Q. Your sound feels timeless. It evokes The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Motown, yet it still sounds unmistakably like Men And Them. How do you balance those classic influences with a contemporary sensibility?
Marcus Way I think it happens naturally, as someone who loves music from the past but creates in the present with today’s tools. Recreating something perfectly is fun, but lately I’ve realized that simply replicating the past doesn’t carry much meaning. So now I try to blend in new elements whether that’s another genre or a feeling from a different era.
Juho For me, I usually find a sound that feels familiar and then fine-tune it to fit the song. I don’t feel any pressure to exactly reproduce “classic” sounds I don’t think it’s possible or necessary. No matter how much we long for the past, we’re modern people, and whatever we create will inevitably reflect who we are now. That’s a good thing.
Q. Your song “I Really Love You” seems to draw from diverse influences standard pop, doo-wop, the Wall of Sound, even Korean ballads. What first drew you to these styles?
Marcus Way The more music I listened to, the more I sought out something new. That naturally led me further back in time. Older music felt the most different from what I was already hearing, which made it feel refreshing and inspiring.
Q. What’s most important to you when making music? How does the band define what makes a “good song”?
Marcus Way When I worked solo, I created instinctively, following chance and impulse. With Men And Them, I work with clear direction and goals: music that can reach as many people as possible but always music that I love.
Choi Mill A good song is one that brings back the season, the scenery, or the feelings of when you first heard it even years later.
Juho If the songwriter has a strong point of view, we trust that and follow it. It may sound simple, but the most important thing is not to lie. If a song feels like it genuinely says what we wanted to say, then we’re satisfied.
Q. Thank you so much for joining us for this interview! Could you start by introducing the band and each member?
Men And Them Hello, we are Men And Them, here to bring back the golden age of bands.
Marcus Way I’m Marcus Way, the band’s producer and vocalist.
Choi Mill I’m Choi Mill, and I play bass.
Juho I’m Juho, guitarist and vocalist.
Q. What’s the story behind the name “Men And Them”? Does it carry a particular meaning or message?
Juho I actually came up with it while joking around with a non-binary friend. What started as a joke has grown to feel like something broader and more inclusive. It’s a bit of “dream interpretation.”
Marcus Way I’d say it also reflects the idea that we can’t be defined by just one thing.
Q. Your band name includes the word “Them”, and it feels like your music and visuals often carry a perspective on “the other.” Where does this sensibility come from?
Marcus Way We’re all very different, yet similar at the same time. Even people who seem distant from us, people we might avoid because they’re so unlike us they still live with the same struggles. I want to sing about things that many people can relate to.
Juho I’m not that interested in people who already have everything. For me, music was always a refuge, and I see myself as someone building a door for those who need an escape.
Outside of music, what hobbies or interests are you each into these days? What are you like offstage?
Marcus Way I’ve been watching the latest season of Black Mirror. I think it’s one of the most creatively brilliant shows in the world.
Juho I’ve gotten into photography lately. I use a simple point-and-shoot camera, and since I already enjoy walking, it goes well together. Someday, I’d love to try walking all the way from Seoul to Busan.
Choi Mill Recently I’ve been interested in visual art.
Q. What’s the most memorable reaction you’ve received from fans since releasing your songs? A moment when you felt, “We’re on the right track”?
Marcus Way For me, it was when the YouTube channel Moneygraphy introduced us as an artist to “buy low,” alongside Grammy and Brit Award winners.
Juho Recently, fans surprised us with a cake for our one-year debut anniversary. We didn’t even realize it was our anniversary! That made us realize there are people watching us with deeper love and attention than we imagined.
Choi Mill Whenever fans or audience members tell us after a show that it was a great performance—that’s when I feel we’re doing well.
Q. Who usually directs your music videos? Do you get involved in the visual concepts yourselves?
Marcus Way We usually discuss the music videos together with our director friends. As for the album artwork, that’s my responsibility.
Juho It depends on the project. If we’re working with a director, we first listen to their ideas and then adjust from there. When we do things in-house, the members scout locations, share ideas, and put it all together ourselves.
Q. Music videos like “Down On Me” and “Free Like A Bird” feel almost like short plays—each with its own concept, setting, and mood. Could you tell us the stories behind those songs?
Marcus Way The lyrics for “Down On Me” were co-written by me, Juho, and Mako—the friend who helped come up with the band’s name. Maybe that’s why the song feels so complex. Each of us brought different forms of emptiness, and those messy, imperfect feelings made the song even more intense.
Juho With “Down On Me,” I honestly had no idea what the story was while writing it, I was confused the whole time. It was like waiting for a baby to be born. I kept tweaking the lyrics until one day it finally clicked. The story is about an ordinary person repeating self-destructive behavior, yearning for salvation within it. What’s funny is, we hadn’t told the director anything, yet he suggested shooting in a church.
“Free Like A Bird” is about liberation through love. To visualize that freedom, we actually needed spaces that felt like cages abandoned playgrounds, old apartment blocks, brutalist structures.
Q. Do you usually plan the narrative before writing, or does it emerge naturally as the song develops?
Marcus Way Most of the time, the story develops naturally during the writing process. What matters most is expressing the emotion.
Juho It depends. Some songs feel like they’re born ready, walking and talking right away. Others need to stay in the incubator for a long time while we watch over them.
Q. In the “Down On Me” video, the scene of a lone figure dancing inside a church was striking. How did that idea come about?
Juho That was the director’s idea. Since it was a confined church space, we felt it needed someone with professional movement skills to express it physically, so we agreed.
Q. Lastly, is there anything you’d like to say to readers who are discovering Men And Them for the first time?
Marcus Way Please give our music a listen and if it speaks to you, I hope to see you at a show someday. Men And Them is a band trying to create a new wave.
Juho It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you for remembering us, and I hope one day we can meet in person.
Choi Mill Keep watching us to see what we’ll become.
SPiRiT ARTIST INTERVIEW 08