As someone who spent a lot of his time performing and rapping in Spokane, Andrew Walters is just as known here by his rap moniker, Locke, as his real name. But after returning home from two years of teaching English in Seoul, Korea, there might not be as much of Locke — that rapping side — to see anymore. While Walters hasn’t completely given up music, he’s set his sights on receiving a master’s of teaching from EWU. He recently spoke with The Inlander about how living in Korea affected his taste in music, his musical plans for Spokane and the performance that made him question his future as a rapper.

INLANDER: What led you to Korea?

WALTERS: I always wanted to live in a different country and have that experience. I just thought if I didn’t just do it, I might never do it, so I did it and I happened to land in Korea.

Did you find living in Korea affected the music you were interested in?

Maybe. A lot of the places that I hung out played American music. … You know, with my friends, we’re going to a bar and they’re playing really terrible American Top 40 so I didn’t hear as much Korean music as I could’ve.

Did you perform at all overseas?

Yeah, I did. I played one show there.

How did that go?

It was kind of like the epitome of every terrible show I’ve ever played. After I did that, I really didn’t think that I was interested in ever really rapping again.

What made the show so terrible?

It was just like every bad-to-mediocre show that I’ve ever played. … It just made me realize that I don’t know if I like [rapping] that much. If you really love playing music or whatever, then bad-to-mediocre shows are gonna be OK because you really love doing it, but for me, I just got to the point where I thought, “I don’t know if I really like this that much to put up with this.”

Do you think that feeling is going to continue now that you’re back home?

Maybe. I did a few songs with the Flying Spiders … and we’re working on some other stuff and it’s fun for me. The problem is something stopped being fun. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

That, I guess, was my problem. I’ve been doing these things with the Spiders and it’s been fun. I’ll probably do some stuff with them and then I’ll probably just take it from there but I don’t know. I already rapped again [so] I pretty much broke my vow of not rapping.

My main thing now is I’m DJing. I’m doing this monthly thing called Chico [at Mootsy’s] and that’s like a monthly dance party thing. And then I’m doing this Wednesday night thing at Pacific Avenue Pizza. I’m just playing classic hip-hop and stuff that’s nice to listen to, so that’s kind of like my music now, more than anything.

Chico with Locke and Pink Blood Buttons • Sat, June 30 at 10 pm • $3 • 21+ • Mootsy’s • 406 W. Sprague • 838-1570