Johnny Huynh on Exploring the Lightness and Darkness of All-Consuming Love in ‘RED ROSE’
Singer-songwriter Johnny Huynh is a viral artist whose TikTok page has racked up more than 225 million likes with soulful covers and original music alike. His latest single, "RED ROSE," is poised to become yet another hit.
Johnny dropped the new song, and its captivating new music video, today, May 9. It's a darkly haunting and gorgeous track that captures the sensation of falling hard for someone truly remarkable, comparing the subject of his all-encompassing love to a red rose—beautiful, delicate and sometimes thorny. It's weighty and intense, reflected in the raw grit of his vocals, with a compelling music video to match. We had the pleasure of hopping on a Zoom call with Johnny today to discuss the new track, and he filled us in on its history and how its music video came to be in the interview below.
Sweety High: What is the story behind "RED ROSE"? What inspired you to think about love in that way, using the red rose as a metaphor?
Johnny Huynh: "RED ROSE" is actually about something I'm going through right now. I haven't seen anyone for a while, but I'm finally talking to somebody, finally feeling something towards them. That's a really special feeling. It's pretty rare.
The concept of the red rose really captures that well. Red roses are used during Valentine's Day. When you're showing affection toward someone, you buy them flowers. The two last songs on my last EP were "HELL ON ME" and "SAVIOR," which have this dark romance aesthetic to them. I took that and twisted it into this song as well.
I also feel that there's two sides to any love. There's a dark side to the love, and also a lighter side. Sometimes it's all happy and jolly, and sometimes it can be a little bit darker. This song was interesting, using the happy concept of love, but with a really dark sound. You can see the sound aesthetics we went with, with the heavy-hitting drums and the 808's and the bass. They make it sound really dark, but if you just read the lyrics, it's a pretty song. The contrast is really nice.
(via Columbia Records)
SH: What is your favorite lyric from the track?
JH: My favorite lyric from the track is "Sell souls if you said you needed rain." It shows how passionately in love you are. This guy is willing to ruin the world just to make her desires come true. It came out of me really naturally, and the metaphor hits well because roses also need water. When I sell the souls, it brings water back to the flowers. She gets what she wants at the end of the day.
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SH: What was the concept behind the music video's simple yet cinematic feel, featuring a dark red room and roses?
JH: I wanted the music video to be emotionally rich. We learned toward that with my facial expressions and the way I act in the video, and the atmosphere around it is more haunting. Those two things played well into each other and that sprouted the entire concept of the music video, with laying those roses on the ground.
The really cool thing about the video is that I basically use the rose as a person. In some parts, I'm singing directly to the rose. This is the object that personifies the person I feel all those emotions toward. The symbolism in the red rose is really clear in the music video, which I really liked.
And, as you mentioned, the music video is pretty simple, but I think simple things are beautiful in a lot of situations. We kept it that way on purpose to really draw out the emotions.
And then there's the rose dropping on the ground, and that feeling of, if I let go, all of the petals are going to fall off the rose. Everything's going to burn. Everything's going to go bad. We really focus on the emotions and the symbolism of the flower.
SH: Did you find it difficult to bring out those emotions for the music video, or did it feel natural? Did you feel you had to push yourself and those emotions farther than you normally would?
JH: I definitely needed to push it a little bit farther. If you just act it out the way you usually sing, it won't come across as well. I needed it to be dramatic, running with the concept of singing directly to the rose. Singing into the rose felt kind of goofy the first couple of times I was doing it, like, "What the heck am I doing singing at a inanimate object right now?," but once I saw that rose as a whole person, I realized it was what I need to get the emotion out across the camera.
When you're acting, you need to make it more dramatic so that certain things come across on the screen. That's something that was very much in the back of my mind the entire time we were shooting this.
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SH: What can fans expect to see from you in the near future?
JH: This upcoming set of songs is going to lead to a body of work, which is going to be very dark romance-oriented. A lot of the concepts are going to lean into that dark BookTok aesthetic. There's a huge fandom for those freaky and haunty type of books online, and I've been thinking about what types of songs would be a great soundtrack for books like that. The upcoming set of songs will be in that aesthetic, showing the beauty within the lyrics and also feeling haunty, and not too jolly. That grit will show throughout the entire project, which is something I'm excited about. The sound aesthetic really sprouted from "HELL ON ME" and "SAVIOR," which are two defining pieces in all of the work that I've dropped so far.
For even more on Johnny, click HERE to discover everything we learned about him as our Man Crush Monday.