【最偶像TOPSTAR 2015】 BTS Interview
Q: How did you settle with the theme of the album?
Rap Monster: After the end of ‘Boy in Luv’ promotion, we were thinking about what we should do next. Our company suggested that we should extend the story, which is what we were thinking of doing. Making it more like a studio album, showing a more matured and grown image so we decided to go with this theme.
Q: What do you think about this album?
J-Hope: Personally, I really love this album because we worked hard on producing it. And there were many songs that we wrote while we were abroad. We did a lot of research, so the songs are great and is worth looking forward to.
Q: Up till now, which song are you most satisfied with?
Rap Monster: It’s all different~
Jin: My favorite is ‘Boy in Luv’, because we received a lot of love through the song and we were very happy during the promotion period.
Suga: I like ‘Let me know’, because I wrote the song and also up till now, expressing this kind of feelings in a song is the first time. So I really like it because of the uniqueness.
J-Hope: My favorite song is ‘No More dream’, it’s our debut song after all, it contains what we wanted to say and our own color, so it’s my favorite.
Jungkook: My favorite song is ‘Rain’, it’s about our trainee period, I, personally really like the rain sound so I picked ‘Rain’.
Jimin: I like a lot of songs. If I had a pick one, then it’d be ‘Hip Hop Lover’, I like the style and it’s a very cool song in this album.
V: My favorite is ‘Cypher’. It’s our rap line hyung’s song. ‘Cypher part 2’ is in ‘Skool Luv Affair’, this album’s ‘Cypher part 3’ is my favorite. (V showing aegyo at this moment, seriously I can’t take it.)
Rap Monster: My favorite is the hidden track on our first album ‘길’, I was emotionally involved when I was writing it so I really like it.
Q: Like your group name is ‘Boys Scouts’, is there any concept you want to challenge?
Suga: I want to try a more masculine concept, since it’s boys scouts, so there’s limitation to show a more masculine image. I want to try a more masculine image that matches with boys scouts’ image. (That was well said, give you a thumbs up!)
Q: Everyone went through many hardships before debut and worked very hard. In order to achieve your dream, what was the most memorable thing that you did?
Jin: We practice really diligently. We practice our choreographies everyday, 10 hours, 14 hours, 17 hours. We work really hard on practicing.
Q: From trainee days to debut, it wasn’t an easy journey. What supported you to endure everything and reach here?
Rap Monster: Although everyone is different, but there’re things that we want to do and we want to achieve things under the name ‘BTS’, so we’ve endured all the hardships and reached here. We’ve have given up so much personally and in terms of psychological aspects. So, promoting under the name of ‘BTS’ seems even more precious.
Q: What kind of power do you want to bring to the fans?
J-Hope: Firstly, our fans enthusiastically cheers for our every performance, we gain power from the cheering to complete the performance. We’re very grateful for that. With every performance, we want to show a stage with passion and power, we want to convey such energy.
Q. From ‘Boy in Luv’ to ‘Danger’, do you feel that you’ve changed?
Jin: More mature? The young boy image is more sedate now, I think I’ve matured more.
Rap Monster: More worried about the future. We’ve debuted for a long time to be called a rookie group, now we’re at the stage of getting rid of the rookie group label. I’ve been thinking a lot about which direction we should take and whether we can be able to do well.
Q: This is your 3rd time coming to China and you’ve also performed here. What’s different about working in China and Korea?
Suga: Until now we haven’t been really active in China, so it’s too early to come to a conclusion. But it has got to be the language difference, the fans are even more enthusiastic because of that. Like yesterday, they were singing along with us.
Q: What do you want to say to your Chinese fans?
V: Our ‘Danger’ promotion has ended in Korea. We’ll be having concerts in Korea and we’ll come to China more often. Everyone, please anticipate and continue to look out for us.
7. When fans talk about BTS in the future, what kind of existence do you hope to be for them? What kind of comment do you wish to hear?
Suga: I hope they say we’re ‘a group that makes good music’.
Rap Monster: Honestly, I think being a fan of someone maybe because of his music or other reasons, they might like his performance or maybe because he has a handsome face. Either way, he can bring energy to their lives and that’s the existence that I want to be. We receive energy from our fans. They see us on the stage and we’re able to become their life’s active agent, seeing them full of vitality makes us feel blissful. We want to be that kind of existence for them.
Q: What was the first Chinese phrase that you’ve learnt?
J-Hope: Hello everyone (大家好).
Jungkook: Hello (你好).
Jin: Are you well? (你身体好吗?)
J-Hope: Are you ok? (没关系吗) Please treat me well (请多多指教).
Q: If there’s a chance and time, where do you want to go in China to have fun?
J-Hope: The Great Wall.
Jin: I want to go to Wangfujing Street (王府井大街)
Rap Monster: What’s Wangfujing Street?
Jungkook: Snack street?
Jin: A street that sells snacks (explains excitedly)
Suga: I want to go to Zhangjiajie (张家界), Avatar was filmed there.
Rap Monster: I want to go to Shanghai.
Jungkook: Me too.
V: The Great Wall.
Rap Monster: In Korea’s McDonald’s, there’s Shanghai Spice and it’s the best selling one on the menu. I don’t know why it’s called the Shanghai Spice hamburger.
Q: Did the members do anything that have moved you emotionally?
J-Hope: When it’s a member’s birthday, Jin hyung will always cook seaweed soup, I’m really touched by that.
V: And when it’s the weekend or when we have no schedule, Jin hyung will make breakfast in the morning when we’re still tired and sleeping.
Q: What’s your first impression of each other?
Suga: First impression? It’s very different now. When we met for the first time, everyone was rustic and including myself. We came to Seoul, practiced together and managed to rid of the rusticness.
Rap Monster: Everyone was unsophisticated, although we’re handsome now. We became handsome with the help of stylists. Before I didn’t know how to dress myself up, I dressed up weirdly and always thought that I looked cool, everyone was like that. (laughs)
V: When I first saw Jimin, I didn’t know he could become the Jimin now.
Suga: He was the most rustic.
Jimin: It wasn’t that bad.
V: I didn’t say anything, Suga hyung said it.
Rap Monster: For example, at the time there was a trending MLB hat in Korea and I remember that I used to wear that hat backwards with a weird pair of trousers and a grey t-shirt. If it’s trending in Korea, we’d be walking around wearing it.
Q: What’s the best thing about living together and what’s the most uncomfortable?
Suga: There’s nothing to hide and we shower really quick.
Rap Monster: There’s no time to be depressed, sometimes you’d be depressed when you’re alone, but there’s always someone there.
Suga: The worst is that there’s no personal space.
Rap Monster: The dormitory is too small, although there’s no personal space but I feel that we can be closer (in that way).
Q: If you weren’t an artist, what job would you go for?
Jungkook: I want to be an athlete, for example: taekwondo, in the sports field.
Rap Monster: A company employee.
Jin: Me too, a company employee.
V: I might go sell apples in Seoul.
J-Hope: I might be a teacher.
Jimin: I’ve never thought what I wanted to do, I learnt dancing because I want to develop my skills in dance, so if I wasn’t an artist, I don’t know what I’ll be doing.
V: Be my assistant.
Rap Monster: I’d be always working.
J-Hope: Working at a convenience store.
Q: You always have promotions and schedules so you must be really tired and stressed, and you don’t even have any personal space. How do you usually relax yourself? If there’s a chance, where do you want to travel to?
Suga: I just sleep, because I don’t get enough sleep.
Rap Monster: To be honest, we had our first holiday when it was Chuseok and that was it, we’ve never really relaxed or rested. I just sleep or watch movies, but I don’t go to the cinema, I just download and watch it. We also play games on our phones together.
V: Talking with the members.
Jin: I space out in the limited time, like going to the park and stare at the sky.
J-Hope: I play games.
Jungkook: Me too.
Jimin: I want to go to Hawaii.
BTS: Hawaii is amazing!!!
Jungkook: There’s a resort, right! Maldives!
Suga: Traveling to Beijing is also pretty good.
Q: Jungkook is still studying hard, how do you balance school and work?
Jungkook: I can’t go to the school sometimes because the schedule. It just sorted out by itself (suddenly speaks in satoori) school won’t affect work and work won’t affect school.
Rap Monster: He got permission from the school, and it’s not an ordinary school, it’s a performing arts school. Our company and the school negotiated, Jungkook sometimes goes to school and they understand each other so there’s no problem.
Q: V always looks energetic, when others are having naps, you’re always full of energy and being mischievous.
V: Yes! (energetically answers)
(Everyone laughs)
Rap Monster: What are we going to do if you just answer like that.
Q: But you’re always the last one to get out of the bed, do you gain energy from that? Who do you always mess around with?
V: I’m always fooling around with Hope hyung.
J-Hope: Of course it’d me.
V: Recently, we’re…
Rap Monster: Did you pick Hope because of the car?
V: Suddenly found the joy.
J-Hope: Our fans gave us a racing car, after our schedule, we were playing it outside and then went back to the dormitory.
Jimin: Because of our schedule, we could only sleep for 2 hours, and they’d go play (instead of sleeping).
Rap Monster: That racing car looks fun.
Jimin: You guys are amazing.
Q: Although Rap Monster is young (Rap Monster: Yes, I’m young), the work you’ve produced have depth (Jungkook: He’s a grownup ah~) What’s your rules of life?
Rap Monster: My motto is to live sexily, it’s funny right? Although I find it funny, I had lots of different motto in the past, because I want others to find that I’m cool and charismatic, it has a lot of meanings. I want to be someone that could live with full of energy and charisma. Instead of saying my thoughts are in depth, I just have a lot of thoughts and useless thoughts. I have a lot of different ideas and my work is the result of organizing these thoughts.
Q: After seeing BTS’ appearing on variety shows, I feel that J-Hope can really bring up the atmosphere, have the entertaining sense. Have you thought about developing towards the field of variety shows or acting?
J-Hope: Ah, if someone can teach me, I’ll definitely do it and I have the confidence to do well!
Q: Recently it seems that V and Jin are learning how to produce and trying to produce, what kind of music do you guys like?
Jin: I like songs that are straightforward, it’s easier for everyone to understand.
V: When it was the ‘Boy in Luv’ era, I was a little but engrossed in it, because I like R&B love songs. But after I’ve tried it, I realized that not everyone can pull off the genre. I need to gain experience, listen a lot and then I gradually started to participate in producing our music.
Rap Monster: They asked you what’s your favorite genre.
V: R&B.
Q: Jin is the visual of BTS and you acted well in the MVs, have you thought about developing your acting skills?
Jin: I manage to find time to exercise at night, I’m also practicing my acting skills, but I can’t focus so much on it.
Q: Jimin has a reversal charm of having cute face and strong abs at the same time. As the member that’s in charge of abs, working out is unavoidable, is there a secret to maintain a perfect body? Do you supervise the others and work out together? Who’s the laziest?
Jimin: Our fans knows that sometimes I have a fit body, sometimes I don’t, my body is fit when I’m working out diligently and my body is unfit when I eat a bit more and tired.
Rap Monster: How do you manage (your body)?
Jimin: Usually after our schedule, I work out before I sleep.
V: Sometimes Jimin seems to be the most pitiful member, he need to manage his body because he always reveals it.
Rap Monster: So he can’t eat.
Jimin: Our debut song is ‘No More Dream’, so I had to manage my body.
J-Hope: Jimin works out very diligently.
V: He doesn’t eat food that puts weight on him.
Rap Monster: He’s the most persistent.
J-Hope: There’s a funny episode. (Jungkook laughs)
J-Hope: I was getting ready to shower (all the members laughs)
Suga: Do you have to talk about that?
J-Hope: It wasn’t me going to shower, who was it?
V: Me me.
J-Hope: Jimin was showering, a member went into the bathroom and Jimin was doing abs exercise. He asked Jimin why he was exercising in there. Jimin replied that he haven’t done it yet, so if he exercise after showering, he’ll sweat and then have to shower again, so he’s showering and working out together.
V: He must exercise everyday.
Rap Monster: It must be really tiring.
V: He forgot to exercise that day.
J-Hope: So he was working out under the running water. It was so hilarious.
Rap Monster: He was doing it in the shower?
J-Hope: It was so funny, he was working out in a narrow space, on the floor.
Q: Many songs were produced by Suga and Rap Monster but your styles seems different. Suga’s style has an intense rhythmic sense whereas Rap Monster’s focuses on being more emotional. How did you guys produce something great when you’re working together with complete different styles, how do you make both fits well together and make the work perfect?
Rap Monster: People usually says that Suga hyung likes strong rhythm, but 'Tomorrow’ and 'Let Me Know’ are both very emotional. We don’t say hyung you make strong rhythm and I make it emotional, we don’t distribute the work.
We make better songs when we’re together, and we pick the songs that more people would like to listen to. If Suga hyung is producing, I’d listen to hyung because I haven’t had much experience in producing. I can only compose songs, so we’re great together and we even discuss about which areas that needs improvement.
Suga: There’s no conflict, because we don’t interfere with each other’s work . We believe in each other that both can do well.
Trans: KIMMYYANG
Source: Weibo
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