[NEWSEN] BTOB “Rather than being 1st, being able to move people is more important. Rather than rising up, we want to go for a long time and far away” (Interview ①)

Article Date: 2018-06-29.

 

Rather than rising up, we want to go longer and farther.

BTOB just released their 11th mini album ‘THIS IS US’ on June 18 and resumed their activities 8 months after their 2nd full album “Brother Act” which was released on October last year.

The title track ‘Only One For Me’ is a track that a producer and also BTOB member Im Hyunsik collaborate together once again with singer-producer Eden where they have produced hit songs like “I’ll Be Your Man” and “Missing You”. It’s a refreshing yet earnest confession song about the feeling of a lifetime regret if you can’t grab onto the person you’ve missed, adding BTOB’s ballad which sorrowfulness is being cleanly sung and good to listen.

At the same time of their comeback, they also achieved an impressive result. The moment ‘Only One For Me’ was released, they swept the top of major music charts, including melon, the largest music site. Even after 12 days since its release, as of the morning of the 29th, it still charted in 2nd place. This proves how much BTOB is receiving love from the public, beyond their fandom.

Even if you put down the simple numerical result, all of the side tracks are as high quality as the title track and have received love by music fans. A new album which the members completed after their repeated worries about music with a total of 7 tracks including ‘Call Me’, ‘Yeah’, ‘Blue Moon’, rap unit song ‘Ice Breaker’, vocal unit song ‘1, 2, 3’, until the pre-release track before the title song called ‘The Feeling’ which is Jung Ilhoon’s self-composed song that swept the music chart. From tropical sound to electronic pop, with colorful genres that are so BTOB alike, making it more fun to listen to.

Starting from ‘It’s Okay’, followed by ‘Way Back Home’, ‘Remember That’, ‘I’ll Be Your Man’, ‘MOVIE’, ‘Missing You’, and also ‘Only One For Me’, whenever they release a new song, they always hit #1 on music chart without fail, making BTOB established themselves as a trusted self-producing musician. On the 28th, we met them to talk about their thoughts about comeback, album producing process, and goal of their activities.

Q. What are your thoughts about doing group activities after 8 months?

▲ Jung Ilhoon_ We’re happily promoting in music shows with many singers. Since this is our comeback after a long time, we really have fun and fans are loving it so much so we’re promoting with a very thankful heart. We also received a precious gift yesterday. We got 1st place on MBC music ‘Show Champion’ and we are really thankful for that. We are really promoting happily.

▲ Peniel_ I hope many people would get healing by listening to our song and watching our stage.

Q. Before your comeback, during the last ‘2018 UNITED CUBE –ONE–‘ concert press conference on the 16th, you said that you didn’t care about becoming 1st, but once again you reached 1st place on music charts and music broadcasts.

▲ Lee Minhyuk_ After we actually did that, somehow it makes me feel so emotional.

▲Yook Sungjae_ Actually, because we received so much love during our last song ‘Missing You’, we were very worried about what kind of song we should do to repay them. Turns out people are loving our songs more than what we were worried about. On one side, it makes me relieved, but on the other side, it actually makes me worried about what song we should do next. Rather than the burden of getting a good result, we want to make a song that can give healing even to one more person. There’s a lot of burdens to make that kind of song.

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ That’s right. In fact, I went home together with Minhyuk and Peniel yesterday, and we were talking about ‘what should we do for the next song?’ for about 30 minutes. Since many people continue to love us, we can feel the pressure towards music, and I think it’s something that makes us have to keep going on.

▲ Jung Ilhoon_ This is the driving force of our growth.

▲ Lee Minhyuk_ I think it’s something that we have to constantly worry about. Since our work is to keep showing what we have, I want to keep worrying about it and grow. First of all, we are really thankful, and we are working hard to show our better look.

▲ Lee Changsub_ For us, more than anything, whenever we heard the fans or the public saying “my heart got healed after listening to BTOB’s song” or ”I can start my day full of spirit after listening to BTOB’s song,” that’s when we could feel the greatest reward.

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ I think, rather than being 1st, gaining more people who feel like that is more important.

Q. You guys introduced this album as “an album which all BTOB members are producers” and we can see that the members’ satisfaction is high. Which part do you particularly feel satisfied with?

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ First of all, this is our first time that all of the songs in the album are composed by the members. And with that meaning, we decide to personally named the album “THIS IS US”.

▲ Lee Changsub_ It’s an album where everything went through us and contained our ideas.

▲ Jung Ilhoon_ I can feel that this album shows the members’ capabilities the most. Each of us has improved a lot, and I think those points make this album stand out. If you listen to it, you can hear 2 unit songs that we paid attention to make it after a while. Through that process, I think this is an album that can show our personal skills. Because the quality came out better than what we expected, seems that's what makes our satisfaction high.

▲ Lee Minhyuk_ Also, our members’ characters are basically positive and our self-love is overflowing. I think it’s more precious because this album was made by combining all of the members' opinions.

Q. This album is completed after so many worries about music. At the end of the worry, “Only One For Me” was decided to be the title song for the extension of “Missing You”. We are curious about that process.

▲ Im Hyunsik_ First of all, “Missing You” received so much love not just from the fans, but seems like we received so much attention from the public. I wanted to let the public hear the song with the feeling of “Missing You”. If we do another style, people might think “their song was good last time, they should do that kind of style again”, that’s why I wanted to go with a similar feeling. And since it’s summer, rather than a lyrical and emotional song, I tried to make it more excited and comfortable to hear.

Q. BTOB fans’ fanchant on music shows also became a hot topic. Seems like the members have slowly become greedy about fanchant.

▲ Lee Minhyuk_ Actually we started to make the fanchant since ‘I Only Know Love/Lover Boy’. We made it since our rookie days, but it hasn’t been long since we started doing it on a full scale. I think we started to tell our fans that we were making our fanchant by ourselves since ‘I’ll Be Your Man’, and it seems like the video we filmed during ‘Missing You’ became a hot topic. In some way, it has become a secondary content. The fanchant video became a hot topic at first, and we gained more people who listen to our songs. I don’t think it’s something to be laughing at, so I talked about how we have to film the fanchant video in a more fun way. And as expected, it also became a hot topic and some people are searching for the fanchant video first before listening to the song.

▲ Im Hyunsik_ Rather than making fans come to watch our stage and wave the light-stick quietly, it’s more fun when we make the stage as if they are singing together with us. Actually, there are times when I made the song while thinking about the fanchant. It was like that when I wrote ‘I’ll Be Your Man’ and ‘Missing You’. I thought that it would be good if the fans could scream once during this part.

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ Now I can feel that we are actually making the stage together with the fans. We are very excited when we are on stage, and the fans also enjoy it. I like it more because I can feel that we are doing it together. Melody(BTOB fans) is also the 8th member of BTOB.

▲ Lee Minhyuk_ It has a different vibe with the digital song. It’s something that can only be heard on stage. For me, there are times when I purposely take off my in-ear to hear our fans’ voices during concerts or stage performances.

Q. Lee Changsub’s solo dance during the intro also got a lot of praise. How was your feeling after hearing good responses?

▲ Lee Changsub_ When we first got the choreography video, they said that there was a solo dance. I thought that I had to sing the first line well, but then I also became greedy about the solo dance. I said that I would do it, but I didn’t know that I had to do it on stage as well. I really didn’t expect to dance alone. That’s why my neck and everything turned red during our first stage. But I feel thankful since many people love it, and I’m working hard to be better. Also, I’m slowly trying to change it more naturally.

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ Isn’t this our first time to do a solo dance after 7 years since debut?

▲ Lee Changsub_ That’s right. This is the first solo dance in BTOB history. Being on stage alone by ourselves. But when the members were on stage at first and then left, somehow it feels empty, or should I say that I can feel the pressure? There’s pressure for me to do this entire part alone. I feel thankful that many people love it. I will dance even harder.

Q. During ‘I’ll Be Your Man’ promotion interview last year, I remember that you guys said “we feel that we can still rise more”, “we still have lots of things to show”. Do you still think the same?

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ Of course.

▲ Yook Sungjae_ That’s right. But rather than thinking about places for us to rise, I think I want to go for a long time.

▲ Jung Ilhoon_ There are lots of places to rise up, but as a singer, there are also a lot of places to go around. Many places that we have to experience here and there, and we also have to communicate a lot with people around us. We still have many places to rise, but we’re going up slowly. Anyway, even though our songs received much love and recognition, we don’t expect anything from that. Rather than expectation like “will our song this time become 1st?” or “will our song this time be successful?”, but just like what we have said before, “will people feel touched after listening to our song?” is the most important question for us. It seems that people like that kind of honesty.

▲ Seo Eunkwang_ For now, rather than we’re going to rise, I think it would be more fit to say that we’re going for a long time. We want to go for a long long way. We want to take more challenges in music and we want to show new sides of our music. We have shown a lot of our looks through ballad genre and lyrical sides, but we are also greedy to show more of our performance side.

▲ Yook Sungjae_ I think all of our greed comes from the desire for BTOB to promote for a long time. No matter what kind of greed it is, everything comes from BTOB who wants to show good music for a long long time.

Source: Newsen

Interview part 2 click here

--- translated by: btobalwaysmelody.blogspot.com ---

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