Fail Fast frontman Kevin Loesken, center, flanked by Han Sang-jun and Ryan Quiros, sings during Block Party at The Studio HBC, Sept. 22. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

A new hardcore punk band in Seoul is already prepared for failure, and that's not a bad thing.

The five-member band, named Fail Fast, has played three shows so far and released a three-song album titled "The Prepared Not Scared EP" plus a music video — and so far failure isn't on the horizon.

They get their name from a business management concept, one that encourages a trial-and-error process and that doesn't punish employees for their inevitable errors.

"The idea behind the term 'Fail Fast' is to try out new things without trying to be perfect and learning quickly from your mistakes as you go," Kevin Loesken, the band's frontman, told The Korea Times. "I feel like there are too many bands around that are doing nothing because they're waiting for the right timing or the perfect song or whatever, and I don't want this band to do that. If we end up doing something that isn't cool or doesn't work, we'll fail fast: scrap it, learn from it and move on to the next thing without being sad or quitting because of it."

Fail Fast guitarist Matt Williams plays during Block Party at The Studio HBC, Sept. 22. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

Loesken started Fail Fast even though he's already playing guitar for another hardcore project, Care Less. Fail Fast also includes his Care Less bandmate Matt Williams, as well as Ryan Quiros and Han Sang-jun, both previous members of Punk on Fire, plus drummer Jegger Im.

"I first thought about starting up this project because I felt like I was mostly garbage at writing songs in the Care Less style and because I'm a guy that wants to be constantly busy and at shows," Loesken said. "Everything I ended up trying to write for Care Less was faster and more chaotic and had to be reined in to fit the other songs."

So he put together some compositions in his own style, and soon he had enough bandmates on board to deliver his vision.

"I realized that everybody else in the band was skilled as hell and could actually play really fast music as these songs were written," he said. "I was really happy that we could lean into the speed and energy of punk music in Fail Fast. The musicianship in this band is kind of way better than a band like this needs to be."

Fail Fast takes some cues from old-school skate punk, melodic hardcore, punk rock, "and probably even some emo and pop punk in a few songs," Loesken added.

"I honestly don't know what our genre would be, and I don't think it's as important to me to have it clearly defined as it seems to be for a lot of people," he said. "As long as these songs are cohesive and don't all sound wildly different, and as long as the live energy is good and mostly aggressive, I'm cool with it."

The band released its first recordings on Sept. 6, recorded locally at Binary Studios, run by Jeff Moses of the melodic punk band ...Whatever That Means, who runs the label World Domination, Inc.

The cover for Fail Fast's three-song album "The Prepared Not Scared EP" / Courtesy of Fail Fast

"I've recorded with Jeff now over three bands," said Loesken, who was also in the earlier band Get to the Point. "I feel like each release coming out of Binary Studios is getting better and better across all of the genres starting to record there, so I was sure we'd easily be able to nail the right vibe of these songs."

The album has three songs that all have a pretty consistent texture, starting with the 33-second "Numbers Game," which jumps right into the next song, "Slap on the Wrist," and takes a moment before its final onslaught in "An About Face."

When explaining the album's message, Loesken circled back to the band's overarching theme.

"The concept of these songs is pretty consistent, which is to not give up and to not let yourself get slowed down by being perfect, as well as not letting yourself get dragged down by negativity," he said. "Ask for help from those around you when you need it, don't be too hard on yourself and just keep working towards something and doing better. This is stuff that I have to tell myself all the time and actually live by in my own life, so I'm glad I'm not up there spouting nonsense that doesn't apply to me."

He added that he snuck in a few references to social issues "like the justice system of *insert any country name you want* and the pesky police of one very specific and quite distant country."

As a foreign resident of Korea, he admitted that some of the country's tendencies toward perfectionism are touched on in this message, but he emphasized that it didn't play a major part.

"The Korean focus on perfection plays a part in it," he said, "but the songs are mostly written based on specific people or scenarios that I've come across where I thought 'this experience would be so much better or fruitful if we just called things good now and moved on.' As more of the songs geared towards that message, I did definitely think about this applying here in general in Korea as well, though."

Now that the band has established a stable lineup and put together enough good songs for a decent set, Loesken said they'll focus on playing more shows in the coming months. He's also working on more songs, with plans to keep recording.

"I'm starting on the next batch of songs to write now as well, so I hope to always have something new to show for the band," he said. "Fail Fast will probably always be up to something since it was formed as an outlet to stay busy so it's just in the band's nature. Really man … I just want to stay active."

Visit failfastreal.bandcamp.com to hear Fail Fast's music, or follow @failfastreal on Instagram.