BO RA expresses herself through her music

FEATURE

The Cherry Bullet member discusses her vocals and songwriting

2023.04.19

Credit

Article. Lee Yejin

Photo Credit. FNC Entertainment

Girl group vocalist survivor show V-1. The joint Korea–China–Japan girl group search Girls Planet 999: The Girls Saga. Girl group survivor variety show GIRL’S RE:VERSE. Cherry Bullet’s BO RA took part in all of these, and for each of them she reaffirms her position as a legendary main vocalist who’s never afraid of a new challenge. We caught up with BO RA and asked her about what she’s hard at work at these days: singing songs, and making them, too.

Before she was a singer

BO RA: My mom majored in piano and thanks to that I grew up in an environment where music was always around. I came by piano and classical singing naturally. I wasn’t good at piano like my mom because of my short fingers (laughs) so I slowly lost interest, but I liked singing. Sometimes my mom would play piano and I would sing as she played. That was so fun. That’s when it really started hitting me how much I loved singing. I kept up with it but stopped for a while when I started middle school so I could concentrate on studying. That’s when I really started to miss singing and music and it was the first time I thought about how I wanted to keep singing. But my mom said it was hard for her to do music her whole life starting from when she was young. She said she didn’t want me leading that kind of life because it’s a difficult and demanding life path but I wanted to sing so badly that I did singing with the school rock band without telling her. (laughs) It was so much fun making a song come alive in a band setting with all the instruments and vocals put together. It was really exciting performing in front of people, too. That’s when I felt certain I wanted to keep singing and have an impact on people and be influenced by them too, so I admitted to my mom that I was in the band and told her directly that I dreamed of being a singer.

Singing practice

BO RA: If there’s a song I really like, or one with a technique I want to try for myself, first I listen to it a lot and then try singing it. Every song has a unique feel arising from its melody and the lyrics. I get a feel for that first and then I figure out what singing style I should use for the first part of the song. For example, with a song like “Don’t Go Today,” I think about what would make it still sound delicate while fully capturing the melancholy that comes with desperately hoping someone doesn’t leave you. Then, with “Maria,” I thought about how the song is generally hopeful and there are parts that are refreshing like a cool drink, so I practice singing it a little sharper and stronger to express that. First I usually try imitating the way the singer of the original does it and their details exactly, then I practice finding the style that works best for me by singing in my own voice while adding little variations to it. For example, when I tried singing “Kill This Love” by BLACKPINK, I was curious how it would sound if I changed it into an acoustic version. Then I tried making the rap more melodic and considered how to capture the extravagance and intensity of the original. I think I’m like a chameleon and my vocal style lets me pull off lots of different vibes when I cover songs.

BO RA’s specialty: high notes

BO RA: My mom can reach even higher notes than me. (laughs) I grew up hearing my mom and my vocal teacher singing and thinking that was an average range. Eventually, after singing a lot of pop songs, I never really felt strained even singing the high notes, and that’s how I found out I can sing relatively high. It might be partly genetic but I think I also learned to sing higher and higher from studying singing ever since I was young. I also practice a lot to hit the high notes properly. Sometimes I alternate between practicing singing high notes with a tender voice and hitting them more intensely.

Change and growth

BO RA: I wasn’t very confident when I first debuted. I felt sort of flustered. Am I singing this right? What’s my singing style? I guess I felt pressured by the idea that all the practicing I did meant I had to sing really well. But with so many people liking my songs now, I’m more confident in myself, and I’m a little better acquainted with my range now that I’ve been working awhile. I felt like, if I can sing in this many different styles, I can find one to suit whatever song I’m singing, and now I feel freer when I’m singing.

Lots of people liked songs like “Don’t Go Today” and “My sea” and said I sang well on them but when I look back all this time later I hear things I could’ve done differently and feel like I want to do them over again—especially when I sang “Don’t Go Today” on V-1, since it was my very first time going up on stage alone, so I was extremely nervous and didn’t believe in myself. But I tried to channel that nervousness anyway, thinking it fit the emotion of the song, which is about being afraid of being left by someone. When I covered it again later, though, I was a little more calm and collected, and I was able to really focus on the emotions I wanted to convey. A lot of people said the high part in “My sea” was amazing, and I’m glad they liked it, but I still felt like there were parts where I could’ve conveyed the meaning better and I wanted to better capture the story and feeling in the song, so I recorded it again. For some reason, I always feel like every song I sang I could’ve expressed it a little better.

Three survivor shows

BO RA: I was really scared the first time I went on a survivor show. I found that atmosphere of some people advancing and some people being eliminated to be really stressful ever since I was a trainee. Singing, getting feedback and waiting to see what that would lead to was mentally taxing but receiving instant feedback on my singing helped me to better understand what kind of reaction I would get from singing a song a certain way and it was an opportunity for me to feel more confident about my singing as well. I practiced especially hard for Girls Planet, with my whole thought being, I’m BO RA, Cherry Bullet’s main vocalist. I knew I should do a good job because I was the main vocalist for Cherry Bullet. But the mentors always said, “We can trust BO RA,” and the other contestants also told me, “I feel more at ease with you around. You’re very reassuring.” After hearing that, I realized I didn’t have to feel that pressured and could just enjoy myself. I thought, If people believe in me this much, I should be able to believe in myself, too, and take it easy when I sing.

Providing the voice of JIPSUNHUI on RE:VERSE

BO RA: I felt liberated speaking and singing as JIPSUNHUI instead of myself. I lightened up and thought, No matter what I say or how I sing, it’s SUNHUI who’s really doing it, so all I have to do is make sure I show what makes her special. I had a ton of fun. People loved her way more than I expected. It reminded me that people love it even when I’m just a voice. I guess my voice is good enough that I can feel confident about singing. SUNHUI’s done singing now and it’s time for me to be the voice of BO RA again. I hope when people think about the voice I gave SUNHUI that they also check me out again for my work with Cherry Bullet too.

“Stardust” and other covers

BO RA: When I’m performing as part of our group, I’m keeping in step with Cherry Bullet’s image and identity, but sometimes I also want to show a bit of a different side of me and express myself in different ways, which is why I cover a lot of songs. I’m really satisfied with how “Stardust” turned out. I uploaded it on my birthday and I really like how it went. That song let me sing in a different way than the ones I usually sing. I tried to sing more breathily and with a little more resonance. I thought it would be nice to show Lullet exactly what I wanted to express to them and say exactly what I wanted to tell them so I not only directed and edited it myself but also scouted the location and rented the outfit. I think taking control of it from start to finish helped me come across a little more natural than in cover videos I did before. I wanted to show Lullet that natural side of me and sing to them in a relaxed voice. Listen! Listen up! (laughs)

Songwriting is fun

BO RA: I went to an art school, where I learned how to write music and lyrics. I had a lot of fun writing lyrics and making melodies. Ever since then it’s been something of a hobby for me. Sometimes I read a letter from Lullet and say, “Whoa! I gotta make this phrase into lyrics!” (laughs) And I open up my notes and start writing a song. That’s exactly what I did when I took all the lovely words Lullet’s wrote me and put them all together into “From to.” I’m learning how to do MIDI these days so I’m also making melodies. I’m really passionate about writing lyrics though, and there’s so many new songs with beautiful lyrics that tell good stories that I take a look at how other lyricists are tackling these ideas and think about how I would deal with the same themes. When I write lyrics, they’re far from realistic. I end up writing unlikely comparisons no matter what the subject matter is and expressing things metaphorically. I don’t really like realistic stories in books either. (laughs) I mostly read science fiction—like things about deep space exploration—and fantasy, so those kinds of books are my reference when I’m writing lyrics. I interpret situations and stories in a really heartwarming and special way and I think I have a tendency to want to write that way.

I used to only write lyrics that were big and impressive like what I read in books, but lately I think, How would I write about this if I were a character in a book? I absolutely love the characters in Chung Serang’s book The Only Hana on Earth and I really wanted to write a song about someone from outer space, so I tried it. I also wondered about what kind of song Na Hee-do and Back Yi-jin from the show Twenty Five Twenty One would sing. I really love books, dramas and movies, and I get a lot of ideas and a lot of influence from them.

“A Winter Star,” by BO RA and HAE YOON

BO RA: Fans know that I wrote the song “Becoming My Dawn” about a star that turns into a person. “A Winter Star” is about my stars—the people who warm up and light up my life even when it’s cold and dark. First I came up with the idea of being filled with the coldness of winter and the idea of a winter star, then I worked with HAE YOON on the overall tone and the lyrics. I’m an extreme idealist but she’s very realistic. I wanted to make it more beautiful and mix in some similes and metaphors to make it exciting, and she wanted it to move people and still be realistic, so the song was neither too idealistic nor too realistic. It ended up being a perfectly balanced song and we were really happy with it. When I found out a song we made completely without any help from the label was going to be released, I started thinking about how nice it would be if I could give official releases to all the songs I’ve made up to this point.

Why she works so hard

BO RA: I have just one goal: to be the kind of artist who can be supporting and comforting to all the people who listen to my songs and watch my performances—someone who’s a good influence. I want to be the kind of singer that Lullet can truly be proud of.