KPop Demon Hunters has become a cultural phenomenon, and it has earned many awards, including two at the 98th Academy Awards. The film’s soundtrack has swept the world, and it was the first soundtrack to have four songs simultaneously in the Billboard Hot 100 top 10. One of the unsung heroes of the animated movie is Daniel Rojas, a composer and songwriter who co-wrote “How It’s Done” and “What It Sounds Like.”

Daniel Rojas was the first musician to come on board KPop Demon Hunters and was the architect, along with EJAE.

“[I was] the very first, and I brought in EJAE,” Rojas tells Nerd Reactor. “So EJAE and I worked together with Maggie and Chris for more than three years before anyone else came in. We kind of put it all together as far as like where the songs should go, what the songs should be doing for the story, before different groups of songwriters were called in for different scenes. So it was more, I would say, like the architecture of it all with EJAE.”

600 Songs Were Made for KPop Demon Hunters

The process was very long, and the songwriters worked on 600 songs, only to have 9 songs chosen for the final version of KPop Demon Hunters.

“A lot of these songs had 30 to 40 different versions,” he explained. “By versions, I mean very different, not small revisions, but like whole different tracks or different lyrics, different things. We worked for over five years, and then in the end, it’s only like nine songs. People are like, ‘It took five years to do nine songs?’ I was like, ‘No, it took five years to do 600 songs, out of which the nine that you know.'”

Rojas and EJAE have worked together previously, and he knew that she was perfect for the film.

“I’ve known EJAE for a decade, basically,” the songwriter said. “And I’ve always thought she’s extremely talented, both as a writer and also as a singer. I loved her voice. I’ve used her many times, even just to sing demos and things like that. And especially this being a Korean film, she was born in Seoul, grew up in America, but also goes back there a lot.

“Her family still lives in Korea. It just felt like such a perfect fit. And someone who had been through the K-pop system and had trained at SM Entertainment, I immediately told Maggie, ‘I have the perfect person that we need for this puzzle.’ Because I’m not a K-pop person. I’m not an idol in any way. We were lacking that kind of authentic voice in our team for the music side. The music was so important. So we already had authenticity from Maggie, but we needed a voice in the music department early on that could also guide that light. And I thought EJAE was the perfect match. I made the introduction, brought her in, and we worked together for many years.”