What did releasing this EP unlock for you personally, especially now that you’ve had distance from the heartbreak that inspired it?
First of all thank you for having me!
This EP is special in so many ways for me because I have many firsts on it. It’s my first ever EP [so that’s exciting], first time writing in Australia and also it documents my first ever heartbreak.
I’m really happy that I can now look back on this EP as like a time capsule for myself. I was in a lot of pain and hurt at the beginning of the year. It was a very dark and confusing time for me and there were moments where I thought it would never get better and I’ll forever rot in my bed grieving. I’m really proud of myself for getting back on both feet and how I, no pun intended, moved on with grace. I can proudly say the crashouts were done in private and in song!
I’m happy that I was able to create this body of work from that heartbreak. Writing with Cody Jon, Glenn Hopper and Maribelle in Australia really made me feel safe to share what I was going through. It was a perfect storm of events.
How did the moment that sparked Damaged reshape the way you write about vulnerability and emotional honesty?
I’ve always written from a place of vulnerability and honesty. But what made writing “Damaged” so different was that I had 2 collaborators with me, Cody Jon and Glenn Hopper. It was such a fun session and one I will never forget. It was the first session with the three of us and I think we made something really beautiful.
It all started with me catching Cody up with my breakup. It was so crazy because when I saw Cody last December I was telling him about my relationship and how happy I was. So the contrast between that and me telling him we’ve broken up and that I feel like I’ve lost the ability to love was quite the difference.
Glenn, Cody and I had really great writing chemistry and we created a very safe environment for all of us to share. So I thank Concord Australia and InQ International for putting these sessions together. I really felt like I was just venting to my friends about my breakup and how I was feeling at the time. “I woke up this morning with an alarm I set for you, with another stranger in my room” was the first lyric we wrote for this song and it came from just a simple conversation. So this whole process was extremely cathartic and freeflowing. I feel like these sessions were meant to happen for me as well as these songs because initially I was planning on releasing a completely different set of songs and EP before this australia trip.
Across the EP there’s a shift from pain to a kind of quiet clarity. Where did you feel that turning point creatively?
My goal with music is always to tell a story and with this EP I was able to tell a longer one and really bring my audience into a world that centered around the story of my breakup. I wanted each song to really feel different to each other and really show how turbulent the breakup felt for me. Healing wasn’t every linear and straight forward, one day I’d be fine, the next I’m at the club with my friends and then I’m back in square one again crying in bed. So I wanted it all to be captured in song.
Like I said before, Australia was definitely a turning point for me. I remember coming back to Vietnam post trip and telling my manager how much I enjoyed that creative process and how much I loved the songs. I had the demos on repeat for, I’m not even kidding, everyday.
I think personally for me the most ah-ha moment was when I wrote “Thank God!”. When Glenn came back to Vietnam in October to help me write a few more songs for the project. I was starting to see someone new and honestly I felt the sparks again. I felt alive and it felt very sweet. “Thank God!” The song just flowed out of me and it felt like such a relief to write and sing. I never planned to write a song like this for the project because I had no idea if I was going to even fall in love again or not. Strangely I did, and it caught me off guard. Writing this EP really was just me finding out as I went on and going with the flow and the puzzle pieces just clicked. The EP tells a story beginning to end: the devastation, to the rebellion into new love. I think it’s a cycle, and “I Don’t Know” is the perfect end to the project because after every high we come down again and then the cycle restarts.
You’ve talked about waking up next to someone new and realising you weren’t healed yet. How did that moment change your understanding of yourself?
It was a crazy feeling. I weirdly felt so gross and disgusted with myself to be honest. I felt like I was cheating even though we were broken up and I had every right to do so. It was this feeling of an invisible string that kept me tied to my ex that in hindsight I felt was hope and me keeping that door slightly open just in case they were to come back.
That moment really forced me to reflect. It was almost like a hard wake up call like: “Hey! Let’s focus on ourselves first before we get into anything again.”. I learnt a lot about attachment styles and how I navigate relationships. It shows me where I could improve but also where I need to set clearer boundaries next time.
The waking up to a new person moment isn’t necessarily any bad will against the new person but it was more about myself and how I felt about me.
There’s a cinematic quality to Damaged, like the world tilts with every emotional hit. How intentional was that visual sense in the production?
When I went into the session with Cody and Glenn one of the things I told them was I wanted this song we wrote to sound like it could be played in a stadium, I wanted something big, something that builds and builds. And so, the production was just a result of that initial conversation. I am a pretty dramatic person as is, so there is always going to be a little bit of drama in the music but I wanted it times 10 for this record.
I also think the reason why the track feels the way it is is because I wrote it during a time where the wounds were so fresh. I was writing as I was going through it so every lyric was fresh off my mind and how I was feeling in that exact moment. I hadn’t had time to really process any of it before I put thought to paper, or in this case our shared Google Doc.
You worked between Vietnam and Australia with collaborators like Maribelle, Glenn Hopper, Cody Jon, and Michael Choi. How did those different environments and creative energies feed into the EP’s identity?
I’m so lucky and grateful to have worked with such great and talented individuals on this project. I think the biggest thing all these collaborators have brought into this project for me was their perspective and they brought to the table energetically. I think what this EP and my other projects have in common is my songwriting. That’s the throughline, it’s always written from my heart and experiences. However, there came a point where I needed to break outside of my comfort zone a little bit, I needed to reinvent myself. So Glenn, Cody, Maribelle and Michael really helped facilitate this discovery with new sounds and ways to look at a situation.
The writing rooms were always so much fun. It truly felt like summer camp. I never wanted to leave. I loved Melbourne so much. I’m gonna be back to write my next project very soon.
This project feels like a reintroduction. In your own words, who is MINH at this stage of your life and artistry?
It really is. I think for me, I’ve always tried to be the most authentic version of myself in my music and pride myself on it. 18 year old me writing and releasing his first single “Blame” was so serious and meant every lyric he wrote. However, I believe that at that point in my life there was a ceiling. I was not letting myself discover whether it be in my love life or just experiences in general. And the crazy thing was, I thought I knew everything. So between the years 2021-2025 I really made it my top priority to just experience life to the max. That meant not dropping music and just focus on developing myself as a person and artist. Perfecting my craft because I know the goals I want to achieve and it can only be executed and done right if I truly prepare and am at the top of my game.
So for me taking time off to rediscover and develop myself was critical because it’s made me more wise and honestly more confident. I used to feel like I was putting on an act or playing a role of this confident kid with all these experiences on his belt but now I can say I’ve experienced enough to share a fresher perspective. So now when it comes to liveshows or the music I’m dropping, I am confident that I am not just representing myself well but also my community and country!
Your songs often sit at the intersection of intimacy and pop ambition. What did you want listeners to feel in the space between those two worlds?
I’m such a pop music and pop culture fanatic and my inspirations are artists such as Julia Michaels, Taylor Swift, Ryan Tedda..etc. So I’ve always looked up to them when it comes to lyrics and melodies. I’ve always been drawn to story telling lyricism, saying in a different way because everything’s been said before. I want audiences to enjoy my music the way I enjoy my favourite artists’ music. I want them to feel like they’re being understood and like their problems don’t exist for a good 4 minutes or if you’re listening to my EP, 17 minutes.
Liveshows have also impacted the way I write my music. I love when a crowd is high energy and when I’m able to do that with music. There’s no better feeling than the energy of a crowd dancing and jumping to a song of yours so I definitely always have that thought in the back of my head when writing. Always trying to imagine how this song would translate live and where people would connect. It’s all very interconnected and I think that’s what makes it so fun. It’s like world building!
Tracks like Out With Grace and What I Never Had carry a sense of release, almost gratitude. How did acceptance shape your approach to writing them?
These tracks were the ones I wrote with Maribelle. They are so different to what I’ve made before and honestly I’m so happy they exist. This pop dance sound has always been something I’ve wanted to create and its a genre I love listening to. ‘What I Never Had’ was the first track I wrote at the writing camp and it was an instant favorite of mine. I was still a little bitter about my breakup and told Maribelle: “I just want to dance and not really care” and that was just the energy that we sustained for our sessions. I wanted to create songs that at first glance wasn’t serious and just made me feel like I was on cloud 9 but if you really dived into the writing it was layered and super emotional. I joked to Maribelle that if these songs were reproduced into ballads they would be so sad.
“Out With Grace” was written after a night out I had with Cody Jon in Melbourne. I still had one last writing session the day after but just had these reckless thoughts that I wanted to black out and go crazy. That night was cut very short when my manager called me back to the AirBnb. But I think it was meant to happen because “Out With Grace” was born in that very next session. The irresponsible thoughts inspired the lyrics “If it’s more than I can take then I’mma go out with grace. I’ll take it to the extreme, You’ll see it all on my face”. I think I was in a very dark place mentally during that time but I was acting like everything was okay. But I think that tension and conflict really created something interesting in the music and I’m really proud of both songs! It’s my favorite to perform live.
You’ve stepped onto global stages and pushed Vietnamese pop into new spaces. How does this EP reflect where you hope to take your sound next?
I think my goal is to constantly elevate my music to a global scale. I’ve had such incredible opportunities that are unheard of and never been done by a Vietnamese artist before so I take it very seriously and try my best to represent not only myself, my team but also my community and country. This EP is a sneak peak into what everyone can expect from me moving forward. Definitely more trips to Australia for sure and also international collaborations will be something I will be doing more in the future. I’ve made so many friends from around the world over these couple of years and it truly feels like a big family of global friends.
I have plans to release 2 new EPs next year so expect that. The sound will only get more dramatic and grand and knowing myself, my life will only get more chaotic so expect more stories told! I hope to do lots of festivals next year and really bring this EP onto the global stage and perform the way I imagined when I was writing them.
