Psy Recounts the Rise of "Gangnam Style"

If you haven't at least tried the now infamous dance moves from Psy's hilarious "Gangnam Style" video alone in your room while no one was watching, you're either lying or you need to loosen up. (Britney Spears did it on national television. You can give it a whirl.) We spoke to the overnight international sensation—who actually attended Berklee College of Music and has been dominating the Korean music scene since 2001—and he told us all about the inspiration behind the rodeo-style dance moves.

"We spent too many nights with the choreographer like, 'Hey, let's find just one simple and single move,'" Psy said. "So we were thinking about every animal... What about a horse... like riding a horse? With this move, we were almost crying. This is it! Let's go!" Were there any other animal dance moves that they tried but ended up rejecting? Yup, a kangaroo.

Not even two months after the video dropped, Psy signed with Justin Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun. "The key words that he said to me were, 'I don't want to change anything for this song,'" Psy explained. "For me and for all Koreans, it was a dream to knock the US market with our own language. I want to do it in Korean, and if I can hit, it's going to be history for my country."

Soon after, Psy found himself performing at the MTV VMAs. "I saw a lot of celebrities sitting down there and in my mind, I was like, 'Wow, look at him. Wow, look at her,'" he recalled. "Meanwhile they were saying the same thing, 'Oh look at him!' So I was like, 'What? Look at me? Look at you.'"

But that wasn't Psy's most surreal encounter with American musicians. "On Twitter, Britney Spears followed me," he said with disbelief. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced."

Check out even more from the "Gangnam Style" star in our interview above, and get to practicing. YouTube has become overloaded with tribute videos, and fellow K-Pop stars the Wonder Girls recently went "Gangnam Style" for our cameras. Heyyyy, sexy lady.