In a world full of red lights, give yourself the green light and go full speed. Trust that, even when it turns red, you’ll see green again soon enough—that’s the “JAMES” way of riding the wave.
You posted on Weverse about a video about exploring inner peace that showed up in your YouTube feed. What got you thinking about your inner thoughts?
JAMES: My mom said I’m just like my dad. (laughs) My dad’s always been into exploring that kind of thing too. You can access so much information through a whole spectrum of media now, and CORTIS has become a player in that directly, meaning we see a lot of feedback and reactions to our stuff. That got me really digging into the kind of peace and happiness I can find within myself.
You’ve always seemed to place importance on having your own personal space. In other words, you have your own routines despite also being close with the rest of the group.
JAMES: I think balance is really important. We spend a lot of time together working on our craft, but you also need to grow as an individual and explore yourself to be able to create anything, so I think there’s real value in having time to yourself even while you do practically everything together as a group. I’m sure we still have room to grow, but I think everyone’s doing a good job of maintaining a balance within the group. (laughs)
Could it be because of that balance that, in your “2025 cartalk” video, you talked about wanting to go on a work-free trip with the group? SEONGHYEON and JUHOON also said you’ve changed a lot.
JAMES: Umm, well, I don’t really feel like I’ve changed much, actually. (laughs) There’s an age gap between me and the others, but I’ve never felt like the “older brother” role suits me, so I just try to be on equal footing with everyone. In our group, we all just turn our brains off (laughs) and bounce ideas off each other with zero filter. It’s really chill. So I figured a trip together might act as a whole new source of inspiration for us. And since work has been taking us to a lot of different places lately, I thought it’d be great to experience how people in those cities work, what they eat, and so on, as a group.
That must have made visiting your hometown with the others to eat at your regular spots and play hockey together extra special.
JAMES: It brought up a real mix of emotions. I’m usually pretty protective of my personal space and privacy, so I thought a lot about where to bring them. In the end I picked places that are especially meaningful to me, and since they’d only ever seen me while we were in Korea, I think they witnessed a new side of me, too. It was a unique experience, watching them experience food and other things I grew up with for the first time, and it made me happy to have a chance to show them all that.
You seem to always be thinking about how much of yourself to share, and yet you can be remarkably candid in front of the camera, like in “go home,” where you show your whole process of washing your face, lying around, then heading out to see a movie.
JAMES: Oh. Huh. I guess there’s a lot of different sides to me. (laughs) I think I present myself a little differently depending on the situation. There’s probably a reason the guys say the difference between my onstage and offstage persona is the biggest in the group. I don’t feel it, personally, though. A lot of people say they’re surprised by how calm I am when they actually meet me in person. With the albums too, I just try to be as authentic as possible and show exactly who I am. We try to express the things that influence us, the things we want to talk about.
In what ways is that attitude toward authenticity reflected on “GREENGREEN”?
JAMES: We’re really just trying to be ourselves. With our debut album, we expressed exactly what we were feeling at the time, and the new one’s similar. We captured the things we felt and experienced after debuting, but in a way that’s more raw. Some things we laid out directly, some we approached more conceptually. In any case, a lot of thought went into it. Personally, I love keeping things unfiltered—capturing whatever I’m feeling right then and there, whatever springs to mind in the moment. I look back on my own life and the time we’ve spent together and end up drawing on a lot from that. I wanted to show as much of the human side as possible, and the artistic side too, but I didn’t feel like it had to be perfect or anything. It’s like, “Let’s just tap into the energy we’re working with right now, do something unique to the moment. Let’s give anything and everything a try.” Those are the kinds of thoughts I want to get across to people right now.
Your debut album felt like it was showing the “cool” side of CORTIS. The new one feels like it’s showing the open, playful side.
JAMES: What you saw during our debut is definitely part of who we are, but since we’ve already shown the world who we are, we wanted to go a little deeper with the second album. Some of it got so real that we wondered if we were going too far, so the group ended up talking about it a ton. Stuff like, “How can we be more authentic? How can we make it more ‘us’?” There was a real push to strip away the polish both in the visual style and in the music, so while we were more made up for the debut, we went with short hair this time. I always like trying new things, and I didn’t want to get locked into one particular image.
It sounds like trading creative ideas is a regular occurrence for the group. You agreed with MARTIN in “2025 cartalk” when he said he’d like it if everyone took on a more distinct role. Why is that?
JAMES: Everyone in the group writes and produces. There’s no assigned roles. So I thought it’d be great if, when someone has a really clear vision or idea for a song, the rest of us could just get behind them on it. The person with the best idea is going to differ from album to album and song to song, not to mention we all have different personalities. We just give something a try, and if it’s not working, we can always just think of something else. That’s why it’s like, “Okay, let’s just get behind this for now.”
Maybe one example of that is how “REDRED” started from an idea of yours. What process brought it to where it is today?
JAMES: First, there was this demo I made. It was called “What’s next?” But no matter how I looked at it, I didn’t really feel it was memorable. It felt like it was missing something. Then the phrase “GREENGREEN” came to me. “GO!” already had the line “We don’t need any other sign / Paint the town with the green lights,” so I thought, “What if we used green to represent things we feel good about?” So we talked about it together, and someone suggested we use red for the opposite, and that’s where the theme of contrasting the two came from. At first everyone was like, “Is this working? Maybe not?” But when we worked out the lyrics, it all came together.
You released two music videos for “REDRED”—the main one and the original version you produced yourselves. What was the story behind that?
JAMES: There was actually very little time to get the “REDRED” video ready. When we have meetings about music videos, we’ll sometimes shoot and edit footage ourselves to get a concept across as concretely as possible. We brought our video in and worked with the label and the director to shoot the final version. That’s where the original version of the “REDRED” music video came from. We were influenced by the Crying Nut song “Oh! What a Shiny Night.” That music video was the inspiration for all the green lighting and the camcorder look. It also influenced the outfits and styling in the main music video.
I’m surprised you know a Korean song that came out before you were even born. (laughs)
JAMES: I think it’s just that we live in an age where you can find anything easily, and I’m the kind of person who has to deal with whatever I’m curious about or whatever pops into my head. (laughs) Since I always need to be creating something new, I check out both old and new stuff. I sometimes try to avoid something that’s already been done, and sometimes I take the essence of something older and develop it into something new. For example, I’m a big Guy Ritchie fan, and the style worn by Brad Pitt’s gang in “Snatch” made a big impression on me, so I brought it up when we were in discussions for the “ACAI” music video. I think the things we encounter as we go about our day directly feed into the things we create.
I think that approach really shows on the CORTIS TikTok. Rather than just chasing trends by doing challenges, it’s more like you’re constantly trying new things based on this impressive sense for what’s happening these days, like when you posted that video of the five of you doing the wave with lobsters at a teppanyaki restaurant. (laughs)
JAMES: We throw a lot of ideas around with the staff from the artist content team. TikTok’s quick and easy to shoot for, so we brainstorm ideas, like, “How about we go to a teppanyaki place this time?” Which then turns into, “How should we shoot it? Should we bring a 360 camera?” Following trends is fine, but personally I love to make something completely new, so I’m always looking for things that feel fresh or CORTIS-y.
Even though it’s technically work, there’s always this uniquely fun energy whenever you post to TikTok. What do you attribute that to?
JAMES: We just … shoot a video. (laughs) It’s like that wave—once it gets started, it just sweeps everybody along with it. (laughs) If there’s an idea there, you run with it, and if it turns out well, you try another new thing.
It seems like the key is getting things done while making it look effortless. For that 2024 interview video, you were sitting in a rocking chair with this incredibly relaxed pose. That felt like the image you seem to be aiming for.
JAMES: The relaxed interview pose idea actually came from watching Matthew McConaughey. Seeing all the actors on late-night shows like “Jimmy Fallon” got me thinking about confidence. And I do think the right posture can make you feel more relaxed. Before I go onstage, I hold my arms up in a victory pose for 10 seconds. It’s not that I already feel confident going in—it’s that I think striking that pose actually gives me confidence.
You seem relaxed on the outside, but at the same time you always keep yourself on your toes, it seems. You’re playful most of the time, but there have been times where you tell the others they need to practice more, or you visibly tense up to make sure you don’t trip up while speaking.
JAMES: When it comes to practice—I don’t know how to put it. Hmm. I don’t know. (laughs) There’s, like, this voice I hear in the back of my head. Like, “Shouldn’t you get moving?” I always felt like there was never enough time. But I’m a lot better about that now.
How did you get to that point?
JAMES: It’s, uh, hard to explain. (laughs) This is something my family agrees with, too, not just me—it’s what I realized while thinking about how to manage my inner self: “Get into your room like you own it. Don't rent it, don't pay — just own it.” When I think of something as not really being mine, it’s like I don’t fully commit, and things don’t work out the way they should, so I think I just have to go pedal to the metal on everything. I’ve always had really big ambitions. I set myself a huge goal, and then I race towards it. Even if it’s an impossible goal, even if it doesn’t work out the way I wanted, as long as I give it everything I’ve got, it’s enough to know I did my best.
It’s like what you wrote on Weverse: “It’s only delusional until it works.”
JAMES: In a way, it is delusional, but even when something seems impossible, if you believe in yourself, it’ll happen someday. You start achieving seemingly unattainable goals little by little. In other words, “it’s only delusional until it works.” I don’t think setting impossible goals is necessarily a bad thing. Even if you don’t meet them exactly, if you gave it everything you’ve got, you can still feel like you really went for it, and it makes you feel like there’s even more you could do.
You’ve really figured out how to ride the wave.
JAMES: Indeed. Even if other people don’t believe in you, if you feel really sure about something, it’s worth going for.