The heavy music landscape moves fast, but few stories capture the absolute lightning-in-a-bottle madness of the modern metalcore scene quite like PK’s.
Currently tearing up Australian shores as the touring frontman for heavyweights Crystal Lake alongside Of Mice & Men, the Prompts vocalist sat down with Metal on Tap backstage at Sydney’s Manning Bar to dissect a whirlwind few months that redefine the phrase “answering the call.”
The 7:00 AM S.O.S. Call
Just three days before Crystal Lake was set to launch a highly anticipated April tour run, the band found themselves suddenly without a vocalist. Enter PK.
“It was 7:00 AM,” PK laughs, recalling the morning his phone lit up while visiting family in South Korea. “In Japanese culture, it’s senpai culture—elder culture. If it’s my friends calling at 7:00 AM, I’m not answering. But it’s YD [guitarist/leader of Crystal Lake]. I have to get it.”
The pitch was simple but terrifying: Can you step off your flight to Korea, get on a plane to Japan, and front Crystal Lake in three days? Oh, and there are no rehearsals.
PK accepted, carrying the monumental weight of preserving one of the most revered legacies in Asian heavy music. “It was a pretty big pressure for me because Ryo’s legacy was amazing. He means a lot to vocalists all over Japan and Asia,” PK admits. “The members told me, ‘If you don’t do this, we have to cancel the tour.’ So I had to do it for the legacy.”
A Defeat That Sparked a Career
Perhaps the most mind-blowing revelation from the chat is that PK—one of the most devastating and emotive screamers in the modern scene—never actually wanted to be a vocalist.
Growing up in South Korea’s notoriously isolated heavy music scene around 2010, PK was a guitarist. When his local band couldn’t find a frontman, they resorted to the ultimate arbiter of fate.
“Me and the band members did rock, paper, scissors. The loser had to be the vocalist,” PK smiles. “I was the loser. If I had won that game, I might never have gotten on vocals, and I wouldn’t be on this tour right now.”
That reluctant start led to years of brutal trial and error. Operating in an era before YouTube vocal coaches were mainstream, PK spent his formative years shadow-mimicking his favorite artists, blowing his vocal cords out “over a hundred times” before finding his true technique through Melissa Cross’s legendary The Zen of Screaming tutorials—a vocal bible he still geeks out over with peers like Jacob Charlton of Thornhill.
The K-Metal Dream and Parasite Dream
While PK is honored to protect the Crystal Lake fort, his heart remains firmly anchored to his main outfit, Prompts. The band is on the precipice of a massive stylistic shift with their upcoming EP, Parasite Dream, releasing this June via Greyscale Records.
Fans have already noticed a more atmospheric, dreamlike quality creeping into their recent output, a deliberate move to carve out an uncopiable identity. The EP features elite outside talent, including production and a guest feature from Landon Tewers of The Plot In You, who loved the band’s live energy so much during a previous tour that he flew directly to a Japanese studio to cut the tracks and shoot a music video.
But PK’s sights are set even higher than standard international touring. Watching the global dominance of K-Pop, K-Drama, and K-Food, he poses a fundamental question: Why not K-Metal?
“In Korea, after military duty, artists have to get standard jobs. It’s hard to keep a band alive because there is no touring system or proper venues. It makes me sad because they are so talented. K-Pop is overwhelming right now, and they are constantly touching other genres like hard tech. JYP has Xdinary Heroes trying Bring Me The Horizon styles. I think we have infinite potential for the future—maybe someday a massive collaboration with K-Pop can happen.”
With a brand-new Prompts full-length album officially confirmed for next year, PK isn’t just filling shoes anymore. He’s stepping into his own giant footprints.
Prompts’ new EP ‘Parasite Dream’ releases this June on Greyscale Records. Head to the comments below to pre-save and pre-order.
