Preview: Se So Neon @ 9:30 Club, 9/5/25

South Korean indie rock band Se So None, featuring lead vocalist and guitarist Hwang So-yoon, performs live at 9:30 Club on Friday, Sept. 5.

The band tours North America on the heels of transforming into a solo project by So-yoon, who dropped an album titled NOW on August 15 via AWAL.

Since forming in 2016, Se So Neon has won two Korean Music Awards and played festivals around Asia while receiving critical acclaim from publications in the USA. After releasing her second solo album, Episode1: Love, in 2023, So-yoon felt anxiety about the band’s next move. That uncertainty, she said, sapped her artistic side.

“I’m a really creative person, but at that point, I only liked drawing, taking photos, and writing poems,” So-yoon said. “Music made me so depressed, because I had a lot of pressure, and I didn’t have any creative energy.”

She decided she needed a change of scenery, so she traveled to New York to work on the next phase of Se So Neon’s music with old friends who lived there. Being in different surroundings and spending almost 10 hours a day in the studio proved invigorating, and it also made her realize that she needed to worry about the future less and live in the present more.

“That’s why the album title is ,” So-yoon said. “I had been thinking, ‘I’m done. I’m not going to do music anymore.’ But after that New York experience, I felt hope.”

Watch the official music video for “NOW” by Se So Neon on YouTube:

As a teenager, So-yoon threw herself into every aspect of making music, recording and arranging songs inspired by the blues tracks that had stoked her interest in taking on the guitar. That led to her pursuing music in Seoul. At 14, she recorded and self-released her first demo album, and in the following years she immersed herself even more fully in her art, overseeing cover designs and putting together music videos while performing solo at clubs.

Bringing her various disciplines together again — the way she did when she was just starting out — by helming the band’s videos is part of Soyoon’s quest to show how Se So Neon won’t conform to anyone’s ideals. Instead, Soyoon is leading Se So Neon into a place where the present is free of constraints and only full of possibility.

“I’m a rocker — I have a strong ‘rock attitude,’” So-yoon said. “But I don’t want to categorize myself. I’m a singer. I’m a director. I’m a writer. I’m a ‘professional musician.’ I want to work in some random café here in Los Angeles, because I’ve never had an experience like that.”

“I don’t want to define myself,” she added. “I don’t want to define anything about my life.”

Buy your tickets online now!

Se So Neon
W/ Mei Ehara
9:30 Club
Friday, Sept. 5
Doors @ 6pm
$51.35
All ages