Q&A: Hojean Is Still Figuring It Out — The Artist on ‘Prescription,’ ‘Climb On’ and Creating Without Boundaries
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY ALICIA ZAMORA ☆
HOJEAN IS FOLLOWING HIS CURIOSITY—For Hojean, making music has always been about seeing what happens. He taught himself how to produce, never felt the need to stick to one genre, and has always wanted to be involved in what he creates. These days, he’s taking that same approach to figuring himself out, both personally and artistically. He’s still confused about a lot, but he also says he’s starting to feel more like himself.
That feeling has found its way into his recent music. A lot of Hojean’s creativity seems to come from simply giving himself space. He spends a lot of time alone, whether he’s making music in his room, sitting in a movie theater, or somewhere out in the city, paying attention to whatever catches his mind. That time has become less about having an answer and more about seeing what comes up naturally. It’s also given him a different relationship with his music, one where he can step back from the production and actually feel what he’s made.
Now, he’s curious about what comes next. Maybe it’s a new sound, a new experience or even falling in love and seeing what that does to his music. He doesn’t really know yet, and that seems to be exactly where Hojean wants to be.
Read Luna’s conversation with Hojean below to get to know more about the artist.
LUNA: Before we get into everything you’ve been working on, tell us a little about you. Who is Hojean these days?
HOJEAN: Hojean is so confused about everything these days, including himself! I'm definitely in the process of figuring myself out artistically and personally, and this is actually a good thing! For once in my life, I’m starting to feel most like myself. I’m learning as I live life, accepting what comes next, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling!
LUNA: What part of yourself do you think shows up in every song, even when you’re not intentionally putting it there?
HOJEAN: I’m not quite sure, but it’s fun because I’ve had some fans of my music tell me they can hear a song in public and have a feeling that it’s me, just from the production. It’s super endearing to hear that, especially because I don’t really know what I do when I produce music! It just happens! It definitely makes me a bit big-headed when I hear stuff like that.
LUNA: You’re self-taught and have spent so much of your career figuring things out on your own. Is there something about being self-taught that you never want to lose as your career gets bigger?
HOJEAN: Yeah, I love to be hands-on with any project I do! To be self-taught is to be curious, and that curiosity allows me to explore and create art on my own terms, with my own thoughts. I think that’s super important for a lot of artists and for what makes them create the way they do. I don’t ever want to see myself doing these huge-budget productions without even really liking what I’m making because I wasn’t hands-on or at the wheel, you know? It’s really important to me as an artist to keep that feeling of wonder and to continue learning, because that teaches me what I truly want to do and what I really don’t want to do.
LUNA: You have a way of making vulnerability feel really natural in your music. Do you think that comes from being comfortable with your emotions, or from being comfortable admitting when you’re not?
HOJEAN: I think the reason it comes across as vulnerable to many people is because I absolutely adore my own company. If you ask my friends about it, they’ll say the same thing. I spend a lot of time alone in my room creating art and absorbing all of my interests online. I’ll go to movie theaters, bars, restaurants, anywhere really, and I’ll be alone, thinking about what I wanna write next and asking myself, “Is anything about this environment inspiring me?” Being alone gives me a lot of time and space to sit with myself unfiltered, so to hear that it bleeds into the music is so sick! It honestly makes me feel even better about the time I spend alone.
LUNA: Looking at the music you’ve released so far, do you feel like you’ve been documenting your life or creating a version of it?
HOJEAN: A lot of my work in the past was definitely creating a version of my life. I’d say around the time I released “I Could Be Forever” and onward was when I started to document more of what I was actually living. I didn’t really have a lot going on from 2017 to 2023, so a lot of what I wrote came from movies that I liked, romanticizing my own love life or writing about other people’s experiences. Part of me still feels like I don’t have that much going on now either, but I do know that I’m figuring myself out, and I think that feeling is present in the music I’ve been releasing recently.
LUNA: “Prescription” is such a direct title. What does the word “prescription” mean to you beyond the song itself?
HOJEAN: A prescription is meant to soothe, heal or help you, but some people are going to do the complete opposite of that and still expect you to be okay with it. Those are the prescriptions we don’t want to take...But beyond the song, I’d say it’s pretty important and good for people to be prescribed with things that actually help them!
LUNA: “Prescription” sounds, at first, like a song about knowing your worth. But underneath that confidence, there’s clearly still a lot of attachment and longing. Do you think the song is more about realizing you don’t need someone, or realizing how much you still want them?
HOJEAN: It’s both. Much like me, the song sways back and forth between rebellion and surrender. When I randomly lose that streak of confidence and suddenly feel heartbroken again, I remind myself, “It’s only human to feel the way I do.” I know there are a lot of songs that live on either side of the “love song” spectrum. Either you’re completely devastated by love, or you’re on the other side where love is beautiful, and there’s [a] perfect resolution, but my brain likes to write music that sits somewhere in the middle, you know? It’s not at the start of the race and it’s not at the finish line. I want my writing to feel like it’s taking its time, pacing itself and reminding me that there will be days where I feel confident and days where I feel weak. It’s only human!
LUNA: “Climb On” is next. What made you feel like this was the right song to introduce the next part of your story?
HOJEAN: You know what’s interesting? I was never really able to connect to my own music romantically. I could never be intimate with someone if my music was playing in the background. It’s my own music, you know? If I’m kissing someone and one of my songs randomly pops up, I’m gonna start thinking about the mix levels or my production notes, but there’s something totally different about “Climb On” that allows me to fully embrace the romantic side of it. In a rare moment, I was able to hear my music as music and not as “my production.” That’s why it feels so right to introduce this song as the next part of my story, because I actually feel it!
LUNA: You’ve been teasing “Climb On” for a little while now, but we still don’t know the full story. What can you tell us about where this song came from?
HOJEAN: One night, I caught myself staring at my ceiling, thinking about why I was so unhappy, and I realized that for the longest time, I had been starving myself of love, lust, touch and intimacy, all because of excessive introspection. I felt like it was impossible to write a song about intimacy because I wasn’t actually experiencing it with anybody, and I wasn’t sure how to break this pattern because I was so deep in it.
As time passed, that avoidance of love and lust built up inside me in such a crazy way that the internal frustration eventually started to feel more like sorrow and nostalgia. I realized I wasn’t missing someone in particular; rather, I was starting to miss love itself. So for me, “Climb On” is almost like a love song to love itself, and I can’t wait to share it with someone personal one day. For everyone else, I hope it becomes a song they can share with someone they love.
LUNA: You’ve never seemed particularly interested in staying in one lane. At this point, do you think of genre as something you actively consider, or is it something you leave for everyone else to figure out?
HOJEAN: We live in such a crazy world of music today that I feel like, as an artist, there’s a responsibility to create authentically. All of the genres I’ve explored came from the music I grew up listening to, so it’s hard for me to sit down and make a single genre of music all the time because I genuinely equally love so many of the genres I grew up with. So, it’s never really been in my interest to stay in one lane. I just like to create and see what comes from it.
LUNA: You opened for Deb Never on August 31. When you think about the people who discovered you that night, what do you hope they understand about Hojean that they wouldn’t get from just pressing play on one song?
HOJEAN: It’s so cliche, but I just want people to get me. I feel like my music speaks through me, and when people see me singing it live, I hope they see that I’m really feeling the music that I made with my own hands! To be able to create sounds and want to dance and sing to it is such a beautiful experience and a testament to how much I love the craft. I hope that that resonates and is seen in my performances!
LUNA: What’s something you want to experience this year that you haven’t gotten around to yet?
HOJEAN: Now that I’m in my late 20s, I’d honestly love to meet the love of my life and have my art feel that change too. I’m always writing from temporary experiences in my life, so I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to create art with your forever person beside you. These things take time, so we’ll see!
LUNA: You’ve shared a lot of yourself through your music. Outside of the songs, what’s something you’ve been thinking about lately that’s been sticking with you?
HOJEAN: Outside of music, I think a lot about how to find peace with where my life is, where it was, where it will be and where it could be. I stress way too much, and I feel it physically, so lately I’ve just been thinking about...peace!
LUNA: Before we wrap, what’s something you’re really looking forward to that you haven’t told us about yet?
HOJEAN: I got a pretty neat album on the way…that’s all I can say! Thank you guys for having me!
