Little Boys don't so much play music as let it happen to them. The Italian rock duo describes their sound as something uncontrollable — not quite explosive, not quite calm, but always caught in that charged space between holding back and letting go. It's a philosophy that extends beyond the stage: two members, zero rulebook, and a shared instinct for approaching the world with the wide-eyed curiosity of children who haven't yet learned what they're "supposed" to be doing. This month, that restless energy lands in South Korea for an ambitious tour run stretching from Seoul and Busan to Geoje, Jeonju, Anyang, Incheon, and Jeju — not a victory lap, but an immersion. True to form, Little Boys aren't interested in translating themselves for new audiences; they've sung in Italian across Japan, in Italian and Japanese across Europe, and now bring that same untranslated honesty to Korean stages, trusting that real connection happens through energy rather than language. While there, they're also linking up with Myungje Woo of Bye Bye Sea for a genre-crossing collaboration that pairs their wilder instincts with his refined, classic sensibility — a pairing built on contrast as much as chemistry. What follows is a conversation about sound, spontaneity, and the strange alchemy of touring the world without a map: how a two-person band survives creative combat, why a spiritual visit to a mudang might be the most on-brand way to spend a day off, and why Little Boys sees Korea not as a destination, but as one more stop in a journey that keeps getting bigger than they ever planned.
For those discovering Little Boys for the first time, how would you describe the sound and energy of the band?
I would describe our sound and energy as something that cannot really be controlled. It might explode, or it might not, depending on the situation and the moment. It is not necessarily dynamite, and it is not necessarily aggressive. It is malleable.
There is always this tension between holding energy back and releasing it, a continuous flow that can suddenly expand, collapse or change direction. In a way, it is a little like the motion of the universe: energy constantly moving and transforming. That is probably the closest description of Little Boys.
Rock music has gone through countless changes over the decades. What elements of classic rock do you still love, and what do you think makes Little Boys distinctly a modern band?
The strange thing is that we have never really followed the evolution of rock, because fundamentally, we do not listen to much rock. So maybe what makes us modern is precisely that we do not really know what we are supposed to be doing.
We are not even sure we would define ourselves as a modern rock band. In some ways, we probably feel closer to simply being a rock band in the most basic sense. We are not hard rock, pop rock, country rock or any other specific version of it. We are an accumulation of many different things.
Maybe our attitude is reflected in the name Little Boys itself. We approach things almost like children: we do not know the rules, and we are curious about whatever we encounter. We are like sponges. We absorb things, play with them and reuse the toys we find along the way.
So perhaps the most modern thing about us is also the most childish: not knowing what the hell we are doing, and discovering it while we are doing it.
When you're writing a song, does the guitar riff, a drumbeat, or the overall feeling usually come first?
Nothing necessarily comes first. It can begin with an idea, a word, a joke, an image, a sound, anything.
What we have noticed, though, is that the songs we eventually decide to keep are usually the ones that happen incredibly fast. Once the initial idea appears, we can sometimes finish the core of the song in about half an hour.
Sometimes it also starts from something almost visual. We can have an image in our heads, sometimes even something that comes from a lucid dream, and then the process becomes one of defining it, almost sculpting the music until it resembles what we originally saw or imagined.
Then there is the reality of being a two person band. One of us brings an idea to the other, and very often that idea gets completely destroyed and rebuilt. The person who brought it in can fight for it as much as they want, but eventually they have to deal with what the other person sees in it too.
That is one of the best things about being only two people: there is nowhere for an idea to hide.
You're playing 16 shows across South Korea, from Seoul and Busan to Geoje, Jeonju, Anyang, Incheon, and Jeju. What made Korea the destination you wanted to explore so extensively? What have international tours taught you about connecting with audiences who may not speak the same language as you?
What made us want to explore Korea so extensively? The desire to conquer the world.
More seriously, when we first approached Korea online, the response was incredibly positive. Every time we introduced the project, we found people genuinely interested in what we were doing and willing to bring us here to play. That curiosity made us want to go further rather than simply come to Korea for one or two shows. We wanted to move through the country, discover different cities and different scenes, and understand what happens when Little Boys is thrown into all of these different environments.
As for language, international touring has taught us that we do not need to speak the same language to connect and, more importantly, that trying too hard to accommodate an audience does not necessarily create a stronger connection.
We have played in Japan singing in Italian. We have toured Europe singing in Italian and Japanese. Now we are in Korea singing in Italian, Japanese and a little English. And we are still exactly the same band.
Our job is to play.
We do not want to convince people with words before we start, during the concert or afterwards. We have never been interested in that kind of forced accommodation. When a real connection happens, it happens through energy: you are there, we are there, we are playing, and something passes between us.
You do not need to translate that.
If someone wanted to experience Korea through its indie-rock scene rather than its mainstream music industry, where do you recommend they go?
We would tell them to do exactly what we are doing: go to as many venues as possible, all over Korea.
It is not enough to say, "That venue has a name in the underground scene, so that is where I should go." You have to taste everything that exists for yourself. The more places you enter, the more people you meet and the more situations you experience, the more information you absorb. Eventually, you do not just observe a scene anymore. You start becoming part of it, and you take something from each experience with you.
There are always opinions, reputations and stories surrounding a venue or a scene. But we prefer to go there ourselves and see it with our own eyes.
So our advice is simple: do not be afraid to explore everything and form your own opinion through direct experience.
While you're in Korea, you'll also be working on new music with Myungje Woo of Bye Bye Sea. How did that collaboration come about? What was it about Myungje's musical style that made you want to work together?
We were introduced to Myungje through Kary from Rolling Stone Korea.
Honestly, if you have heard Myungje play bass, you can probably understand immediately the pleasure of hearing that much softness and elegance coming from four strings. There is something in his approach to music that has a slightly classic, almost 1980s sensibility to it, and that immediately made us curious about what would happen if we brought that into Little Boys.
We come from a much wilder kind of rock, while Myungje is far more composed and refined. That is exactly why we like the match. There is an affinity between us, but also enough contrast to make the collaboration interesting.
Beyond music, he is also simply a delightful person to be around, which matters enormously when you are creating something together.
We will soon be working on a song with him, and we are really looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. We will also spend some time together in Seoul, including visiting his studio, so this collaboration is becoming more than just adding a bass part to a track. It is another experience we are getting to absorb during our time in Korea.
We are genuinely very happy that we met him.
You're bringing an Italian rock perspective into a Korean music environment. Do you think cultural differences will influence the music you create together? What similarities have surprised you most between the indie music communities you've encountered in Italy and Asia?
Of course cultural differences will influence what we create together, but probably not in a way we can predict, and we do not want to predict it.
We do not sit down thinking, "We are Italian, he is Korean, so let us find a way to combine these two cultures." That would feel artificial. We bring our own musical instincts, Myungje brings his, and whatever cultural differences exist between us will inevitably find their way into the music without us forcing them.
What has surprised us most while travelling through different indie scenes is actually how quickly cultural differences become secondary once people start making music together.
Italy, Japan and Korea have completely different languages, habits and environments, but underground musicians tend to share a certain instinct: curiosity, the desire to create something independently, and the need to build their own space when the mainstream does not provide one.
Maybe that is the biggest similarity we have found. The scenery changes, the language changes, but the impulse behind it is often remarkably similar.
You've got one free day in Korea with no rehearsals, no interviews, and no travel. Where are you going and what are you doing?
We are going to see a mudang and have our destiny predicted.
We are joking, but only partially. We are genuinely fascinated by the spiritual side of Korea, and it is something we really want to experience while we are here rather than limiting the tour to venues, hotels and train stations.
The funny thing is that we are not going to have many truly free days anyway. Maybe one, two or three during the entire tour. We already lost our first two because I got gastroenteritis almost immediately after arriving in Korea and spent them in bed, so now every remaining free day has become extremely valuable.
Even our idea of a free day is not particularly free. We are planning to meet a mudang, explore Seoul with Myungje, visit his studio, and work on and record the song we are creating together.
The rest of the tour is packed with shows, travel and interviews, including radio appearances around the country. So if we actually find one completely empty day before leaving Korea, we will probably try to squeeze an entire country into 24 hours.
What's one thing you absolutely have to bring home from Korea?
A new mark on our identity.
Every country we experience intensely leaves something behind. We do not want to come home from Korea simply carrying memories, photographs or souvenirs. We want to come back slightly different from the people who arrived.
That is one of the reasons we tour this way: we throw ourselves into a place, absorb as much as we can, and inevitably let it alter us. Some of those experiences eventually become music, some change the way we think, and some become part of Little Boys without us even noticing when it happened.
So what do we absolutely have to bring home from Korea? Another mark on who we are.
Looking beyond this tour, what chapter do you feel Little Boys are entering right now? Are you building toward something you've been imagining for a long time?
We are building exactly what we want, except it has become much bigger than what we originally imagined.
We do not really see arriving here as the fulfilment of a dream. It feels more like the natural consequence of having started moving and simply never stopping. You take one step, that step creates the possibility of another one, and eventually you look around and realize you have travelled much further than you expected.
That is probably where Little Boys are right now.
Korea is not a destination or an ending. We already have the next tours taking shape, and then the ones after those. We are looking toward new parts of Asia, including Thailand and the Philippines, and America is one of the next major steps we want to take.
So we do not feel like we are entering a chapter where something has finally been accomplished. It feels more like the scale of what Little Boys can become keeps expanding.
And that is much more exciting than reaching a finish line.