Singer Pluto Koi on being a hopeless romantic, his admiration for Ed Sheeran and why love is a universal language
Meet the Bay Area singer-songwriter who writes love songs for everyone
Welcome to Bunni Pop extras, a segment on this newsletter that will introduce readers to rising artists that should be added to your playlists. This week, I’m very excited to share an interview with indie singer-songwriter Pluto Koi!
(Photo: Pluto Koi/Instagram)
Love can drive all sorts of feelings, whether it’s heartbreak, joy, hope or cynicism.
But singer-songwriter Pluto Koi wants you to embrace all the emotions. After all, love is something everyone can relate to.
“A lot of my songs portray me as this hopeless romantic, but I love writing love songs because I think love songs are very universal,” Pluto Koi said in an interview with Bunni Pop.
Those are the sort of emotions that can be heard in Pluto Koi’s latest single ‘Evergreen’, an atmospheric, emotional ballad dedicated to his girlfriend.
Working with his manager and mixing engineer Justin Kao, Pluto Koi says he wanted the song to feel “big and grand.”
Pluto Koi says what resulted is his most “ambitious” song to date.
“[‘Evergreen’] is also very much inspired by Korean drama soundtracks,” Pluto Koi said, adding that he was watching Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo at the time of writing the track.
“I actually have a line in that song. I think it's like the second line where I say, Her eyes look like the ones for movie scenes.’”
There’s a real intimacy when listening to Pluto Koi’s music, which can be best described as a mix between bedroom pop, R&B and lo-fi. And as you listen to his lyrics, it’s almost as if you’re peering into a diary filled with his inner thoughts.
However, it’s his relatability and honesty that has since helped Pluto Koi reach millions of streams on Spotify, along with more than 25,000 monthly listeners on the platform.
Born in the Philippines and raised in Salinas, California, Pluto Koi (real name Ethan Ayaay) first started picking up music in his teen years. His stage name comes after watching the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, in which he wondered what it would be like to be named after a planet like Queen’s late singer Freddie Mercury.
“I landed on Pluto at the end, and I was like, ‘Oh, Pluto is not really planned,’” Pluto Koi mused about the dwarf planet’s status. “He's sort of like outcasted. So I guess part of me resonated with that.”
The singer then stuck the word “koi” after “Pluto”, due to his fascination with the fish species at the time. From there, the name “Pluto Koi” was formed.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Pluto Koi says he started with learning Ed Sheeran tracks “because his songs are super easy to learn.” But he adds that it was Sheeran’s unapologetic way of writing love songs that also inspired him to start composing his own works.
Through learning different chord progressions, Pluto Koi started making original music as a way to vent out his feelings.
It was only during the pandemic when Pluto Koi began to see music as something more than a “side hobby.”
His track ‘You’re Not Lonely’ started making the rounds on social media (thanks to a TikTok he posted that garnered more than 62,000 likes).
Now the track has more than 2.3 million streams on Spotify.
“I never had the intention of reaching people that I didn’t really know existed. It was mainly for friends and family to listen to. And mostly, it was just something for me to put out there and say that I did it,” Pluto Koi said about finding an audience online.
“Seeing the songs blow up and reach a wider audience was honestly kind of scary, but also really fulfilling and validating.”
Pluto Koi says it still surprises him how viral ‘You’re Not Lonely’ went, given the song’s simplicity. It features only three instruments (an electric guitar, MIDI and drums) and a vocal track. But Pluto Koi says the production of the song wasn’t on purpose. “I think it was mostly due to my inexperience as a producer at the time,” he added.
But looking back, Pluto Koi says he’s proud of his growth and wants the freedom to experiment with new sounds in his music, but also expand on his songwriting skills.
“I think what’s exciting about being such a small artist and still very early in my music journey is that I can experiment with a bunch of different things.”
While Asian representation in music and entertainment has grown in recent years, Pluto Koi remembers a time when there weren’t many people who looked like him. Like many Asian kids in the late 2000s and 2010s, he turned to YouTube to find that representation through the likes of musicians Gabe Bondoc, AJ Rafael and Kina Grannis.
“They were 100 percent a big inspiration for me growing up. Also being Filipino in a predominantly Hispanic city, I didn’t really have role models to look up to,” he said.
“They also write a lot of love songs. I think that’s also part of where my inspiration comes from.”
But while romantic love is often a theme that runs through Pluto Koi’s songs, he says he would like to eventually tackle more vulnerable themes in future projects.
It’s something Pluto Koi has already started exploring in tracks like ‘Hope This Helps’, a somber tune which was written after the death of a friend. The song details the friendship that was lost in the process, and Pluto Koi considers this track his most “personal” one to date.
“Hope you’re okay, swear the memories you make will take you places so far away. Though I’ll never see who you’ll grow to be. I know that you’re right here with me,” Pluto Koi sings.
The song is about a different kind of love, Pluto Koi says, even though it was one about grief. And while it was difficult to convey his thoughts into words, he says he’s glad he did it.
“I feel like it helped me relieve something and releasing that song made whatever I was going through come full circle.”
Still, like many writers, Pluto Koi admits that he often falls victim to writer’s block, and is exploring new themes to tackle in his songs. He says he eventually wants to write about things like past mistakes, insecurities and imposter syndrome. But at the end of the day, he hopes he can continue finding an audience through his relatability.
“I don’t consider myself a great singer or a great lyricist. But I think I’m great at like, being myself and being genuine.”
“Sometimes I just get people DMing me and being like, ‘Your music has really helped me.’ Every single time I read a message like that, it makes me feel really great.”
You can listen to Pluto Koi’s music on Spotify and follow him on Instagram.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Accountability is important to me, so please address corrections and concerns by sending me an email at bunnipopnewsletter@gmail.com. Continue the conversation by following bunni pop on Instagram and Twitter.