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HPK: Well, I think what it was, my generation was probably the first generation that our family,
I mean our parents, could afford to send us to things like piano lessons because back in the day,
South Korea went through drastic changes from the war and then just kind of very fast
development. So when I was a little kid, sending kids to piano lessons was a thing. Like everybody,
all the kids went to take lessons. But I'm from a very small town and I was taking lessons largely
classical music lessons. But I think at the time I didn't have enough inspiration, such as going to
a concert and really loving the classical music at the time. So just taking lessons, what's on the

book, just wasn't interesting to me at the time, and so I didn't keep up with it. And then I just
started playing more at home. I played by ear and stuff like that a lot.
BiTS: You say you play by ear, but do you actually read music, have you learned to read music?

HPK: Yeah, I could, but I'm not really good at it. I'm not really fast at it [chuckles].

BiTS: [Laughing] Bit like me. I can do it, but I'm
very, very slow.

HPK: Yeah, yeah. But it's good to know. And I still
sometimes, once in a while, sit down and try to
practise some of the classical pieces, but it will be
horrible if somebody ever heard me trying to do it.

BiTS: You play a lot of boogie-woogie but also
some jazz and blues as well. What is your favourite
kind of music to play?

HPK: It's hard to pick. Definitely jazz and blues,
and honestly, they are related anyway, so I cannot
just pick one or the other. One thing I love about
jazz is it's kind of endless, what you can do with it.
And one thing I love about the blues is no matter
Thelonious MonkMonk what, it always makes me feel better. So it's hard
to pick one or the other. I think they are pretty
much, in a way, the same thing. I don't think they can be separated.

BiTS: Do you have any favourite musicians that you think have influenced you? You're aware
that you play some of their style or something like that?

HPK: That's too hard to pick because as you know, there have been way too many great
musicians. I definitely take someone like Thelonious Monk as my idol, as someone I really look
up to. When it comes to blues as a piano player, I love musicians like Otis Spann and things like
that, but it's really hard to pick one.

BiTS: It's most unusual to have people mention Thelonious Monk to me. He's one of my
favourites. I must say Thelonious is one of my favourites.

HPK: So special. Right, I think he's like a musical saint, something that's so beautiful. Just
everything is there.

BiTS: Now I don't quite understand how you ended up in America. What happened to you? Were
you starting to play live or something in South Korea and moved here, or did you move with your
parents? Or what happened?

HPK: No, even sometimes I look at my life so far, everything that happened, it surprises me like
how did I get here? But actually, I graduated from college with a business degree in South Korea