by Kathy Nguyen, The Poly Post
Dressed in a black jacket, blue jeans and Adidas shoes, Kevin Lien looks just like any other Cal Poly Pomona student as he nonchalantly strolls through the mall.
Out of nowhere, he is stopped by a group of Asian high school girls. They ask him if he really is Kevin Lien.
Yes, he is.
"I get stopped when there is a large amount of people in my demographic on YouTube," said Lien. "When I go to a mall from 4 to 9, it could happen. Whenever I'm in Rowland Heights or Hacienda Heights, it could happen. When I'm in Irvine, it always happens."
With more than 48,000 subscribers on YouTube and 13,000 "likes" on Facebook, Lien has been steadily rising in popularity and fame.
Lien, known for producing full studio tracks from scratch by himself, covers songs such as Taeyang's "Wedding Dress" and Katy Perry's "Firework."
"Every once in a while, when I was sick of school, I would just record songs in my dorm room," said Lien, a fourth-year chemical engineering student. "That's pretty much where I am now, except I don't live in the dorms anymore."
Lien was also the winner of a heated Topblip.com competition last week, where he won $5,000 after his opponent pulled out last minute.
He plans to buy more equipment with his winnings.
"Not that many people know about my equipment, but I have the cheapest equipment known to man," said Lien. "I've owned the same microphone and microphone interface since 2006. I bought both of those combined for less than $300. So I can finally upgrade my equipment and make some better quality faster, for everybody."
Lien said it takes from 100 to 150 hours to create and produce a full studio track.
"All the mixing, mastering, producing, arranging: it's all me," said Lien. "That's the main reason it takes so long."
His top priority is school when it is in session, but his weekends are reserved for making music.
"I don't look at music as being a practical, steady career," said Lien. "It's something that I love to do, and I'm blessed to be making some sort of income off it, but chemical engineering is what I want to do as a career."
Lien said he started singing as soon as he could talk, but his parents forced him into playing piano when he was six years old.
He took private piano lessons until he entered high school. He plays the violin, cello and bass.
"I picked up other instruments on the way because I was sick of playing the same instruments over and over again, and my parents would force me to play these instruments," said Lien. "I kept trying more and more until I got to the point where I realized I was kind of proficient in all the instruments I actually tried to get good at. I used that to my advantage and started producing music as opposed to just listening to it."
Lien said that his mainstream influences are Michael Jackson, Brian McKnight and Ne-Yo. He describes his own voice as pop rock but said the tracks he releases on YouTube can vary.
His voice is strong but versatile, easily adapting to tracks such as Beyonce's "Halo" and a soft, acoustic version of Jason Derulo's "In My Head."
"I think his voice sounds like pop rock and blues," said Michael Dehesa, a third-year chemical engineering student.
Lien's most well known track is his English cover of the Korean song "Wedding Dress" in June 2009, which garnered more than 800,000 views on YouTube.
Due to the track's popularity, Lien admits most of his fans are Asian. Lien said 75 percent of his fans are 13 to 17-year-old Asian girls from Southern California.
Lien's friends say he has not let his newfound popularity go to his head.
"He's always busy and I don't see him as often," said Largoza. "But he's still the same guy."
Lien said his success would not have been possible without the support of his fans.
"To be honest, it's my close friends who supported me from the beginning," said Lien. "It's my family for being supportive of me and they helped me spread the word but most of all, the people [who] choose to listen to me. And they choose to spread the love to their friends. It's just the average YouTube viewer that takes the time to show love. It's 100 percent the viewers.
"I'm going to make music either way. Even if people didn't like it, I'll still be making music the way I am now."