7 Things We Learnt About Nathan Hartono After Spending The Day At A Theme Park With Him

After all, those merely remain in the WWW’s consciousness for all of a double-tap on Instagram. After the whirlwind “out of body experience” that is Sing! China, he did the unthinkable and embarked on a slew of diverse projects last year, including a musical, overseas music festivals and taking on poster boy roles for Singapore Tourism Board and, of course, Milo. Everything except releasing his Mandarin debut off the back of the competition buzz. “I wanted to take a step back from everything just to get more perspective. If you swim in something for too long, you lose a bit of direction,” he opines. Call it a gap year if you must, but that has done nothing but good for the 26-year-old, who’s just released last month his highly-anticipated debut Mandarin single — a Mandarin version of his cheery, buzzy tune, ‘Electricity’, which is the first of five tracks from an EP that’ll drop in the coming months.

Interestingly, it’s also that grab-life-by-the-balls attitude which has resulted in his collaboration with famed Tokyo-based Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee. The celeb lensman, who has shot the likes of Lady Gaga and Ayumi Hamasaki, directed the music video for ‘Electricity’. And all it took was a serendipitous Japan trip and an Instagram DM. Leslie had dropped Nathan a message upon finding out the latter was in Tokyo, and asked if he’d like to join in on a fashion shoot the next day. But all the happenstance in the world would come to naught if not for Nathan’s easy-going ’tude. “It was a very spontaneous thing because I happened to be free the next day,” says Nathan, who then looks sheepishly to his manager and apologises for not letting her know before he’d agreed to the shoot. And look how that ended up. Leslie and Nathan hit it off so well that a mere two months later, he was directing Nathan’s delightfully whimsical MV which shines a spotlight on a kaleidoscopic array of beauty in all forms, featuring a cosplayer decked out as a demon of sorts, and a drag queen in a ballerina outfit, among others.

Today at this 8 DAYS shoot, we’re going with a different sort of kitsch — at a carnival. What was meant to be a sunshiny day (it’d been scorching hot all week) has turned into a dreary one with intermittent rain all day. Not the best for an outdoor shoot, but Nathan’s not letting it get to him. He’s living his best life, rain or shine. When it starts drizzling for the umpteenth time, he decides he wants to start playing games, rather than wait around. But instead of trying to win a plush toy like a park visitor, Nathan hops over the counter to assume the role of theme park operator. Go on a water ride for a photo and potentially get his hair wet? Why not? But all that is nothing compared to what’s to come.

We have a couple of challenges in mind (hey, we’re at an amusement park!). Compose songs with lyrics picked out from a Cards Against Humanity game, and sing it out loud and proud. While other local crooners have politely declined impromptu singing challenges as such, Nathan doesn’t hesitate for a second. “Sure!” he bellows. The result is a hilarious medley of songs,— anointed with Nathan’s jazzy touch — that have lyrics too rude to print. We then ask if we can move on to the Viking ride and do an interview there. Yes, on the ride. He gamely agrees, even as the gates of the carnival have just swung open to public and excited fans are starting to notice him. You sure, we ask, as visitors begin streaming up to him to ask for selfies. “Yup, of course!” he chirps. Okay, you say one ah. And so we’re off.

What we didn’t know at this point was that Nathan was still nursing muscle aches and a bruised chin from a boxing session with Benjamin Kheng and Charlie Lim the day before (“Ben and I will go for a run together sometimes because he lives right behind me”). We only know about it after the shoot, when we finally settle down on more familiar territory — at a café, on flat ground, with food. (Nathan has ordered a cold brew and turnip fries.) “I have zero [boxing] technique, but I’m not afraid to get punched,” he quips. We remind him that his face is his money maker. “But there’s always make-up!” he laughs. “The overarching [mantra] in my life has always been ‘This is my life, this is what I do and I wanna see how far I can push it’.” Like we said, just do it.

8 DAYS: Let’s talk about your new music. Has Jay Chou listened to the song yet?

I actually don’t know, which is interesting ’cos the first time I met the guy was at a rehearsal [for Sing! China]. We were supposed to run through one of the songs for one of the rounds we were doing. I sat in the room with him and he was on the piano, but we ended up not practicing anything. For 15 minutes, he just sat there and talked about the English version of ‘Electricity’. He’d watched the music video at home. He was telling me what he thought was cool and not so cool, and what could be fixed. It was really nice to get that kind of very practical and real advice from somebody at that level. There were no cameras around so he wasn’t trying to put on a show. The advice he gave was very production- and arrangement-based. And I took these into consideration when we re-arranged it [for the Mandarin version]. But I don’t know if he’s actually listened to it yet. I should send it to somebody from his team.

WhatsApp him?

(Laughs) I don’t have his number!

Why did you decide to do a re-release instead of writing a brand new Mandarin song?

It was a joint decision between myself and my team in China. They wanted to make sure that, as much as possible, I had a hand in the composition of the new material. Someone brought up the idea of translating some of my existing [English] songs I had released here, and they liked ‘Electricity’ and wanted to port it over. I was initially iffy about it just ’cos I’ve heard many songs translated from English to Chinese and sometimes the cadence is not quite right, the rhythms are awkward and syllables don’t fit the right way. I recorded 16 or 17 versions of the song with different lyrics that I had translated and sent to a few lyricists in China and Taiwan who then wrote a few versions of the song. I have a good enough sense of songwriting and the Chinese language to fix something, but not start a song from scratch ’cos I’m not that poetic in the language. But I really hope to get there one day. A part of me was morbidly curious to find out what would happen if the song morphed into a completely different animal. I was very happy with how everything just [added] up.

You bought a second phone just for China apps. Does this mean you’ll be moving there?

I’m pretty much setting a base there and I’ve spent most of my time there so far. The plan is to spend a lot more time there this year ’cos I really gotta make a commitment to living and working there properly.

What has it been like?

It’s actually a whole new world to learn about, in terms of things like social media, media appearances and interviews. It’s not just a language thing — it’s all colloquialism, figuring out how to use all their damn apps! (Laughs) That’s why I bought this China phone. We can’t download [a lot of] apps from China unless you change your store settings and use a China credit card to buy them.

But you’re quite savvy with the English side of things, what with all the stuff you post.

Yeah, I’m pretty savvy! I’m quite proud of that fact. I consume a lot of media in general — I listen to a lot of podcasts, watch a lot of movies and TV, and play a lot of video games. I think I have a problem now that I say it out loud. I don’t really put a lot of thought into it, but I’m only aware I’m sort of good at it because I’m aware when I’m very bad at it.

Which means?

There are times when I really hate social media. I have a very vascillating back-and-forth love-hate relationship with it. I hate the shallowness of it sometimes; I hate how much of your life you need to put out there to feel like you exist in the modern world. I sometimes get disgusted by the concept of it. Then I won’t feel like posting anything or looking at anyone’s Instagram and will take a break for a few days. Then I’ll realise, “Oh s***, I’m being quite a bad social media person.” I naturally get back into it when I’m bored. Like when I’m in China and work’s done, I’ll bulls**t around on the phone for a while. Thank God for VPN!

A lot of people say that young people don’t like to use Facebook anymore.

I rarely touch Facebook except to use their camera filters. It has become less of a social media site and more of a news [aggregator] site. Of course some people still post family vacation photos, but most of it is bite-sized on Instagram now. I probably spend the most time on Instagram. Twitter is fun every once in a while, but I feel like no one understands me on Twitter. I’ll make a joke that I think is amazing, but I also know that no one will give a s***. (Laughs)

What was the last one?

I was very proud of my last tweet. It probably has three likes or something. [Takes out phone to check] See! It only has one retweet and eight likes. [Shows us the tweet, which reads: Natoelie Portmanteau.] It’s supposed to be what Natalie Portman calls her toe, which would be a portmanteau and… Nat-toe-lie? (Guffaws)

Not bad lah. Speaking of Internet things, you’ve also been doing a lot of collabs with YouTubers.

I did a video with [YouTubers] Youtiao666 when I invited [the two girls behind it] on my podcast. We found what they did very interesting and wanted to talk to them about being subversive content creators in Singapore — like, being traditionally aesthetically pleasing females and [yet] subverting that whole expectation and what’s that like or what their whole intention is. When I reached out to them on Instagram, I legit did not know them at all. We got to know each other from there and I said that if they have projects that I can help out with, then they should reach out. It’s just like friends helping other friends.

And incidentally, Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee, who’s based in Tokyo, also reached out to you via Instagram DM, and you guys ended up collaborating for the music video of the Mandarin version of ‘Electricity’.

I was in Japan for three days last year to shoot some publicity photos. On our first night there after dinner, I went to explore Shibuya on my own for a couple of hours. Someone spotted me and told Leslie, and it happens that Leslie knew about me through his nieces. I was on the train and happened to be checking my DMs from people I don’t know — and I rarely ever do, though I do so more often after this incident. He was shooting something for [fashion brand] Yohji Yamamoto and asked if I wanted to join in. I didn’t know who he was at first, but I checked out his stuff and it was fantastic, so I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” It was only after I met him at his office that I realised that he’s one of the biggest photographers in Japan and has shot for huge brands and magazines, and has shot personalities like Lady Gaga, Madonna and Ayumi Hamasaki. The shoot we did was one of the craziest photoshoots I’ve ever done. It was two-and-a-half hours of running around Shibuya, with six outfit changes, which all happened on the streets.

As in, you changed on the streets?

(Chuckles) Yes. That’s one of the advantages of being completely unknown in that city. The shoot went well and we had a really nice chemistry. We had supper afterwards and I told him I was preparing to release an EP, and he offered to help out in whatever way he can, and that’s how he came to direct the music video. The whole thing was just one of those hard to explain things. I guess it’s fate or whatever you want to call it.

Back to Internet things. Stefanie Sun recently told us that you texted her when you heard about her death hoax.

(Laughs) I texted to ask her if she’d seen it. Oddly enough, it was my mum who sent it to me. I believe that most people have a WhatsApp group chat with their family, and about 80 per cent of the messages in there are about things to look out for or things that could kill you. Like, “Don’t eat this thing! It will give you cancer!” And a lot of those messages are from the parents, who look at joke news websites and think it’s real. You know the actual satirical news site, The Onion? My parents can’t tell the difference yet. Haha! So when my mum sent [the news about Stef], I thought I better let her know.

This is the world we live in now. And news like people eating Tide pods is actually not fake.

No, I think that was a huge mistake on the media's part. It wasn’t a big deal to begin with and it was easily gonna be half a meme and then disappear. Then the media picked it up and reported that it was a trend. But on Google, you can search for a term and see how often it was used at certain periods. For example, if you search ‘Trump’, you’re gonna see a lot more of it on news articles and all in the last few years. And it turns out that the Tide pod thing wasn’t popular until the media started reporting about it. Before, it appeared about 100 times on the Internet. But after the media started talking about it, it appeared 2,000 over times and everyone [started doing it].

What irks you more: if someone pronounced gif as they would ‘gift’, or as ‘jif’?

It doesn’t bother me ’cos I’m very undecided about this. It’s like to-may-to and to-mah-to. I don’t think it matters because it’s not a real word. When the dictionaries add the word in, then we’ll all know for sure. The thing that makes me cringe, and it’s not related to this, is when someone says ‘stuffs’. That’s the one that makes me go… (shudders). It doesn’t even sound right! Stop!

Who dances better: Snapchat hotdog or you?

It’s pretty close. On a good night, me. For consistency, Snapchat hotdog.

Salt Bae: Best Internet hero or biggest poser?

I don’t understand [the whole phenomenon], but I mean, bless the guy. He’s clearly making the most out of it and is opening restaurants all over the world. It’s very telling of the times we live in. No other time can you make so much out of so little. Keeping Up with the Kardashians is a very compelling show, but it’s how they edit it to make it seem like there are high stakes involved. If you really write down on a piece of paper of what’s happening — Scott Disik wants to buy a crown, Kim Kardashian loses her wallet, or Starbucks is closed when they visited — it’s just stupid s***. I guess we live in an age where it’s about the heightened reality of things. So, no, Salt Bae is not a poser. He’s just trying to make an honest living and good on him for striking gold.

Which song do you wish you’d written: ‘Despacito’ or ‘Macarena’?

[Long pause] I’m actually taking this question very seriously. I’m trying to think of the merits and how I feel about both songs. ‘Macarena’ is a good novelty, but at the same time, ‘Despacito’ is overplayed so my perspective might be a bit skewed. Okay, I’ll go with ‘Macarena’. It has a much more lasting appeal. ‘Despacito’ is gonna be dead in two or three years. ‘Macarena’ will always be funny and it will probably still be used 30 years from now.

Would you rather be an idiot sandwich or a boring bowl of salad?

I feel like I don’t know where the second one comes from. Was it also a Gordon Ramsay thing?

No, we made it up.

An idiot sandwich. I like my carbs so yeah, I don’t mind being surrounded by it.

What would make you grumpier than Grumpy Cat?

An actual grumpy cat. I’m allergic to cats, even though I like them. My nose leaks like crazy and if I’m around a cat too long, it spreads from my nose to my throat and I get a sore throat and infections. It’s really bad. So if I go to friends’ houses with cats, I take an anti-histamine. ’Cos I still really like to hang with them — they’re unpredictable and cool.

If you could start a viral challenge and have people all around the world do it, what would it be?

That’s a million dollar question. It’s so hard to say. If three years ago you told me that eating detergent pods would be a viral challenge, I wouldn’t believe you. So I can say anything and it could possibly come true in two years! [Pauses] Call your mum? Oh, or use a knife on your feet to cut a carrot. There’s a possibility that it might just happen!

‘Electricity’ (Mandarin) is available on all digital platforms. Watch the music video at https://www.youtube.com/user/nathanhartono91.​​​​​​​

Photos: Ealbert Ho. Styling: Martin Wong. Hair and make-up: Manisa Tan/paletteinc. Make-up from NARS, hair products from keune. Special thanks to Prudential Marina Bay Carnival (www.marinabaycarnival.sg).