K-Pop’s Ampers&One Shares An Edgier Concept On Second U.S. Tour

Ampers&One has a unique perspective, one that both helps them stand out and helps them relate to a worldwide audience. Yes, they’re a k-pop band, performing in Korean, but they are also a global band with international origins.

“I like to think that we are a Korean band in the genre of k-pop, but we definitely have an international audience,” said group leader Kamden. “So, in that sense, we’re both Korean and international, and, yeah, being international is a very big strength for us because we’re able to communicate with a lot of different fans and also are able to relate to fans from different places.”

Rapper Kamden Winston Na lived in the U.S. for a decade. Chinese Canadian vocalist Brian Ho was born in Vancouver. Vocalists Choi Ji-ho and Kim Seung-mo hail from Seoul, while Yoon Si-yun is from Incheon. Singer Kyrell Valentine Choi was born in Seattle and rapper Mackiah Mercer hails from New South Wales in Australia.

“Growing up in different areas of the world means that you’re going to grow up with different experiences,” said Kamden. “Just having those different experiences allows us to relate to our fans and their experiences as well.”

In the two years since the band debuted their first album Ampersand One, they released a few more albums and are already on their second U.S. tour. Their most recent release, the six-track Loud and Proud album sold more than 100,000 copies in its first week, with the music video for the title track “That’s That” surpassing 10 million views three days after its release. The band is currently touring as the opening act for P1Harmony’s 2025 Live Tour.

Mackiah is proud of what they’ve accomplished in those two years, but for him the best thing that happened was meeting his fellow band members.

“I’m so happy to have met these six great people and through our company I met so much great staff and also, of course, our fans,” said Mackiah. “So many great fans, so many great stories. That’s a really big thing that changed my life.”

For Brian the last few years have felt unreal, but in a good way.

“After debuting, it feels like I’m living in a dream,” said Brian. “Because I got to try new things every day, go to new places, eat new food, meet new people and also just perform in front of a lot of fans, which is also just super cool.”

The band’s members also get to try new genres of music, experimenting with different sounds and styles. Some of their earlier songs are brightly upbeat with music videos that portray them as fresh-faced students. Their latest songs and music videos are definitely edgier. The lyrics are defiant, the fashion choices coolly counter culture, the dance moves seem stylishly combative. ‘That’s That” and ‘Kick Start,” both move away from the squeaky clean concept.

“This concept suits us the best,” said Mackiah. “And because it suits us the best, our recent comebacks have been connected to this edgier concept, and as you can see, our outfits, they’ve become different to the outfits we wore in the past. It definitely suits us more, and our fans really love the music as well, so we’re going to try to pursue this type of concept more in the future. At the same time, we’re not going to miss out on specific fan songs or maybe R&B or pop music, but the general concept we are trying to pursue is a more confident feel of the edgier type of music.”

“It expresses our growth as a group and as we find our own color we’re also proud to share that and that we’re old enough to be ourselves through our music,” said Kamden. “That’s kind of what inspired and what fuels our performances when we perform this music. Being confident as the album title suggests, loud and proud about who we are.”

The group’s first members were Kamden, Jiho and Brian, who all took part in the 2023 Mnet reality competition show Boys Planet. Ampers&One was preparing for their New Jersey concert on the same day as this interview, which was also the Boys 2 Planet finale, which prompted Kamden to look back at his Boys Planet experience. It was stressful but a positive experience.

“I already knew Ji-ho before because we trained a lot in the same company,” said Kamden. “But I got to meet Brian in Boys Planet and that’s what I was most happy about. I got to be in a team with this guy. Also competing with 99 contestants, yeah, that was pretty stressful, but in terms of voice training, it was one of the biggest improvements I made in my life.”

“I agree,” added Brian. “Just spending a few months in Boys Planet was more helpful than years of training.”

Although the pressure was crazy, Jiho was really happy to meet other trainees with the same dream. “Everyone has their own situation and hard times they’re going through,” said Jiho. “But we could give each other positive energy.”

Brian and Kamden have on occasion tuned in to see the latest Boys Planet developments. “Sometimes when we had time off we would go to eat,” said Brian. ‘Me and Kamden would watch Boys Planet while we ate.”

“We laughed about the times that we experienced,” said Kamden.

K-pop bands are known for their energetic performances and intricate choreography, but Ampers&One’s dance skills really stand out. Their moves are crisply defined and synchronized. What’s the secret?

“We spend 28 hours a day in the studio,” said Brian. “I’m just kidding.”

It’s only a slight exaggeration.

“When we are trying to make sure we look synchronized, we definitely slow it down and go move by move,” said Kamden. “Making sure each move looks similar and then also focusing on the feel of each move, the texture.”

Surprisingly, none of the band members studied dance before they became trainees. Jiho did start dancing at the age of seven, but just for fun. Kyrell was part of a dance group at church but insists, “I was really, really bad.”

They all enjoy acting in their music videos, but so far there are no definite acting plans.

“Acting right now isn’t our main concern, but it’s something that we definitely want to try in the future,” said Mackiah. “Right now our focus is as the group of Ampers&One, pursuing our dream of becoming k-pop idols. Because we get to act in our music videos and sometimes in our YouTube content, it’s a very fun experience. Because we have these little fun experiences, I guess it helps us want to try it on a bigger scale in the future.”

What they are focusing on right now is writing more lyrics and maybe one day composing.

“Kamden and I are the rappers of Ampers&One and we participated in every track on the last album for the first time,” said Mackiah. “It was a great opportunity from our company to improve ourselves. It’s definitely a way to express ourselves, how we feel, how we want to be seen. It definitely helps improve our skills as well, because while we’re writing the raps for specific songs, we go through a lot of trial and error. It helps us improve, helps us find our own style.”

“In the future, we just want to keep making better lyrics,” said Kamden. “And also if we have the chance we want to participate in composing music all together, because every member has been working on creating music for our album.”

The current tour with P1Harmony is unusual, as k-pop acts rarely have opening bands, but it works for these two groups.

“For us it’s a really good opportunity to perform on a larger stage and for an audience that may not really know us yet,” said Kamden. “Usually, if it was going to be our own show, then it would be for mostly our fans, but doing an opener gives us this opportunity to perform for fans who may not know us yet. We’re really grateful to P1Harmony for giving us this opportunity. It works well also because we’re under the same company, so logistically it’s a lot simpler and, yeah, they’re just really great, a great group that we look up to as well.”

This year’s tour includes performances in Fairfax, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Duluth, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland. According to Mackiah, once you’ve seen Ampers&One in concert it might be hard to forget them.

“If you’ve never seen us, then you might not think about Ampers&One,” he said. “But if you’ve seen us at least once, you’re not going to stop thinking about Ampers&One.”