1VERSE’s Kenny And Nathan On Finding Their Place in Korea And As Idols

Kenny and Nathan of 1VERSE performing at K-Playfest OC 2025

Singing Beetle

It’s the end of August on a Saturday in Anaheim at K-Play Fest!, a “fan-hosted” K-pop festival celebrating Korean music and culture. The event features several dance performances, photocard trading, and special appearances by dancers and music artists. That weekend, K-pop rookie group 1VERSE (Saturday) and Chinese American artist Sunkis (Sunday) were set to perform, offering special VIP packages for a meet and greet, selfie Polaroids, and send-offs.

Debuting more than a month ago, 1VERSE (pronounced “Universe”) – consisting of Hyuk, Seok, Nathan, Kenny, and Aito – were only able to have two of their members attend the festival. Kenny and Nathan, who are American citizens, flew in from Seoul to represent their team at their sold-out VIP events.

The duo were excited to meet all their “5tars,” the name for the fandom, and welcomed more than 100 people at their meet-and-greet, each signing an item for each participant. Though their schedule is pretty tight, they don’t rush their interactions with their fans, taking time to have a quick and thoughtful conversation.

During their soundcheck and fan meet event, Kenny and Nathan performed their debut single, “Multiverse” and some solo songs before playing a few games with the crowd. Their personalities really shone through with the games, showcasing Kenny’s sassy nature that has generated its own fanbase, creating multiple fan edits of his hilarious moments. Throughout the event, he is never afraid to speak out of turn, allowing his intrusive thoughts to win, with entertaining reactions.

More of his endearing persona was evident during the audience ranking Kenny’s nicknames that he’s given to 5tars over the past few months, including “Little Twinkle Stars,” “Little Hot Pockets,” “Little Fruity Pebbles,” and “Little Closeted People.” For the latter, he tells the audience, “I don’t have an explanation for this. I say a lot of words. Sometimes I don’t think, I just give.”

Nathan, who exudes gentlemanly and diplomatic energy, is calm and collected throughout the fan meet. He was focused on getting the tasks done, but also knew how to do crowd work through his angelic vocals and adept freestyle dance moves.

The two artists had a very brotherly dynamic, with Nathan seemingly adopting the “big brother” role, allowing Kenny to be himself, but was able to reel him and the conversation back into place.

It makes sense that the two bonded so well. As the two Asian Americans in the group – Nathan is of Laotian-Thai descent, and Kenny is of Chinese descent – there seems to be an understanding between them, as they both grew up in America and are living their dream in Korea.

“It’s a very interesting playground of personalities trying to mash and harmonize in a way,” Nathan admits during our interview after the fan event. “It’s also fun because we don’t know a lot about each other, and we’re trying to make it work. That makes us unique in a way because we love each other, we’re close, and we found a way to create our own sort of language outside of language. It’s weird [because] we telepathically know how the other is feeling sometimes. I think that only came from just living together and being thrown into this kind of world.”

How It All Started

In December 2023, Singing Beetle, a new entertainment company created by former SM Entertainment A&R executive Michelle Cho, announced their new K-pop trainee group, SB Boyz, which would eventually become 1VERSE.

Only three members were introduced at the time. Two of whom, Seok and Hyuk, gained attention for their emotional story as North Korean defectors-turned-K-pop idols. International news outlets reported on their heartfelt journey, with many fans supporting and waiting for them to debut.

Alongside their journey to K-pop stardom was a Chinese American kid named Kenny, who barely spoke Korean at the time but dreamed of becoming a musical artist. He was actually the first to be signed to the company and was featured in 2023’s Hong Kong survival competition, Asia Super Young.

There was not much information about Kenny then, but when the company’s YouTube channel SB Boyz UNPLUGGED launched, it was hard to ignore the loud and hyperactive star-in-the-making. He’s charming and blunt, unafraid to say how he feels or care about what anyone thinks about him.

Born and raised in Orange County, California, Kenny was a natural talent who has been performing since middle school. He performed at Chinese and Asian American festivals, which introduced him to talent scouts and casting agents who suggested he’d audition to be a K-pop idol.

“It’s like, ‘no, I’m not Korean’ and ‘I don’t know K-pop.’” the 22-year-old singer recalls. “Even in high school, I didn’t really know what K-pop was. [My friend’s] aunt saw me perform and asked if I wanted to be in entertainment. She was a casting director at SM Entertainment. It was a bunch of those people. [I told them] I’ll think about it.”

It wasn’t until three years later, when he went to college, that he began to take entertainment seriously. Though he had received a scholarship to a local university with the intent of majoring in something that would “make good money,” he felt upset at the idea of that path.

“I needed a change from that path,” he says. “I called them and I did an audition. [They told me to] come to Korea and start training. I thought I could do this.”

He auditioned for SM Entertainment, but struggled with the move to Korea. He didn’t know the language and was far from everyone and everything he knew. Though it didn’t end up working with SM, he found himself auditioning for Cho, with whom he felt a strong connection. So much so, Cho and he still have brunch together from time to time to just talk about life.

“Even when the debut showcase happened, I felt very empty,” Kenny admits. “I was crying. I don’t know why. I’m doing everything I love, but this is the first time my mom’s not here. That’s why it feels off. I have this [lonely] feeling when I’m in Korea. [I have my friendships], but if our friend group has a fight or something dramatic happens, it hurts 10 times more because we have to start over.”

The cheerful, sassy member I had watched on stage an hour ago suddenly became somber and gentle, as if he could breathe after holding his breath for so long. While he is appreciative of the fan event and seeing the 5tars, his return to OC didn’t feel the same way as when he left it. By now, many of his friends have already graduated from college and moved on with their lives.

“I’m finally coming back home, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore,” he shares. “It doesn’t feel familiar because things change. People grow up. It feels like a whole new world. It’s an odd experience. I don’t know if you guys have ever experienced the idea of seeing home but being different. I don’t really have a place to call home anymore, which is sad but kind of interesting.”

It’s why he’s grateful for his Singing Beetle team for accepting him and helping him adjust to his new life. He’s been trying to adapt to the culture, which he says depends on who is taking care of you and guiding you. He’s encountered unsupportive people in his career, but says there are always people out there who are willing to help.

“I hate the idea of being quiet and sitting still,” he says. “I wish I could take the beauty of learning how to live everything day by day. I don’t want to delay anything; I want to get things done. I want to do it with some of my identity with it. [With Singing Beetle,] that’s the beauty of a startup. You have a very vertical, not a horizontal relationship, where you can give them your two cents about everything, and they’re willing to take it because they’re new to starting everything on their own. It’s nice to have someone who is so opinionated. From time to time, there are benefits to being opinionated.”

Bringing in that Southern Charm

Nathan was the last member to join 1VERSE, with the least amount of training time, but you wouldn’t be able to tell with his silken vocals and sharp dance moves.

The 24-year-old Arkansas native did not expect to become a K-pop artist, let alone in the entertainment industry. Asian Americans in Arkansas just didn’t do that. There weren’t many entertainment-based opportunities for anyone. He thinks Walmart may be the biggest thing there.

“When you look at it from afar: how do you get from Arkansas to Korea?” says Nathan. “I don’t [even] know.”

He had become a K-pop fan through his cousin from Texas. From there, he listened and watched a lot of the genre, especially the music videos. He became inspired to dance after watching (and learning) EXO’s “Growl.”

“I saw [the music video] and thought that was the coolest thing ever,” he recalls. “I want to do that, but how am I going to do that?”

He resigned to the fact that he’d go to school and get a corporate job. He didn’t believe he could do something in K-pop. He thought maybe he could do music on the side and began posting his songs and dance covers on TikTok.

“[I didn’t post] to just get it out there,” he says. “I just love doing it. Then people saw it and watched my journey from teaching myself how to dance, because I only watched videos to learn how to dance. I didn’t take any dance classes. People saw my growth [and related to being] self-taught and wanting to be an idol. So, I just kept doing it.”

He eventually was contacted by a Korean company to audition for them, but sadly, didn’t make it. After that, he accepted that would be the furthest he’d get to becoming an idol, and continued to post his covers. Then Kenny, who had been following Nathan’s musical journey, sent Cho his profile. Impressed, Cho contacted Nathan to audition, leaving the rest to history.

“I thought this could be a scam,” Nathan laughs. “If they don’t ask for my bank information, it’s okay, right?”

Adapting to Korean Culture and Idol Life

Though 1VERSE debuted this year, the team nearly formed two years ago.

Cho, a first-generation K-pop fan, wanted to create something that would appeal to the global market. She had seen it work during her time at her former company, where many idols collaborated with international producers and choreographers. She, herself, has written songs for many K-pop artists like Baekhyun, KAI, SEVENTEEN, PRODUCE 101, and many more, so she knew she could write for a boy group.

“I wanted to try creating a group and do things my way when I launched them,” she says. I wanted to create a boy group. The diversity was really an accident. I didn’t plan on adding diverse backgrounds. It was more like when I looked at them, these guys gave me the spark. They’re talented. I see this potential that I want to develop. None of them really made me second-guess [my choice]. I was pretty sure early on when I was doing the videos or the in-person auditions. I knew right away I liked them. I picked whom I thought had great potential and talent, and that’s how I landed on these five guys.”

With all five members not being originally from South Korea (Aito is from Japan), they all had to learn how to adapt to the culture.

“We’re just going day by day,” says Nathan. “Right now, we’re pretty familiar with Korean culture, especially living with the guys, too. The guys and the company try to put us in that atmosphere and throw us into experiencing it firsthand. We learn pretty fast.”

Hyuk and Seok helped Kenny navigate life with the train schedules and major locations in Seoul. In turn, Kenny helped Nathan. It was a significant change from a small town in Arkansas to the bustling, busy city life of Seoul.

“Everyone in our group has to assimilate into South Korean culture,” Kenny explains. “There’s an aspect of everyone struggling to find their ground and where they belong in Korea. I think that’s where we found similarities.”

Nathan, Kenny, and Aito are active in taking Korean lessons as part of their idol routine, with Seok, Hyuk, and Aito also learning English. Though there is still a language barrier between them and the other members in the group, Kenny says there are now resources that enable them to communicate with each other.

“We have people who can speak both languages and know both cultures pretty well,” Kenny explains. “They know the unspoken rules of each culture, and it’s the same with all Asian cultures.”

They all work hard to communicate with each other and also collaborate on addressing cultural differences to prevent misunderstandings among the members. Nathan says, “We always try to speak each other’s languages. The Korean native speakers try to speak English with us. We try to speak Korean to them and have this cultural exchange.”

As for adjusting to idol life, the guys admit they haven’t experienced anything different since debuting. They’ve still been consistently training and working on music. Kenny explained they go through periods of busy times with practicing and preparing for comebacks, and then have moments of nothing. He says, “It’s a weird thing of being super busy and it’s suddenly not being busy. That’s something I realized about idol stuff. It’s similar to everyone’s entertainment job; you have moments of being busy with a project, then that project is finished. You just have nothing but chilling and going to class.”

They didn’t even really feel like idols until they arrived in the U.S. for K-Playfest, where they genuinely felt the excitement from the fans.

“Most of our fanbase is international, so seeing everyone and hearing everyone screaming our names like they know is [felt like] wow, this is actually real,” says Nathan. “Now I think it’s hitting us. It’s just a matter of fact of being exposed to the public.”

Cho’s focus for the 1VERSE has been to hit the global market. She loved that K-pop had evolved in the U.S. and all over the Western world with BTS, BLACKPINK, and even Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters.

“I hope this can continue,” she says. “I hope that 1VERSE can take a small part in that too.”

While many entertainment companies worry about their idols’ “perfect image”, Cho embraces what makes each of the members different and stand out. Though the company does provide media training, the staff doesn’t really enforce it. She really wants them to express their true selves.

“All I can do is to prepare them to do as best as they can, and trust them that they know what they’re doing,” she reveals. “It’s physically impossible for me to chase them everywhere and supervise all their answers or make them memorize line by line. That’s not possible. It also gets boring if they keep repeating the same thing over and over. Everybody has different guidelines because they all have different characters and stories that they want to share. We’ll just set these, and then play within their comfort zone.”

As Singing Beetle is a newer company, they don’t really need to follow the traditional set ways of the past. With new groups – boys and girls – debuting every year, the members know they must be noteworthy to distinguish themselves.

“In order to be different, you have to be unconventional,” Kenny shares. “That’s the truth of it all. I even talked about the idea of negative zero, which I actually learned from an SAT passage, which is the idea that when things are so saturated, you’re not just starting from zero, but a disadvantage zero. Why should people look at you? There are millions of other people they can look at. The fact that we started with negative zero, I thought, let’s do unconventional. Let’s be open. Let’s do new things – because why not? We don’t have to follow traditions.”

Nathan agrees, stating that the group is unique due to their dual identity as outsiders who live and work in Korea. He says the group never crosses any lines that K-pop idols don’t cross, but they will go out of their way to be conspicuous.

“We don’t really follow some type of standard in a way,” he says. “We have a story to tell. With this power-making music, we might as well just speak, not for everyone, but [our truth] and have people feel seen. I hope people can see us as a beacon. It’s a big responsibility to be a voice in a way that people can feel comforted when they hear and see us, and think, ‘they may be idols, but they’re just like us’.”

As of now, the group is still working on releasing more music, and hopefully a tour where all of 1VERSE can meet their 5tars.

“Just know that we are preparing something,” says Nathan. “Wherever our 5tars are, that’s where we want to go. We want to be able to give our thanks to them for supporting us throughout everything. That’s our goal right now, to go where they are. That’s why we had the online voting ballot.”

I joke for them to “blink twice” if there will be a tour by the end of the year. Nathan struggled to keep his eyes opened, widening them, “I can’t hold my eyes.”

1VERSE’s debut single album, The 1st Verse, is on all streaming platforms. Physical copies are available online and select retailers.