Singer Jang Ye-eun is serving a bubbly summer anthem to officially kickstart her solo career. The former member of girl group CLC (2015-22) will release her solo debut track “Cherry Coke” on April 13 — a mid-tempo hip-hop number that confidently declares love with a catchy bassline and refreshing sound of opening soda cans.

“I’m back as a solo singer,” Jang said during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily on April 5 at the JoongAng Ilbo building in Mapo District, western Seoul. “As I brace myself to stand alone, I feel excitement as well as a sense of responsibly and nervousness.

“When you think about cherry cokes, there’s the sweetness of the cherry and the kick of the coke,” she said while introducing her new lead track. “Those two different sensations meet to create a whole new taste in that drink. I thought the song ‘Cherry Coke’ could portray how the old Ye-eun and the current me blend together charmingly. The moment I first heard it, I really wanted it to become my song.”

Her first EP “The Beginning” also features B-side track “Strange way to love,” pre-released last month. While preparing for her second debut, Jang says she was hit by the realization of how different being a solo artist is compared to her girl group days.

“All eyes are on me, not on any other member, throughout the entire song,” she said. “I have to be on edge at all times and do everything on stage alone. I think that pressure is the biggest challenge of being a solo act. But all those moments made me grow.”

That epiphany came while shooting the music video for “Cherry Coke.”

“Everything on set stopped when I had to take a break,” she said. “Back when I was part of a group, other members continued doing their own thing even when I had to rest. Now, wrapping up and everyone going home early depends solely on me. So I was restless, and when I got home, I was so exhausted I couldn’t even move! You could call it pressure, but I think of it as a good sense of responsibility and a new beginning.”

While she was a member of CLC until it disbanded last June, Jang was known as group’s talented main rapper. She had some opportunities to show off her skills, such as on the Mnet hip-hop show “Good Girl” (2020), but her identity as a member of the group came first and foremost. Now as a solo act, Jang says she looks forward to show the many sides of her that were harder to highlight as part of a group.

“There are so many versions of me on my own that I haven’t shown,” she said. “So I don’t plan for my solo career to stick to one specific concept. I think the best would be for me to come back to the public frequently with many different concepts and music genres. That process itself will be a journey for me to grow and find what suits me best. Perhaps I’ll challenge myself at city pop, one of my favorite genres, or a slow number like Doja Cat’s ‘Streets’ [2021] which I like.”

Jang recently challenged herself to lyric-writing with “Strange way to love,” a ballad dedicated to her fans. Like its title, the song describes the relationship between an artist and fans, proclaiming “What a strange way to love someone.”

“My fans waited throughout a hiatus of two and a half years up until now,” she said. “I really want to thank them for having that trust in me to wait for me. This song is a repayment for their wait, and I put my heart in it to form a story that describes the way fans love singers. It’s a sort of love that can come across as strange to those who don’t have the experience of a being a fan themselves. They may not understand it. But I wonder if there can be a purer, more beautiful form of love than this.”

Among her fans, Jang added that her former CLC groupmates are some of her biggest supporters.

“We still stay in touch very closely and they were one of the first people to listen to ‘Cherry Coke,’” she said. “They said they’re really excited to see me perform it. They’re always there to listen when I share many different worries I have, and their words of encouragement always boost me. The most memorable thing they told me was, now that I’m a solo act, I should freely do anything that I want on stage without feeling like I have to fit into anything else.”

“I was grateful to hear that from them,” she continued. “It feels like the members are still with me, so I don’t feel lonely even as a solo act.”

As she emerges from a long hiatus and prepares to reunite with fans in Korea, Jang hopes to be able to meet international fans in person in the future as well.

“I’ve been receiving a lot of support from foreign fans since my CLC days, in many different languages,” she said. “I love watching reaction videos and reading comments from international fans. Their reaction is very passionate, and it makes me want to study other languages to get closer to them. I really want to tell than that their words mean a lot to me. I thank them for sending me love from so far away, and their support reaches my heart.”

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]