eaJ Leans Into The Chaos in New Alt-Pop Era

Argentinian-Korean singer Jae Park, better known from his solo alt-pop moniker eaJ, either has a sticky melody looping in his head or a new artist queued up that’s cracked open a fresh wave of inspiration in his recent releases.

Lately, he’s been on a roll, and this isn’t some run-of-the-mill single rollout. It’s louder, sharper, and more dialed in. The color red has become a fixation for the former Day6 member. This chosen shade of color feels like a rebirth. He’s leaning into it unapologetically with his latest singles, “ruin my life” and “merry go round.” These aren’t just releases; they’re weighty steps toward something more grounded. Park is deliberate with every note, walking a tightrope between evolution and alienation. He knows his day-one listeners are still watching.

“I didn’t want to suddenly go from one to ten and kind of throw people off, so I wanted to introduce it slowly,” Park tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “The whole EP is kind of scaling up in energy, so if ‘ruin my life’ was a three at energy, ‘merry go round’ is a six, and the next single lead of the EP is going to be probably a ten.”

eaJ is still sorting out his musical compass. Going solo didn’t come with a manual. There’s been plenty of trial and error, but he’s stayed committed to making the version of music that feels right to him. The safe, clean route? It’s off the table. His sound has started to tilt into something fuller, unafraid to take up space and bleed a little.

“I did that for so long that I just don’t feel like I’m working to the ceiling if I were to play it safe and make an easy, catchy, earworm-y song,” he says. “I feel like by branching out and becoming like eaJ in a solo act, it’s kind of on me to figure out what my musical direction is.”

Sticky Melodies

eaJ is a self-professed terminally online music head. His taste in alt-pop reflects that of someone who’s always ten tabs deep into a new genre or artist. That curiosity feeds into his work. He keeps the bones of traditional pop structure but moves with a Korean sensibility in vocal control and phrasing. It’s not so much homage as it is instinct.

“I consume a lot more music. And because I consume more music, I fall into these small rabbit holes and pockets very frequently where I get obsessed with certain artists,” he says. “Like last year, for me, was Brakence and the ‘Hypochondriac’ album. Bro, he might be one of the greatest to do it, in my opinion. He’s very tasteful. His guitar playing is exceptional. His top line is sticky. His lyrics are great, amazing. And it’s just like artists like Mk.gee [or] Dijon, they just inspire you to want to color outside of the box.”

The road to this moment has been anything but smooth. Long before “ruin my life,” eaJ had already stacked a résumé with co-writing credits alongside singers Keshi and Seori, live performances across the world, and fanbases in both East and West. Still, starting over came with its own kind of quiet violence. He had to figure out who he was without the machinery; what he wanted to say and how to say it. There were no shortcuts, only the grind and risk that maybe no one would care.

“Lately, it’s been a way to repay my fans for listening,” he says. “Like all this time. I think there were a lot of moments where you could have easily said, ‘I’m just not into it anymore.’ Whether that’s music, the brand, [or] certain situations. But regardless of that, a lot of the people still stuck with me and are here today. And somehow we’ve started over from ground zero and built ourselves up to have, you know, a million monthly on Spotify, which isn’t the biggest to some people. But to me, it’s everything.”

If red is the color of heat, eaJ has only begun to simmer. Each newer alt-pop track feels closer to combustion. There’s clarity in the chaos, and eaJ is steering through it with just the right amount of control and recklessness. He’s not interested in being just another alt-pop experiment. He wants to be heard, and more than that, he wants to be understood. And if eaJ can burn bright, so be it.