K-Pop Demon Hunters talk “Golden”: Inside the biggest song of the year

“I just heard the few notes of the beginning, and then I just had tears.”  HUNTR/X and Maggie Kang, co-director of K-Pop Demon Hunters, on making 2025’s biggest song. October 3, 2025

Currently at its eighth week atop the Australian singles chart, and one of seven songs from the film K-Pop Demon Hunters in the ARIA Top 20, Golden will likely remain the biggest song, by any metric, of 2025. Kang, co-creator of the Netflix phenomenon was one of the first to hear a song that has by now pushed well past the boundaries of its animated source material.

The song’s co-writer, and voice of its animated lead singer Rumi, is Ejae. Already a veteran songwriter with K-Pop acts Red Velvet, Aespa and Twice, the 33-year-old Korean-American had written several of the songs that became part of the film’s soundtrack before she was attached to the film. Kang says it was the moment she heard Golden, that she knew the film would receive the backing of the studio, go into production and that the project’s success was, at least creatively, assured.

Songwriter Ejae likes to joke that Golden began at a dentist appointment. “I was on my way to get a gold filling,” she says. “Isn’t that insane? It was all meant to be.” Somewhere between the commute and the chair, the melody hit her. With a glint in her mouth, she rushed home, logged onto Zoom with her co-writer Mark Sonnenblick, and the pair began putting the song together.

“Obviously there's fine-tuning,” says Ejae, “there was a lot of back and forth, but the main hook idea, we got really quickly. When we were done with that we were like, ‘Wait.’  Literally, Mark and I on Zoom and we're like, "Did we just write a hit?"  Like, it sounded so good.”  

Golden is unusual not just for its switch between English and Korean, or its three-octave vocal range that renders it almost impossible for a karaoke singer without operatic training to pull off, but the various roles it has to play. Golden has to be an infectious, maximalist electropop song with huge appeal both in the world of the film, and in ours. It also has to function as a typical “I want” song from a musical – a song that outlines a character’s inner thoughts and their drive to achieve them like How Far I’ll Go from Moana or My Shot from Hamilton – and show that Rumi is battling to work out who she is and what it is that she wants in the first place.

Key to this was the demand from Kang and co-director Chris Appelhans, that the songs in their film require the singers push themselves to the very limit of her vocal range. This straining would give the sense that Rumi was struggling to fit the perfectionism required to be a part of the world’s biggest K-pop band, and to get the sense of commitment from the song’s writer and singer.

Within hours of Ejae’s dental appointment, the film’s music producer Ian Eisendrath had the demo in his inbox. His text back was blunt: This is massive, Ejae. This is a smash. He sent it immediately to Kang, who was in a car on the way to Vancouver airport.

“We were on a phone call, and he's like, ‘Maggie, I just need you to listen to this. Right now.’  And I was like, ‘Okay.’  So I took my AirPods out, and I'm listening to it, and I'm just like, I just heard the few notes of the beginning, and then I just had tears.”  

“Really?” asks Ejae, wide-eyed.  

“Yeah,” says Kang, turning to her. “I knew it was it. I was like, ‘This is it.’"  

“Yeah,” says Ejae. “I knew it too.”

With the film’s key creators on board, Golden had to be arranged to include the other members of the trio that would later be known as HUNTR/X – Audrey Nuna, the singing voice of Mira, and Rei Ami, the singing voice of Zoey. The song also had to function narratively as the band’s “best” single, which meant Kang stepped in to oversee its final transformation.

“When we were writing Golden, which was very hard to write, we wrote many, many different drafts that were very different from what we have now,” she says. “I was constantly asking Ejae, “can you sing higher?"  She's like, "Okay."  And then I’d be like, "No, can we go higher?"  

“And I did it, y'all,” says Ejae. “It took lots of energy.”

Nuna agrees. “Yeah, at this point, we’d had like, three eight-hour rehearsals, six straight hours of vocals. It was like being on theatre camp. We were doing the song over and over again,” says Nuna, “and there was this moment,” she pauses.

“Audrey doesn't comment too much,” Kang interjects. “But when she comments, I mean, she freaking means it.”

“I had an emotional existential crisis,” says Nuna. “I'm emotionally constipated, so I process things very slowly, like probably four to six business weeks delayed. There was a moment I was breaking down in front of you guys,” she continues, turning to the others. “When we locked in,I was like, ‘Oh my god, what's going on? Is this real?’ That was the moment I really felt the three of us connected and we just felt like one unit. That was a really big breakthrough.”

That sense of strain and release carried into the composition itself. For a song that is so catchy, the structure of Golden is surprisingly complex. It begins low in Ejae’s register, promising that it will build both melodically and dynamically. As Rumi, Ejae sings about living two lives and not being able to find her own place, a relatable statement for anyone, but especially for a character who (spoiler for K-Pop Demon Hunters) is part demon and part demon-hunter. This split is echoed musically as the verse moves with chords (A major and G major) that don’t match the scale of the vocal melody (C major). As the song builds it moves through two verses, two choruses and two pre-choruses that double as post-chorus breakdowns.

Unlike the ornamental production of much mid-2020s pop, Golden leans on dynamics and stamina. The verses are hushed and tentative, the pre-chorus lifts, and then the hook detonates with vocals pushed to what sounds like their upper limit. After the climax of the chorus, Ejae sings even higher, fulfilling then exceeding the promise of the song.

For all its polish now, the demo stage was fast and rough. “Verse, pre, to hook then post – all in one day,” Ejae says.

That sense of inevitability – the idea that this song was always waiting to happen – has carried into how it’s been received.

Plenty of fictional bands have put out real hits before, but Golden is different. It hasn’t just sold records or topped charts; it’s become background noise in everyday life. Kids sing it on playgrounds. DJs chop it into four-on-the-floor edits. Politicians quote it to connect with younger voters, for a song that was born out of mythmaking, its ambient presence makes sense. It’s also inspiring other art. Ejae admits to having watched some of the YouTube videos made in response to the song.

“I don’t watch all of them,” she says. “My dad and my mom and my fiance sent me a bunch of videos and it's interesting to watch. 'Cause they're like, "Oh, she's doing this technical skill, and she makes her voice up here," she raises her hand to represent falsetto. “I respect that, but I don't think I was doing that. I know what a mixed voice [a combination of chest voice and falsetto] sounds like and I was definitely not doing a mixed voice – there was a chest voice mixed into the mix. But it’s an interesting experience to watch other singers sing my song.”

Part of the reason for this cross-cultural connection is practical: Golden is easy to latch onto. The hook is simple enough to chant, the vocal peaks high enough to feel cathartic, but it’s also because the song’s origin – sudden inspiration, Zoom session, endless rehearsals – breaks down the distance between idea and artefact. Despite its sheen, Golden sounds unguarded. The effort to hit the high notes is part of the narrative, especially when underpinned by the unity of the group harmonies that follow and support. That’s a quality that Kang says was key to the film as a whole.

“What's so special about K-pop is the relationship between the idols and the fans,” she says. “To honor that, we folded that into the mythology of the film. That's the thing.  That connection is this magical force that fuels this whole movie and that protects the world, and that’s in Golden.”

“It’s such a hard song, but I can sing it with these girls by my side,” Ejae says, nodding to Ami and Nuna.

“I knew it was it,” says Kang. “It was just so magical, right from the beginning. I was like, ‘oh my gosh, we finally got it’.  And then I started crying. And then I cried more 'cause I was like, ‘It's getting better and better.’"  

“And then I hit the high notes,” says Ejae, scrunching up her face and singing: “Up up UP!” 

LIVE REVIEW: Dick Diver, Workhorse

Thornbury Theatre, 1 August, 2025

 

On April 11 of this year, when Dick Diver announced that they would play their first concert in “since 2018 or so”, much of the Australian indie music scene spent the rest of the day reeling. The Melbourne four piece are one of the most gifted acts in this nation’s history at making music and all that goes with it seem effortless, the breezy way they announced their live return was completely in keeping with their collective attitude, and totally in contrast to the rush for tickets; a demand that required three more concerts to be added over the weekend all of which sold out. Even without the announcement of the 10th anniversary release of their album, Melbourne, Florida, the buzz about Dick Diver’s return only grew as tonight’s gig approached. Fittingly, questions about why the band called it a day were met with a shrug and some 

 

Amplifying that casual approach to music and all the attention that accompanies it, is tonight’s opening band, Workhorse. Accurately describing themselves as “Australiana-country-western-dream-pop-shoegaze-band-music”, the five-piece are minus a member, but it’s hard to imagine how much more mellifluous this music could be. Over a background screen showing saturated drone footage of horses running free, much of the musical subtleties, lyrics and humbly delivered between song banter is lost beneath the chatter of a crowded room. Songs move slowly and easily as the long lines trailing away from the venue’s very busy bar. We may not get the details, but the atmosphere is crystal clear. This is exceptional stuff. Fluid, articulate and gently dazzling.

 

Beneath the domed ceiling of the Thornbury Theatre, hundreds of people, most in winter costs or puffer jackets, nurse pints of beer and plastic cups of wine as the band take to the stage. From even before a note is played, there is a sense that these are friends playing to friends. Nothing is going to go wrong, no mistake will be called out and there is no chance of losing the crowd to any other distraction. Posters made by Dick Diver members Steph Hughes and Al Montford adorn the room reminding punters that there is “no pride in genocide”, that anxiety is never really felt alone and other humanitarian concerns, the same concerns that fuel their songs.

 

Opening with early songs Keno, Hammock Days and Walk for Room, the band’s harmonies are radiant, humble and glorious. “How old is it?” asks Montford, “Twenty years? I don’t know.” Time does have a strange quality tonight. The songs so specifically reminiscent of the time of their release in the early 2010s, but sounding so bright and relaxed, the epitome of what so many young and new bands are aiming for. Behind the four members, augmented by a keyboard player, the screen shows the loop of a container ship spinning over the Suez Canal prompts guitarist Rupert Edwards to justify it. “Do you like my GIF? It’s actually an NFT,” he jokes before being asked to explain it. “Don’t you think about supply chains?” he replies, before Hughes clicks their drumsticks and leads the band into one of their best-known songs, Waste the Alphabet, an introduction that elicits a huge cheer from the audience. Water Damage follows before Hughes switches places with Edwards for New Start Again, a song whose chorus, “I’m on Newstart again / ‘Cause something wasn’t working / So I’m on Newstart again” is only potentially about the experience of being unemployed, says Montford. With its chiming guitars and earworm vocal melody, Calendar Days is a highlight – how can it not be? – yet even here, while playing the title track of the band’s best-known album, the stakes feel low. This is a great song, sung immaculately by Hughes, and less immaculately by at least half of the crowd, and it feels like a collective experience. Like the band is just leading us toward something we already know and saying, “here you go”.

 

Back at the drum kit, Hughes laughs.  “I’m about 20 years late but I started a mailing list so if anything happens, we can tell you,” they say, alluding to the possibility of future Dick Diver activities. A trumpet player and saxophone player are introduced for a sterling version of Lime Green Shirt and Year in Pictures, later tracks that see guitarist Alistair McKay and Edwards cutting loose with their guitar sounds, leaving behind their signature jangle for a piercing distortion and carefully blown glassy feedback. “How are we doing,” asks Montford, tucking his long straight hair behind his ear. “Five stars on Google?”

 

As the band move to the final part of their first show in nearly seven years, their voices are now warmed up and sitting together comfortably in the mix. These three and sometimes harmonies are what sets the band ahead of so many other four pieces with two guitars, bass and drums. They’re so easy they feel like they could drift into Fleetwood Mac territory if they wanted to, but they’d rather keep to the roads they’ve hewn together. Alice, Leftovers and a set-closing Head Back, which sees Montford handing out different types of leave to the crowd, “annual leave, sick leave… pro rata”, ensure no one will leave disappointed. Leaving the stage for about 30 seconds, the band return to encore with Flying Teatowel Blues, and a gorgeous version of the closing track for their newly rereleased album, View from a Shaky Ladder. Hughes again showing just how strong and expressive their voice is. The band wave goodbye, share a group hug and declare the show over. As the rugged-up crowd are ushered toward the door by the venue staff, no one seems ready to leave, but then again, no one really has to. They’re back. 

LIVE REVIEW: Supergrass, Rocket Science

Forum Melbourne, June 7, 2025

 

Outside the Forum, Melbourne’s winter and the blue glow of the Rising Festival cast a slick sheen over the rain-soaked pavement. It’s cold and dark. Inside, under the aquamarine night sky of the Forum’s faux-ceiling, there’s warmth, buzz, and a growing sense of anticipation, helped along by booze and in some cases, definitely coke.

 

The year 2002 not only marks the year of the most recent song from the setlist of tonight’s headliners, Supergrass, but it was also the year that Rocket Science, their perfectly cast support band, were one of the shining lights of Melbourne’s rock scene. They open with a brace of dense, riff-driven songs that leave little room for dynamic shifts but plenty of space for frontman Roman Tucker’s Iggy Pop-style contortions. On record, these songs are arresting, but tonight – near the stage at least – the sound is a loud, muddy mess. Inspired by bands who made a virtue of their simplicity, the complexities of Rocket Science’s songs turn them into more of a sonic force than conventional music.  When the band lets some space in, as in the theremin-led What’s Goin’ On and the lurching groove of Being Followed, they’re electric. There is probably a bar in Osaka themed on Rocket Science, and there should be. It would be a shame if this was their last show.

 

In town to play their breakthrough debut album I Should Coco on the 30th anniversary of its release, Supergrass bring an era as much as they bring music. Beginning, as they should, with side one track one, I’d Like to Know, the band lock into gear and remain a pristine machine for the next 90 minutes. Without a rest, mid-pogo, the band veer into Caught By the Fuzz, their first hit and Australia’s first introduction to them.

 

No other band of the mid-1990s filtered the experience of youth through guitar, bass, drums and harmonies like Gaz Coombes, Danny Goffey and Mick Quinn. I Should Coco is filled with songs about being young outsiders in Oxford and visits to London, curious about “strange ones”, not fitting in, and running into authority figures when you try to. And yet, even in the mid 1990s, the stakes feel pretty low. Today, the joy comes more from their evocation of pre-internet adolescence. Trouble and complexity come with later albums. For now, we drink, pogo and sing along to fizzy, near-perfect pop songs that let us be both the cool kids and the “strange ones”.

 

Augmented by Gaz’s brother Rob Coombes, keyboardist, arranger, and full-time member since 2002, the band has aged into something deceptively slick. Rob, nearly invisible at the back of the stage behind a wall of keys, is central to their sound. The songs are played faithfully, and that faithfulness is rewarded by a crowd that meets their energy. The falsetto harmonies that cut through the fizzing urgency of these early songs sound softer and more distant now, but the audience more than makes up for it.

 

“So, we’re here to play I Should Coco,” says Gaz Coombes, grinning. “Here’s track four.” As soon as the piano intro to Alright lands, the floor lifts. For all its simplicity – “just a song about discovering girls and drinking,” Gaz once said – it’s become a generational anthem, handed down and still hollered by twenty-somethings who weren’t born when Clueless hit cinemas. The audience is more diverse than expected, and this song is a big reason why.

 

Lose It follows, then a version of Lenny that expertly toys with its introduction to turn it into a set highlight. Lenny is also a song that drummer Danny Goffey described as his favourite, “because it’s easy. Not like our other songs where you’re sweating it because you might make a mistake coz they’re all complex and stuff.” Goffey introduces the later songs She’s So Loose as being “a song about underage sex with an older woman”, and We’re Not Supposed To as one written when they were “mucking around with Varispeed on a tape recorder, and a little acid.” He also reminds us that “it’s a long weekend for you lot, right? So, no rules.”

 

For the album’s final song, Time to Go, sees them bring out guitar technician Toby to play an acoustic guitar, while Mick and Gaz swap instruments. It’s a beautiful moment of calm before they move into the “hits” section of the show, introduced by Goffey: “I take it you want to hear some more, right? All right let’s go fucking mental.” They oblige with Richard III and Late in the Day and it’s here that it becomes clear just what a songwriting powerhouse Gaz Coombes is, and why they’re much more than youthful nostalgia. Tracks from later albums, but not that much later – Grace, Moving, Sun Hits the Sky – retain the energy, but dig deeper. The arrangements are tighter, the lyrics more often about “you” than “we”. The encore closes with a euphoric Pumping on Your Stereo so good that when the house light comes up and Bill Medley and Jenifer Warnes start singing, I’ve Had the Time of My Life, the whole place joins in. Cheesy, but not inaccurate.