As we all know by now, K-pop fans are some of the best sleuths out there, so it wasn’t long before ELFs discovered that GoodWill & MGI had created a track for their beloved idols. Like waves breaking upon the shore, ELFs rushed to find out more about the team, and in doing so, opened a channel of unprecedented communication between K-pop and the West.
allkpop recently got the pleasure of interviewing GoodWill & MGI, through which they revealed their production style, their love for the ELF fanbase, and their thoughts on the global phenomena of K-pop.
Check it out below!
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AKP: “Please introduce yourselves!”
GoodWill & MGI: Hey, we’re GoodWill & MGI — songwriting/production team of the stars, and producers of the ELF song! We’ve worked with Super Junior, Akon, Justin Bieber, and many more. You can learn more about us at http://www.goodwillmgi.com/, or follow us on Twitter: @goodwillbeats and @mgiproducer.
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AKP: “How would you describe your production style?”
GoodWill & MGI: DAEBAK!!! We have an infectious pop sound that makes people want to dance to our music. It’s important to us that music is fun and catchy and puts a smile on people’s faces :) Don’t get me wrong, we love doing ballads and slower emotional songs too, but lately we’re really into dancefloor bangers with house, electro, and dance-pop influences.
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AKP: “You’ve worked with many individual artists and small groups of people; how challenging was the recording and production process with a group as big (in numbers) as Super Junior?”
GoodWill & MGI: Great question! The funny thing is that we’ve actually never met SUJU :( When we wrote ‘Gotcha Numba’ in early 2010, we were in Europe and got introduced to some cool SM executives (shoutout to Dury & Chris!) who picked the song. Originally ‘Gotcha Numba’ was written in English, so SM took the song back to Korea and had their songwriters do a Korean translation for SUJU. I think SJ-M did a version in Mandarin Chinese as well, but it didn’t end up on the latest SJ-M album for some reason.
We still haven’t heard the Korean or Mandarin versions yet — SM is going to send those soon. But it will be really interesting to hear ‘Gotcha Numba’ in a different language. I can’t believe that all the SUJU guys fit on the song — 13 is alot of voices on one song! We know it’s gonna sound amazing though :)
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AKP: “How did you guys formulate the lyrics for the “ELF” track?”
We want to thank ELF for helping us learn so much about Super Junior and Kpop. We’ve got so many great followers on twitter who answered our questions and brought tons of positive energy to the creative process. We asked the Elfs what kind of words and phrases should be included in the song, and we got great suggestions like ‘Proud to be ELF,’ ‘Promise to believe,’ ‘Sapphire Blue,’ etc…
We also tried to include lyrics that people could sing along with. We added some silly stuff like ‘what’s better: Super Junior or pizza?’ or ‘what’s better: Super Junior or polar bears?’ which were teasing questions that I asked on my twitter page months ago when I first started learning about SUJU and ELF.
Alot of people love our lyrics, but we’ve also gotten complaints from people who find the lyrics to be too simple, or even insulting in some cases. In response, we just want to say that we didn’t mean to offend anyone, and we appreciate that people took the time to listen to our work and let us know how they felt, even if they didn’t like the song. We’ve heard other songs for ELF that are beautiful, emotional, and more serious, and since those already existed, we wanted to try something different and make an ELF song that was upbeat, playful, and fun to dance or sing to.
Also our most sincere apologies for forgetting SJ-T and for saying “Hwaiting” wrong. I guess we’re still Kpop rookies afterall.
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AKP: “What’s the story behind you two joining forces?”
GoodWill & MGI: We met 5 years ago, and started working together selling hip hop beats to artists in New York and other US cities. We had some success there, but more importantly we began to write and produce POP music, which is mostly what we do today. MGI (who’s real name is Henri) does most of the music and GoodWill (my real name is Will) does most of the songwriting and recording stuff. But when we’re together we share all the work :) These days we are traveling all over the world. For example we were just in Los Angeles, and now I’m back in New York City and MGI is back in Europe.
The life of a music producer is not always glamorous. Lots of late nights working in the studio — feeling and looking really tired (and sometimes having smelly socks :P) and lots of long flights all over the world. But we love to do it, and we’re very thankful to all of our fans for helping us live our dream.
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AKP: “What qualities/attributes do you possess that make musicians want to pursue you for your services?”
GoodWill & MGI: We have a very current, competitive sound. When artists and labels come to us they know we’ll deliver BIG songs that can go directly to radio. Plus we’re a double threat, because we write the vocal lyrics/melodies AND produce the music. Between our work in the USA with Akon, Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston etc… our major label work in Europe, and our work in the Kpop market with Super Junior, we are quickly becoming a worldwide brand. We’ve developed a proven sound that can work internationally.
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AKP: “How does it differ to work with Asian artists as opposed to artists from America and Europe? The music and markets differ tremendously, so we’re curious about the mental approach you took to produce for Super Junior.”
GoodWill & MGI: Back in 2010 when we met with the SM team, we didn’t know much about Super Junior. They played us SUJU’s hits like “Sorry Sorry” and “Bonamana” and we started to learn why SUJU’s sound was unique from other groups. One thing about “Bonamana” and “Sorry Sorry” is that they are super catchy tunes! I mean how can you not get “Sorry Sorry” stuck in your head!!! It’s impossible lol. We liked that, and so we tried to make ‘Gotcha Numba’ catchy and fun in the same way. Hopefully you guys will hear it soon :)
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AKP: “Would you be interested in working with other Korean pop groups?”
GoodWill & MGI: We definitely are interested in working with other KPop artists and groups. Since we were introduced to KPop through our work with SUJU, and through our relationship with the Elfs, we have a special bond with them. But we’re starting to learn more about other groups. We’ve been seeing fans of other KPop groups hitting us up on twitter lately — feel free to do so :) We love music and want to learn more about your favorite artists!
If any artists or labels with budgets want to inquire about our production or songwriting, please email me at goodwillmp3@gmail.com. Only serious inquiries please.
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AKP: “If you could choose one song to describe yourself, what would it be?”
GoodWill & MGI: I like Far East Movement’s ‘Like A G6‘ cuz I think it was one of the biggest club anthems to hit mainstream worldwide radio in a long time. That song ALWAYS gets the party started!!!
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AKP: “Could you give us a hint about ‘Gotcha Numba‘?”
GoodWill & MGI: Unfortunately we’re gonna keep this a secret for now. We want it to be fresh and exciting for you guys when it finally comes out. Please be patient, we know you’re gonna love it and all the other good stuff we have cookin’ in our studio right now :-)
Also thanks so much to you guys at allkpop for giving us this interview! You guys are awesome and you are our go-to English language site for learning about KPop :)
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GoodWill & MGI recently created a dance contest for the ‘ELF song’, which invited fans to come up with a dance that would be crowned as the ‘official dance for GoodWill & MGI’s ‘ELF Song’.
GoodWill also told us, “After the dance contest we’re going to have a Karaoke contest which will be structured the same way, so go get your copies of the ELF song Karaoke or instrumental versions on iTunes, and get your vocal chords ready!”
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It’s awesome to see these honorary ELFs celebrate their strong bond with the Super Junior fanbase, and we can’t wait to hear GoodWill & MGI’s work in future K-Pop productions!
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