’80s, hip-hop in the 2000s, and now, country music in the 2020s.
Young Koreans are finding in Americana not a foreign culture, but a mirror. In their own stories of family pressure, failed exams, missed opportunities, and small town heartbreak, they hear echoes of Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard.
There’s even a TikTok scene emerging—videos of Gen Zers crooning Korean-trot-infused Hank Williams covers from their bedrooms. On Douban in China and Twitter in Japan, fan translations of Korean country lyrics are spreading.
Singing Both Sides
For me, country music has become a way to hold both sides of my identity. I’m not fully American anymore, and never fully Korean. But onstage, strumming along to a song we wrote about an old family house in Andong, I feel more at home than I ever have.
We recently performed at a music festival in Busan, in front of a crowd of a few hundred. As we played our closing number—“Rain Falls in Chilgok,” a slow waltz about a father who never said goodbye—I saw an ajumma in the front row wiping away tears. Later, she told us it reminded her of her own father who passed during the pandemic.
That’s the thing about country music: it’s not about where you’re from. It’s about what you’ve lived.
Written By Daniel Kim
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