BANG YONGGUK 900331
“I have a stubborn side to me where I have to express and do everything I want to. I think I’m someone who just needs to be let loose. Because the music category for idols is really narrow, there are many times where it doesn’t fulfill my wants. One day, I want to create an album with my ideal songs.”
Resources of the Universe in my Head
I’m always thinking of hundreds of things in my mind, but they don’t get organized well. From then on, I gained a habit of writing it on a memo pad or recording it somewhere. Although my mind isn’t organized, I have to express what I want to do and organize a guide, so I might look like a crazy person to others when I’m mumbling nonsense. I always fall into my own creative desires, so it’s a problem that I extend my hand towards music that isn’t idol-like. Because I like ridiculous genres and work on them first, a couple of the songs on the album are like that as well. There’s a new item that excites me lately, and I’m hoping it will come out during our next, next album? I want to express the meeting of jazz and hip-hop through an idol song, and I’ve also created a goal to create a new genre for each album. I even thought about a couple of topics, one of them being ‘father’. Even if you are born a male and become older, you won’t be able to understand the hearts of all fathers unless you become a father yourself. A world for only men that females won’t be able to understand. I want to heavily express the condensed and enriched life of a man. Because it’s an area where I don’t have experience in yet, I want to talk with fathers all over the country and express it for the first time through jazz hip-hop. For the music ranking… I don’t think it will be able to enter the top 100 again. However, well, because money and rankings aren’t important to music. Ah… because these minor thoughts are caught on the borderline between public’s thoughts and an artist’s thoughts, my mind will never be organized.
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HIMCHAN 900419
“If I’m given the chance later on, I want to do try a crossover with hip-hop and new age music like Yani. I know how to do a bit of composing even if I’m not that great at it, but I really want to do music like this. A team called ‘2nd Moon’ was really famous with their ‘Princess Hours’ O.S.T. I want to crossover a variety of songs, not to become an issue, but out of sincerity.”
Hip-Hop Boy who Loved Traditional Music
2 years ago, when I first came in as a trainee and talked about new genres and music with Yongguk, we talked about the crossover of traditional Korean music and hip-hop. As someone who majored in traditional Korean music, I couldn’t be more thankful with Yongguk’s interest towards traditional music. We were wondering how we could appeal the proper music of traditional Korean music, so that it would receive love from the public—- Because it was sort of an assignment. The members of B.A.P don’t show a biased viewpoint with music. Whatever music it is, we feel, learn a lot, and grow. The efforts put into wanting to learn these new things create touched emotions. Our members even learned traditional percussion from me for a month. That’s why our song, ‘No Mercy’, doesn’t seem so distant from them and wasn’t an unfamiliar thing. We actually received quite good reactions with the combination of traditional Korean music and hip-hop that we tried for the first time after calmly breaking free from the molds of idol music. I felt like I accomplished something because I received calls from my high school friends saying that it was cool, they were touched and thankful. However, there were parts I felt sad about. When you think of ‘Korea’s traditional music’, you think of Pansori first, then traditional percussion, and the Taepyeongso. If we had revived the Taepyeongso sounds that ‘Seo Taiji and Boys’ used in 1993 with ‘Whichever’, I feel like our dance break part would’ve been livened up a bit more. Because when traditional Korean music performances took place overseas, the Taepyeongso and traditional percussion sounds gained the best reactions, so I believe that it will can create a song that remains in overseas K-POP fans’ minds more.
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DAEHYUN 930628
“Because I feel like our fans are always next to us, I feel happy. They feel like my friends because they give off this reassuring feeling like bodyguards do. When I had my first interview with ‘Inkigayo Magazine’ before, I said I hope that the fancafe would exceed 5000 members, and the current amount of 45000 fans signed up. Although I can’t promise anything right now, I ask for a lot of love and interest. Because you guys are with us, I’m happy.”
Idols, A Musical Consideration Towards the Accessibility of Social Problems
As we recently started ‘No Mercy’ promotions, I’ve been able to learn about political and social problems through various news sources. Even when watching a movie, I choose one with a social problem as its story and create emotions about it. As I fall into it, I can experience my expressing of emotions to be at its maximum level. It’s the truth that to clearly show the message that B.A.P is trying to express onstage with direct emotions of sadness and happiness. In order to expand my ability to express emotions, the only thing I can do now is to think about things that make me really angry, bad topics that are currently becoming a large issues, and the many things that are going on in this country. I control my breathing and create a voice on stage for fans to agree with a bit more as a spokesperson who uses music as a medium.
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YOUNGJAE 940124
“As the person in charge of cleaning our dorms, I want to apologize to our two youngest members, Jongup and Zelo, for making them do rough tasks lately. ‘Hyung will do it now.’ Although the dongsaengs are still young so they probably don’t know it well, but I want to ask for all the members to just do this one thing. Please clean up what you ate! Since I started 3 days ago to show an example, let’s all clean up nicely and live.”
Ideal Outer Appearance and Inner Looks, Feel Catharsis
Truthfully, I was happy to be given the most attention during the styling for this concept. Changing from the warrior image during our 1st and 2nd albums, I personally really liked the detailing for this concept like the neon colored beanie or giving a point to the style with red socks. And I could never wear a trenchcoat before. I want to try wearing suits next time. I succeeded on changing my outer appearance, but because this was an album that was important to show my inner maturity as well, I studied hard. As someone who really likes R&B music, I found B.A.P’s fierce songs hard and new because I haven’t sang songs like that often before. But I received a lot of things because I feel I can express them just as fiercely now. Compared to our other albums which were only filled with hip-hop sounds, we showed our variety in this album with ballads and club songs. ‘Voicemail’, which was written by Yongguk hyung, is the ideal song for me. The R&B melody that I like was changed into something fit towards the public, and the song ‘Dancing in the Rain’ also displayed my positive points. A positive change started once I realized that I can do well in styles that are expressed more freely. Although I haven’t recorded a song that I really like, I feel like I was able to quench my thirst a bit through this album.
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JONGUP 950206
“I’m not the same everyday. There are times where I’m loud and chatty, and there are times when I’m really quiet. I don’t think I can define myself. I really go back and forth. I don’t like serious things and I like to play around a lot. Although I’m thankful to those who say I have a clumsy charm, I’m actually quite bright and sometimes become the mood maker.”
The Leap Towards the Best Performance of My Life
I’m still lacking a lot. There are still many hills I need to climb and many competitors I need to beat. I, Jongup, am talking about dancing, which I love as much as my life. I’m really happy to hear that I exist with performances in B.A.P, who is called a performance group. Thinking up of difference dances, difference feels to lead the stage is a good fence and it’s a good code to repeatedly show modesty and self-reflection to groups who exist as wordless teachers. Truthfully, there are many things I want to try out. I created my destiny with dancing during my 1st year of middle school when I went to wait for my friend, who was in the dance club for his extracurricular activity, and became surprised by the world of dancing. I sometimes miss the days where I’d go to competitions with the club and win awards. And I have a wish to make my new goal come true. Because Zelo is a dongsaeng that really likes dancing as well, how would we do at a street competition if I choreographed something with Zelo? I think I wouldn’t be able to sleep and stay up all night watching the ‘Step Up’ series.
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ZELO 961015
“Although there are positive points to being tall, I want to stop growing. The hidden meaning behind this is that I want to grow in other areas besides my height. Because I had a lot of greed ever since I was younger, there were many things I wanted to do. If I were to pick one of them, it would be producing and composing and writing lyrics like the hyungs. The word, ‘stop’, will never be there when growing musically.”
The Child Eats the Fruits of Growth
People say that my young age is my positive point. Uhm—- well, I’m still in the middle of growing. I have a lot of greed and my stamina is good, so I’m working hard and practicing a lot. I’m embarrassed and don’t know what to say when a lot of people compliment me for always showing a professional side to myself on stage, erasing the fact that I’m 15. Truthfully, I have an age gap of six years with our leader, Yongguk hyung, but wouldn’t it be a bother if I acted like a little kid because I was the youngest and the entire team would go into a mess just because of me? But thankfully, the hyungs take care of me well and I’m in the middle of putting an effort to not break our team’s flow by only concentrating on that. Ah, the rap I did with Yongguk hyung used saturi (T/N: dialect), and received good reactions. Although I was sad because there wasn’t a lot of practice time, saturi rap has this really pleasant feeling in the mouth like English raps! It was a newly found thing. Even though it’s fun because it doesn’t end and continues on, there are times where I can’t control my breath. There was even a time that I made a mistake on stage because the breathing didn’t match with my dancing and rapping. Recently, I’ve constantly been practicing to make it something automatic. Because I’m still young, because learning, putting in an effort, and trying things out will take me onto a road of a good future.
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Definitions of No Mercy
Daehyun: No Mercy is like a colored pencil! We were limited to our images during our 1st and 2nd albums with ‘Warrior’ and ‘Power’, but we’re able to show a variety of charms through ‘No Mercy’.
Jongup: No Mercy is a new start! Because we’re starting a challenge towards something new.
Youngjae: No Mercy is freedom! We’re able to play more freely and enjoy ourselves more on stage than during ‘Warrior’ and ‘Power’ stages.
Himchan: No Mercy is sexy! The choreography’s point has sexiness and masculinity and that we also became matured.
Yongguk: No Mercy is the Bulsaguk! (Everyone laughs) With the hopes of wanting to inform overseas fans a bit more about Korean traditional music, we put a Korean feel in B.A.P’s songs and created it. I said it’s like the Bulsaguk because it represents the beauty of Korea.
Zelo: No Mercy is the original B.A.P! Contrasting with the unified feels from ‘Warrior’ and ‘Power, we emphasized our own characteristics for this album.
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Your Attachment to a Song
Daehyun: ‘What My Heart Tells Me to Do’. The moment I heard this song while riding a taxi back to the dorms on a rainy day, I suddenly fell into the lyrics and a want to express the emotions well and I couldn’t come out of it. That’s why I feel most attached to it after our title song. I really liked Zelo’s part because he expressed the sad emotions perfectly.
Himchan: You sang it really well~
Jongup: I think it’s because I listened to it the most, but I feel most attached to the title song.
Yongguk: ‘Voicemail’. It’s a song I composed, but I feel the most attached to it because I worked on this one the most from the entire album. Because I carefully thought out the composition for it.
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Episode Cut
Himchan: We practiced the choreography in a short time of 3 days, and filmed the music video for 24 hours in 3 sets. I normally sweat a lot and if you watch the middle of the music video, I was completely wet. If you see it in a good way, it’s sexy, but in a bad way, it can be seen as disgusting.
Zelo: During our jacket photoshoot, I did a freeze move (b-boy move) while wearing baggy pants and ended up ripping them, but it was put into the album’s jacket. I personally really liked it and I feel attached to it because I think it fits well with my playful image.
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Beneficiaries of the New K-POP Synergy
Youngjae: Maybe it’s because the K-POP fever is blowing up worldwide, but there’s a lot of interest towards newcomers and people looking for a new K-POP style. Before debuting, B.A.P was revealed on a reality program, ‘Ta-dah’, on SBS MTV, which aired in 8 countries in Asia. I think the interest towards B.A.P increased due to these shows. And then our music video received a lot of views on Youtube, a video uploading site. Through the developments in communication devices, our album and music video received instant reactions when it was released in Korea and overseas.
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Which Member’s Image Transformation Overseas Stands Out the Most?
Youngjae: My concept in Korea started out as being the brain, but after going to Singapore, I was labeled overseas as a dummy. I didn’t lose my passport, but I went to the police station because I thought I did and reported it to be missing, which is why it changed from ‘brain -> dummy’. I was working hard to keep my smart image… But overseas fans probably see me as a dummy now. Overseas fans really like Jonguppie though… (Gloomy)
Daehyun: Jonguppie became ‘the wall you cannot pass’ (T/N: that superior) in Singapore. I think they like him because his eyes are sexy and he has the muscular body type.
Himchan: Kind of the Southeastern Asia style?
Jongup: It’s just that my fans coincidentally were the only ones who brought placards that day. We had a showcase in Malaysia recently, and there was a German fan I saw there that I also saw when we came back to Korea… Hahaha. They came today as well.
Himchan: The final piece of evidence proving that our overseas fan amount increased quite a lot recently is that there are pretty blonde women outside our office. I had slight fantasies about blonde women that you could only see in movies, so it was really fascinating. And I talk a lot in Korea, but when I go overseas, I lose my ability of talking. The reason is that it’s hard to communicate, so I just smile. It feels like I’m slightly creating a reserved image, which isn’t something I want.
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TITLE ‘NO MERCY’: A Line From the Lyrics That Touched My Heart the Most While Shouting Out ‘No Mercy’
Yongguk: There’s a line in Youngjae’s part that goes like, ‘Don’t compare me with the parrot-like you’. Parrots normally just copy what others say, right? Truthfully, it’s only human to be swept up and want to imitate cultural things like music and fashion that appeal strongly to the public. These are lyrics to show that B.A.P expresses their own color and that we didn’t copy anyone else, so I like to think that this set of lyrics expresses our image the most from ‘No Mercy’.
Himchan: There are two parrots that face each other in the music video, but they’re there to express the lefts and rights of décalcomanie.
Youngjae: You can feel the weight in Yongguk hyung’s part of ‘Do you think music is a joke’? and he really focuses well on stage during it. Although if you look at it one way, that part may give off a strong image, but they’re whip-like words to us, so we gain self-reflection and confidence from it.
Himchan: I express my emotions very well during that part. Even though it’s not part, I unknowingly start focusing on my emotions and look towards the camera.
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My Life’s Parrot, Something That’s Like a Décalcomanie
Youngjae: I’m the type that likes many artists in one limited music genre. The first musician I liked was Musiq Soulchild, but after listening to his songs, I was captivated by R&B songs.
Jongup: I received the most music motto from Chris Brown, who everyone likes nowadays. He’s also the artist I like the most.
Daehyun: From a musical or personal point, I believe that I have a lot to learn and follow from everyone around me.
Himchan: After not listening to anything besides our album, I recently listened to another musician, which was Eric Benet. I think I was able to start liking the soul in that genre of music again due to this. I even followed him on Twitter…
Yongguk: He’s a little upset that Eric Benet hyungnim didn’t follow him back. (Laughter) I used to only like gangster raps. When I was younger, my musical spectrum was very limited, but as I began to know more about the world as I grew older, I started like jazz and classical music. After receiving influences from many artists, I felt that there’s a lot to learn with music. To be honest, I used to listen to a lot of hardcore rock music before that. I liked a band called ‘Korn’, so I think there are a lot of rock elements in our musical colors. I have recently been listening to a lot of jazz, and I was wondering how it would sound if we mixed jazz and hip-hop in B.A.P’s next album, so I’m currently researching information on it. Because I’m learning a lot of things from many types of music, I’m always thankful towards music.
Zelo: Although I don’t have a certain role model, there are a lot of positive points from people who distinguish themselves in various fields that I want to model myself after. I’ve been listening to a lot of Drake songs again. He was the singer I liked the most recently.
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Overcoming the Limits on Idol Music Through Ssanai Rap (T/N: their saturi/dialect rap, literally means ‘manly rap’) and Traditional Percussion Sounds
Himchan: I wanted to try the crossover with traditional Korean music and hip-hop since before. Because traditional Korean music is the soul of Korea, I think it matches well with hip-hop, which is the soul of African-American music. I only gave ideas. Hip-hop music follows a Two-Four rhythm while traditional Korean music follows a One-Three rhythm. The composer hyungs matched them really well. Although the tempo is lowered, the beats are the ones used normally in traditional Korean music. We’re revealing this for the first time through ‘Inkigayo Magazine’. (Haha!)
Daehyun: I thought there wouldn’t be any hesitation or worries towards traditional Korean music if you’re a Korean. Although I had a couple of worries about the saturi/dialect, the reactions around me, who’s from Busan, were quite good once the song was released. The regional kindness was emphasized and there were people who were fascinated by the certain difference from other songs. For the saturi rap, Yongguk hyung sent me an SNS message one day and asked me to give detailed directions on how to switch it into saturi in order to make it better. All I did was help with that. That was the background story on the creation of the saturi rap in ‘No Mercy’!
Jongup: Although I was worried about the reactions, I don’t think there’ll ever be a challenge in your life if you don’t try out something because you’re scared. I think you just need to do it without any thoughts.
Youngjae: To be honest, I didn’t really feel all that worried. Because ‘No Mercy’ was similar to music that I normally listen to… I thought that the music I listened to was what the public listened to, so I barely felt the distance.
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Writing a New Paradigm in Idol Music
Yongguk: While we sought for a transformation in stage performances during our 1st and 2nd album, we put up a definite concept of enjoying ourselves during ‘No Mercy’ stages. Many people thought of the heavy concept of ‘Warrior’ or ‘Power’, but a lot of them changed their thoughts after seeing our stage. The most important thing we try to express through ‘No Mercy’ is ‘freedom’, so our homework was to be able to communicate a bit more with the public and find a way to enjoy it a bit more with our fans. I think it’s a lie when people say they don’t worry when making music. The amount of worries that appear are proportional to the amount of anticipation. Although it may be because we’re still rookies, but I think our desires to put in music that we like and want to do in our albums are stronger than being conscious of the public’s eyes and ears. That’s why we’re learning bit by bit with each new album. Although our music chart rankings are quite low, rankings and money aren’t important in music.
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The Point of Your Stage Clothes
Daehyun: Our clothes this time are all fit to our unique characteristics. There are many times where I wear a stud jacket, which gives off an air of masculinity and charisma, while Youngjae definitely gives off a ‘pop-boy’ feel. Jongup’s style is a really sexy man, while Yongguk hyung’s is a perfectly hip-hop style even to the point where he did reggae hair a couple of times on stage. Himchan hyung is a casanova style with his bright and vividly colored suits, and Zelo is a free soul that enjoys riding on a board and has a playful prankster concept. They livened up the members’ characteristics with street fashion.
Himchan: Zelo’s styling left the biggest impression to me. With a cute style of wearing leggings underneath baggy pants, they matched his hair color with his eyebrow color and emphasized Zelo’s own popping personality. Because Jongup has a lot of muscles and dances well, they matched a sleeveless shirt with clothes that are easy to move around in.
Yongguk: I think our point is that although all six of us express our own characteristics, we look like one when we’re on stage.
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A Point Move in Your Choreography
Youngjae: B.A.P’s choreography has generally become free and stable this time around. We only matched the general feel and became able to do gestures that we each wanted to do, so you can feel that it’s a new stage each time because we switch up the versions using freestyle motions. We changed the feel by adding in new dances like the dance break part where Jongup can show his dancing the best, Zelo’s comical choreography, Daehyun and my part, and Himchan and Jongup. There’s a sexy dance move where we twist our pelvises. We also added in moves by taking influences from traditional Korean percussionists and sangmo twirlers. There are many points that make it enjoyable for your eyes and ears.
Zelo: There are many movements repeated that belittle others. Our song’s meaning and our confidences are placed in those parts.
Himchan, Yongguk: You did well~ It was a high-class tone that didn’t seem like a seventeen year-old’s!
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Communicating with the World Through SNS
Himchan: I recently gained a bit of weight, but a fan who noticed that immediately sent me, ‘Oppa, you gained weight! Lose some weight.’ When people do that, I get embarrassed. (I.M: You probably went to exercise as soon as you saw that) No. I starved myself. Although I wanted to exercise, I sweat a lot. It’s like justification. When you sweat, you lose weight. It consumes a lot of energy.
Zelo: I don’t usually take a lot of selcas, but while thinking up various ways to communicate with fans, I revealed my makeup-less face for the first time. The title was ‘Parted my hair 1:9’.
Yongguk: Because the age group for our fans is quite low, I feel like I want to teach them a lot of things like a teacher. Like good music or things that young kids don’t quite know about, but should know. Which is why I uploaded things like that through SNS, but I think they take me too seriously and that I’m slightly distancing myself away. Since I’m doing this to share good words, good quotes, and good music, I hope that you can all enjoy it with me. Because I’m the type that wants to tell someone when there’s something good…
Himchan: I think you can tell me it~ Now do you want to see how I communicate? (Everyone laughs) Although I use SNS, I normally just look through it. I also usually just skim through the fancafe, but when we didn’t have any promotions, I got in the top 10 members who visit the fancafe the most in a week, so my secret looking got caught. I think I communicate by secretly watching over them.
Zelo: Although you want to do it secretly, you always get caught, hyung. You can see it as a sign of friendliness. (Himchan: Right! That’s correct!)
Youngjae: SNS is among the few ways that we’re able to communicate with not just Korean fans, but overseas fans as well. Although we’re not able to go overseas often, we can see the opinions of overseas fans through SNS, and we’re able to show a lot of our promotions, so I think it’s useful.
Jongup: Although I don’t use it often, I use it occasionally because it’s a way to communicate with the fans. But there’s a mention I received that made me feel like I should start using it a bit more often now. ‘Are you alive?’ Hahaha.
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The Way to Differentiate B.A.P Members Wherever, Whenever
Zelo: I’m Zelo, who’s like drawing paper. Because I’m like drawing paper with my pale skin, tall height, and mint-colored hairstyle, I have the infinite ability to learn whatever you draw on me.
Yongguk: I am the dreamer, Bang Yongguk, who has a deep voice and low pitch, and is always looking for something creative. While living for 23 years, there are many times when I still don’t quite know who I am.
Himchan: If someone that looks like Ryuk from ‘Death Note’ is flying around on stage with free moves, that’s me. Ever since I was young, I’ve lived freely and wildly, and I plan to continuously livel ike this.
Jongup: I am the member who exposes himself the most! You see quite a lot of muscles.
Youngjae: If you see someone who looks kind and feels like the friend from next door, that’s me, Youngjae. Although my visuals aren’t outstanding from the group, I have friendly charms that you would receive from your friends.
Daehyun: The kid who screams is me, Daehyun. Ever since our first album, there hasn’t been a time where I didn’t do high-pitched parts.
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