Saja Boys’ Neckwav Sang “Soda Pop” to Stick Figures, With No Idea Abby Was a Demon

Neckwav met the Saja Boys as stick figures. “When I recorded, the animation wasn’t done, so I was recording to, like, stick figures,” the singing voice of Abby told reporters at a press roundtable at New York Comic Con 2026 on Thursday. Asked whether he knew the boy band in KPop Demon Hunters would turn out to be demons, he said, “Oh no, absolutely not.”

The Nerd Wire was at the table with Neckwav and actor-producer Rich Ting, who manages him and Andrew Choi, the singing voice of Jinu. Ting is also moderating “Inside the Saja Boys: Beyond KPop Demon Hunters,” a public NYCC panel on Thursday.

How the Saja Boys went bright on “Soda Pop” and dark on “Your Idol”

Neckwav sang on both of the Saja Boys’ big numbers, and Ting laid out the pecking order: “Andrew’s the lead in all the songs, but Neckwav is second lead in ‘Soda Pop’ and ‘Your Idol.’” So many lines were recorded and then cut together, Neckwav said, that he is still working out exactly which parts of the final mix are his.

He didn’t walk in knowing the twist. What he got during the “Soda Pop” session, he said, was the setup: the group is wearing a disguise while it drains the souls of its fans. His takeaway: “So I was like, okay, so I guess I just gotta sing as bright as I can.”

That was a stretch for a singer who says, “I have a deeper voice, so I’m just used to rapping more often.” He treated it as part of the job — “As a songwriter you have to do what you got to do” — and had fun with it: “It was fun recording, because I’ve never recorded such a lovely song in my life.” For a while he wasn’t even singing to the track. “I actually recorded on the metronome without the instrumental for a little while,” he said.

“Your Idol” was the payoff. “‘Your Idol’ is like the grand finale … we’re gonna take all your soul, so you can be as dark as you want,” Neckwav said. “‘Your Idol’ was just on point. I love the song.” He credited “Ian” — Ian Eisendrath, the film’s executive music producer, per NPR — for the context the singers got: “Ian was kind enough to really explain a lot to us.”

A stalled singing career, a side gig and a voice strangers recognize

Neckwav said he started pursuing music seriously around 2018, and the first plan didn’t hold. “I tried to start it off and, you know, make it as a singer, as an artist. You know, that didn’t work out, so it was a little hard for me at that time. So I switched my career into being a songwriter for K-pop music.”

That is how he came to the movie at all. “It was just a side gig that I did for KPop Demon Hunters,” he said. Then the job changed: “The next thing you know, I’m approached as [a] singer.”

He described the singers as working writers who answered the phone. “We were just literally K-pop songwriters,” he said, who would show up whenever they were called. “This was just one of those days, and now we’re being recognized.”

Literally. Neckwav said fans love Abby’s deep voice, and that a stranger in a store in Korea once asked whether he was one of the Saja Boys — not bad for singers who are, in his words, “literally hiding behind our characters.” As he put it, “Fans were kind enough to do their research.”

The film has opened doors beyond the vocal booth, too. “Through this movie a lot of opportunities came about as a songwriter as well,” he said. “I’ll be, you know, forever grateful for it.” He released a single a couple of months ago and plans to put out more music in his own voice.

On the worldwide response, Neckwav said, “It’s been incredible,” and offered a theory for why: “Being most Korean is what made [it] most international, in my opinion.”

Rich Ting wants the Saja Boys singers as famous as HUNTR/X

Ting, a fourth-generation Asian American born and raised in Los Angeles, said a career in entertainment “was just always a fantasy of mine,” adding, “Hollywood’s always been in my backyard.” Representation was another matter. “Growing up in the era that I did, I just didn’t see us represented,” he said. “My hero was Bruce Lee, but even Bruce Lee at the time seemed so foreign to me.”

“I came into the industry in probably the mid-2000s, where there were no seats for us,” he said. After credits including Warrior, The Man in the High Castle, Tulsa King, Partner Track and On Call, he described the shift this way: “We’ve gone from not having a seat at the table, to having a seat at the table, to now, with me on the agency side … I’m [now] helping to build the table.”

Neckwav and Choi are part of that build. Ting said he founded a production company with a talent management arm, met Choi through his Korean contacts after years of working in Korea, and wants to help both singers build careers beyond Abby and Jinu.

His model is the other band. “Netflix did a fantastic job promoting HUNTR/X,” he said. “People know who the three girls are outside of the virtual animated characters.” He wants fans to be able to look at Neckwav and Choi and say that’s Abby, that’s Jinu, the way HUNTR/X fans can name the singers behind Rumi, Mira and Zoey. The goal, as he put it: “To just be able to get them the exposure they deserve.”

“We have the momentum, so if we don’t capitalize on it now and it dies, then we can actually revert back to what it was.” — Rich Ting

None of that means he has stepped away from the camera. Asked whether he is still acting, Ting said, “100%. That is my first thing, that’s my passion, that’s my craft.”

What Ting does and doesn’t know about the sequel

Netflix and Sony confirmed a KPop Demon Hunters sequel in March, with directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans returning, per Variety Australia. Netflix and AEG Presents also announced a global arena tour in May, without naming performers. Asked whether he knows when the sequel is coming, Ting said, “I don’t.”

“For these animations it takes a while,” he said. “I know the demand is there, and then it’s all budget driven at the end of the day.”

He does know what he wants out of it: “Hopefully the sequel will give us that, you know, that elevation and that leverage.” And he knows where the real test lies. “Before, we never had space. Now we have so much space, so the challenge is what we do in that space.”