Music and the stage, friends and COER, experience and love—those are the components that make up MARTIN’s ideal view of the world.

I heard you tried a dopamine detox this past winter.
MARTIN: At the time I wanted to try living a little differently—to avoid judging things based only on how they come across on social media. I felt like I had a dopamine addiction. There were so many things I wanted to try firsthand. Like they say, there’s no substitute for experience. But it turned out I had less time for that than I thought. (laughs) I basically failed at it since I ended up getting back on social media to look things up, but I’m thinking about giving detoxing another shot once we start promoting again.

Isn’t it harder to do that while you’re actively promoting?
MARTIN: I want to try reading during downtime, and just do more cultured stuff in general. There’s so many famous books out there, and I especially want to read the ones that have been adapted into movies before I see the movie. I feel like there’s a certain mental image you only get from text. I read “Project Hail Mary” before the movie came out, and it was even more fun because what I pictured was different from what was in the film version. JUHOON recommended “Hunger” to me recently after a walk. It makes me wonder what kind of music would work with it. I wanted to quote some lines from it in a song, too. What I think’s so fascinating about literature is that it feels like you’re being whisked away to inside the writer’s mind.

What pushes you to keep trying things like that?
MARTIN: When I was a trainee, even though I was young, I really wanted to be great at doing this. I think maybe I feel like I missed out on some experiences since I basically lived in the practice studio. Experience can mean visiting a mountain range, trying all kinds of new foods, having a conversation with someone. In that sense, books have become a kind of alternative for me. I get a lot of inspiration from reading other people’s thoughts.

Seeing COER from up onstage after you debuted must have been a whole new kind of experience for you.
MARTIN: When the fans show they like something, it makes me want to do it more. (laughs) It makes me feel what they tell us is what makes our group keep growing. When we say this is something we make together, we’re not just saying it—it’s for real. That’s why we gave COER a shoutout when we accepted that award. You can’t exist without your fans when you’re an artist, so I want to be completely open with them. I’m into the punk scene, and I know it means different things to different people, but for me, punk’s a way of life—doing what you want to do, not caring about how you come across to others. COER seems to really like that too. I think that might be why people think of rock bands when they see us.

I imagine your fashion sense plays into that rock band vibe too. (laughs)
MARTIN: Just like with literature, fashion basically conveys a person’s thoughts. I think it shows how they go through their day-to-day life. It can be a way of making an impression or a tool to express how you feel. I mean, you dress differently depending on who you’re seeing that day. Today I paired a ripped tee with some destroyed jeans. It’s getting warmer and you get some airflow (laughs) and I’m practicing after so I just need to change my pants. I consider hairstyle a part of fashion sense, too. If COER likes my spiked hair, I give them spiked hair. If I want to give them something new, I grow it out. Being able to show so many different aspects of yourself is what makes fashion so exciting and fun.

The ideas and approach you’ve consistently shown seem to have a connection to the message behind your new album and the lead single, “REDRED.”
MARTIN: We’ve done so many different shows, so I focused on writing songs that are fun to perform. I wanted to create new textures and sounds that matched those new experiences. Early on in working on the album, things weren’t really coming together, so the group got together with the producers for a meeting to look things over. The hardest part for all of us was figuring out the direction first. It felt like we were just wandering aimlessly. We had a long conversation about what we were listening to lately, what movies we’d seen, what was going on in our lives, what was on our minds. The conclusion we landed on was to experiment without worrying about the genre. We still had to have our own unique sound, though. Experimenting with different rhythms is what led to “REDRED,” but it wasn’t an easy process at all. There were so many demos and so many versions of them. The one we all loved unanimously became the final version.

The live performances for the songs on the new album, “REDRED” included, are going to be worth the wait. It seems like you’ve put a lot of thoughts into all your hand and other movements.
MARTIN: What I really want this time isn’t so much to show my moves as to connect with the fans. There were times I’d watch footage back and think, “I could’ve brought more energy … I could’ve made it more fun for the fans … I could’ve emphasized the collaborative aspect better.” This time I was practicing with making up for that in mind. And for “TNT,” there was a point where JAMES and I were really into long leather jackets, and the vibe we got from performing in them felt uniquely well-suited, so I wanted to bring that energy into the moves too.

The group was once again involved in everything from the songwriting to the choreography and music videos. What was it like making all that together?
MARTIN: I’m really grateful that the group and staff members all move together as one crew—as Team CORTIS. JAMES knows video inside and out, so he and JUHOON helped out on the music video side of things. On the music side, I recorded a lot of demos and guide vocals, and I’ve been trying to get more actively involved in songwriting. SEONGHYEON has great instincts and would be there by my side pointing things out, and KEONHO’s good at lyrics so he took the lead on writing. I think it’s really lucky we get to do this together as a group. The vibe of the music comes out different when we write with a “let’s get to work” mindset versus when we make something just hanging out as friends. We had this period where we’d play basketball and skateboard in LA, eat tteokbokki, then come back in and work. I assume that had an impact.

I imagine “ACAI” came out of that lifestyle too.
MARTIN: Our producer saw us working and said, “You guys eat acai every day—why not write a song about it?” At first we were like, “Could we actually write something like that?” But the more we thought about it, the more fun the idea seemed. We knew it couldn’t be too deep since it was about acai so we decided to just have fun with it and started throwing in all kinds of ridiculous words. Like, the word “donkey” came up in conversation with the producer, and somehow it ended up giving the song this weirdly meaningful feeling.

“Wassup” is on the other end of that spectrum. It feels like something you could only come up with thanks to the deep conversations you have as a group.
MARTIN: I pitched the idea for that one. Since we’re with each other 24/7, the idea was that we know each other as well as we know ourselves. We actually had that talk before. “We’re always together, and we’ll see each other at home too, so we don’t even need to say hi.” And I thought about it, and that’s completely true. We know what’s going on with each other and everything they’re feeling. The title’s “Wassup,” but honestly, we don’t even need to say it.

The bond a group has is pretty unique in the way you live every day together as you work at your craft.
MARTIN: It is a really unique bond, but honestly, we’re just regular friends—a tight-knit group of friends. We can get on each other’s nerves during promotions, and even if we argue a little, we agree to still put on a good show, and then by the time we come offstage it’s like it never happened. (laughs) We get closer through hashing out ideas, we send each other reels and laugh about them together. (laughs) It’s that over and over. The biggest thing is that we have goals and dreams we want to achieve together. I guess that’s the camaraderie.

You and JUHOON are the same age, and it seems like you feel that camaraderie most strongly with him. (laughs)
MARTIN: I try to stay balanced, but there’s definitely moments when I fall apart—more than you’d think. (laughs) Like, I’ll be getting dressed and go, “Nothing looks good on me, I quit,” and go out in just a t-shirt and pants. Or I’ll be working on a song, feel like it’s not clicking, and just shut it down. Talking to JUHOON always seems to sort things out. He has experiences I don’t, and I have experiences he doesn’t. We can talk openly about what we’re feeling and we have a lot of deep conversations. I’m especially bad for overthinking and getting too deep into my own head, and he has this way of looking at things more simply. I’m like the crashing waters of a tsunami (laughs) and JUHOON’s like peaceful, gentle waves. I think that’s why we click so well.

Wouldn’t you say that tendency of yours to think carefully about things also translates to the effort you put into being considerate toward others?
MARTIN: That comes less from leadership and more from a position of wanting to respect people as individuals. I have my own unique qualities, my own way of being stubborn, my own quirks (laughs) and naturally I want that to be respected, so I try and look at other people the same way, like, “Oh, they have this interesting quirk. Oh, they’re stubborn about that. Oh, I really like this or that about them.” KEONHO’s into vintage clothes and JAMES is into anime, and that in turn gets me curious about those things. I want to be like a kid who’s curious about everything and soaks it all up like a sponge. It’s worked out for me so far.

I want to be careful saying this, but I feel like it can be easy to become a bit cynical when you work in a creative field. What leads you to embrace all the variety the world has to offer?
MARTIN: I think you have to reach out and grab happiness, and I try to focus on the good side of things, but too much hope can lead to disappointment, so I always try to see both sides of things—the yin and yang. It’s actually a concept I learned from my old contemporary dance instructor. After happiness comes unhappiness, and after that there’s happiness again, so you can’t just look at one side—you have to maintain a balance. I think you can find happiness even in unhappy times, and you can be unhappy even when your material life is good. I seemed to learn early on that unhappiness and happiness coexist because they need each other.

Does all that self-awareness and effort to stay grounded come back to the ideas of idealism and keeping your roots that you’ve talked about before?
MARTIN: One example of how I romanticize things is how I get attached to the memory of something that just happened that one time. I have a hard time throwing things away too. If I have good memories involving clothes I wore as a kid, I end up treasuring them even more. When this bunsik place I used to eat at closed down, it felt like my heart was being torn out. (laughs) Getting together with the group to work is an important source of happiness for me. I’m still pretty young (laughs) but I think I romanticize my teenage years. Of course, when I’m an adult and get into my 20s and 30s, I’ll probably find the same thing looking back. Maybe the reason I miss my teens is because so much changed during the pandemic. Everything went remote and turned “gray gray.” It felt like all the colors of the world just drained away. I probably can’t let go because of those lingering feelings. (laughs)

To borrow a line from “Blue Lips,” what is it that lets you “get to the end and hit rewind” with all of this?
MARTIN: It’s just … love, I guess. Like how much I love music, how much I love the people around me. Loving stuff, getting completely into it. Even when it’s like, “I can’t do this anymore,” I end up starting over from the beginning, so “the end” is more of a metaphor for some kind of limit or wall. The reason I can start over even when I feel the end coming is probably because I’ve still got that idealism and love. I end up going back and trying something new with the same feeling I had when I first started making music. That’s why I wrote lyrics about the uncertain future and feeling like nobody understood me during my trainee days. I think those lyrics probably came out of being so deeply absorbed in things.

Some people live for the excitement of finishing something, others for the process itself. What about you?
MARTIN: For me, the process is a really long arc. There’s more to it than just making a song—you perform it, and then there’s a period afterwards where the song ages, and someday someone might go back and listen to it again. And then, someday way off in the future, it’ll be like, “oh yeah, I remember that.” It’s interesting, like keeping a diary. I feel like I really live inside that whole process. That’s also why I love collaborating with people more than anything else. There’s a certain kind of inspiration you get having someone right there beside you and talking with them, and I feel like things turn out better when that gets reflected in the song. That whole process means the day will never come that I step away from music. Honestly, if this weren’t my life, I wonder what I’d even be doing instead. I bet I’ll still be making music in my next life, too.