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\n The Traitors<\/em> breakout and K-pop star Eric Nam recruited some Faithful for assistance with his new music video. After getting betrayed by fellow Traitor Rob Rausch in the 11th hour<\/a> of The Traitors<\/em><\/a> season four, Eric Nam<\/a> left the castle thinking one thing: \u201cI\u2019m gonna have some really good music to put out after this.<\/em>\u201d All those heady emotions he encountered in Scotland \u2014 obsession, treachery, heartbreak \u2014 are great fuel for writing pop music. Nam\u2019s first single in two years, \u201cHow the Fire Started,\u201d starts with \u201cYou never gave a damn about me until I had something you needed\u201d \u2014\u00a0a message to Rob if there ever was one. When it came time to cast the music video, Nam recruited a few of his once-Faithful friends \u2014 Natalie Anderson, Yam Yam Arocho, Ron Funches<\/a>, and Irish queen Maura Higgins \u2014 to treat Rausch to a good old-fashioned western showdown. \u201cIt was a cathartic and really funny experience to put this together,\u201d Nam says. Though he got nervous asking for favors from his former castlemates, Nam found they were more than willing to lend a hand: \u201cRob was like, \u2018This is literally the least I can do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In the video, Nam and his Traitors<\/em> colleagues play heightened versions of themselves with Nam leading the charge as \u201cEric the Vengeful.\u201d Rausch a.k.a. \u201cRobby Bobby\u201d is holding the Faithful captive on his ranch, where they\u2019re forced to do manual labor while looking chic. The faux<\/em>\u2013Wild West aesthetic makes for a bright change of pace for a group that spent weeks trudging through mud and rain in Scotland, and Higgins a.k.a. \u201cMaura the Velvet Blade\u201d is almost unrecognizable in a mostly denim fit that\u2019s giving mid-aughts Alyssa Milano. Also, there\u2019s something vaguely familiar about seeing Nam atop a horse \u2014\u00a0was this video in any way inspired by his time pretending to be a cow during the show\u2019s paintings challenge<\/a>? \u201cWhen I was eating grass, I thought to myself, How can I continue the story<\/em>?\u201d he jokes. The Faithfuls and Eric manage to tie up Rob, cutting the straps of his signature overalls \u2014 basically the reality-TV equivalent of Jo cutting her hair in Little Women<\/em>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0until Rausch\u2019s castle BFF, Funches, comes to save him. (It\u2019s especially fitting given that Funches put up a video expressing his desire for Rob to win it all<\/a>, or, as he put it, \u201cFuck those Faithfuls.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cHow The Fire Started\u201d sounds like a mid-tempo country ballad, heavy on the acoustic guitar and yearning. \u201cMy new album isn\u2019t necessarily country, but because I\u2019m from the South, country music has always been an influence in one way or another,\u201d Nam, who was born in Atlanta, explains. \u201cBecause I\u2019m Asian-American, naturally people don\u2019t look at me and think, He likes country music<\/em>.\u201d The new music video offers a chance for Nam to bridge the various roles in his life following his Traitors <\/em>moment: pop star, actor, and, now, reality-TV breakout. \u201cIt\u2019s a good way for me to wrap up this crazy adventure, to be kind of tongue-in-cheek and laugh at it while also giving the fans something new that brings them into my world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Adam Kudeimati<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n