Busker Busker’s Brad Moore is making waves for Kpop, by revealing that things were and are less than real with talent competition show, Superstar K. In a recent interview he had all this to say about what really went down behind the scenes:

“They just needed diversity in their narrative, in their broadcasting—so they had us come in to make the show look successful…Even though they had called us.”

“The recording was so bad that Two Months had to go back in and re-record their vocals, because no one would’ve believed they passed with that performance…And the miking on these TV shows is crap, so the whole thing had to be super-produced. They had to Auto-Tune my drums, they had to Auto-Tune everything. So when they put it on television, it sounded like this really nice, professional track.”

“We were popular because we were on TV, but we couldn’t legally make money…We were at ‘amateur status’ in the broadcasting contract. So, like, Coca-Cola comes in and we spend all day doing a Coca-Cola commercial, but they pay the [show’s] company—not the artist. We were on the show for eight weeks straight, and we did commercials for eight weeks straight. We took home no money from that.” 

“Our sales were in the millions [USD]. One song, ‘Makgeollina,’ sold $1.4 million in a month and a half—and yet we saw nothing from that”

“He [manager] said, ‘Okay, Ulala Session is going to be announced winners, they’ll say thank-yous, [you’re] gonna say thank-yous—and what you guys gotta do is get Dani up onstage'” 

“The CJ time, those six months—I mean, it was like the TV show. It sucked. They booked us every day, all day, because contractually they could.”

Mnet was quick to respond for Superstark K:

 “It’s unfortunate as it seems like this problem has risen because Brad’s insufficient understanding about the broadcast system and Korean entertainment businesses…Chungchun Music [the band’s current agency] also didn’t realize that Brad would say something like this…Brad probably didn’t intend for it to come out like this either. We’re currently waiting for Chungchun Music’s official statement. We will organize our official position after we’ve resolved the misunderstanding…The Coca-Cola advertisement that Brad mentioned is a main sponsor advertisement [of ‘Superstar K’]. The conditions of that ad is that the contestants must film for it… So it was not their personal commercial, but a company one…About the content about the dorm, we already showed the contestants going into see dermatologists and getting procedures done on the broadcast… This is all just a process of becoming a pro along with getting vocal training as a singer.”

A rep for CJ E&M also made a statement: 

“We have already paid out for the pay associated with the refreshment advertisement that Brad mentioned… We also co-produced Busker Busker’s 2nd album and organized their national tour. If there were problems between us, then we wouldn’t have worked together…Many music programs do a bit of touching up… Mnet and CJ E&M have never held back on their support for ‘Superstar K’ contestants… We’re worried that because of this, it will tarnish the intention of the show which aims to discover new musicians.”

Also, of course, MNet has denied that Ulala Session’s win was planned:

“The words to Busker Busker about Ulala Session winning was said when we were telling them what would happen in the case that Ulala Session did win… Rather than us scouting them [Busker Busker], we had made a request about them joining the audition… The decision of joining is up to the participants. We cannot force them.”

So basically, their live performances were fudged, their vocals were digitally perfected, Ulala Session’s win was planned, and they were paid little to nothing thanks to the loop hole that was created by them not being actual artists. Not long after everything hit the fan, Brad made this statement on Twitter:

[tweet https://twitter.com/Busker_Brad/status/385632015002767360]

Full Tweet:“When I was on Superstar K3 I didn’t know Korean and Korean culture well and misunderstood things. But now I’m studying Korean hard and happy doing music and broadcasting. I am very thankful for Superstar K3 for all their support and their contribution to my life. 앞으로 열심히 하겠습니다.”

Yea….its a wee bit too late for that Brad. I’m just gonna go out on a limb, spread rumors, and say I think that tweet was written for Brad. It only looks worse for MNet to have Brad come out and backpedal when he already said all there is to say. They should have just made their denial statement and let it all go from there.

Honestly, I don’t this is going to effect Superstar in anyway, if anything maybe more people will watch to try and see if they can catch the phony parts. As for the effect on Busker Busker, surprisingly enough, there is nothing but positive ones. Busker Busker has been chart topping on music programs despite not promoting their comeback, so they’re good.