KEONHO’s gone from competing with himself to learning to enjoy tackling everything as a group.
You mentioned on Weverse LIVE that you applied for your resident registration ID card. Maybe you feel a little closer to becoming an adult now?
KEONHO: I heard they already issued it and I just need to go pick it up. I’m not totally sure what you can do with it, though. Oh! Whenever we fly, SEONGHYEON and I always had to get in a separate line because we were both under 17, but the older guys got to use the automated immigration lines. Now that we have our IDs, we can use them too. (laughs)
Congratulations. (laughs) You’ve always said your message to yourself is “enjoy it while you can,” so now that you’re almost a proper adult with ID, is there anything you’re looking forward to enjoying?
KEONHO: I guess once we’re adults, we’ll all be able to go to the jjimjilbang or an Internet cafe together, even after concerts when it’s late? I went when I was little, but I’ve never been with the group.
Who doesn’t love a good jjimjilbang? (laughs)
KEONHO: When I was a swimmer, my friends and I would go back and forth between the hot and cold baths, over and over. I want to do that again and relive that feeling. (laughs) When we had time off recently, I went swimming, and it brought back all these old memories. It was really nice, and now I want to do the things I did as a kid, but with the group.
How do you think you’ve changed since then?
KEONHO: Even as a swimmer, there were events and spectators, but swimming was more of a competition against yourself. You just focus on swimming, on shaving seconds off your time. But now, onstage, it’s not just about focusing on myself—I have to think about connecting with the people watching, with our fans.
When you’re in the water, it blocks all the noise out, and it’s all about beating your own record, right?
KEONHO: Exactly. So when you’re in the water, it feels like you’re heading into an entirely different world. When you dive, you always enter fingertips first, so you feel the water come into contact with you from your fingertips all the way down to your toes, and it makes you concentrate even harder. I think that’s what kept me coming back to swimming.
That’s something you don’t really get to feel in the everyday world—you’d have to actually get in the water. Considering you gave that up to be in CORTIS, what does it give you that swimming didn’t?
KEONHO: When I was swimming, the only thing I had to think about was what I personally needed to do, but now, our whole group makes music videos together, gets involved in the styling—we work together on almost every creative aspect. The fact that every creative process is something we go through together, not alone, is what makes this so special.
It reminds me of something you said in an interview with “ELLE”, where you described CORTIS as “always thinking new and creating something great, rather than going with the obvious or the expected.” It’s obviously easier to take the obvious path, so what’s it like when you always choose to take a new one instead?
KEONHO: We start out by having fun. (laughs) If you looked in on one of our ideation sessions, you might get the impression we’re completely unfocused and just messing around, but our best ideas have always come from that. We start by just hanging out, just talking or messing around, and what comes out of that has always been the best stuff. I think you get a better end result when you kick things off just like how when you’re with friends and you drop the filter and just talk.
For example?
KEONHO: This time around, we’d all be talking about this or that that happened to us, and those conversations would go on to become part of the lyrics or music videos. The first ideas for the “TNT” music video, for example, came straight from things we really experienced after debuting. The part with that huge crowd following us was inspired by people tailing us wherever we went.
You ate acai bowls all the time when you were in LA, and they show up in both the album photos and the track “ACAI.”
KEONHO: The demo for “ACAI” actually started from a freestyle that was this whole jumble of bananas and strawberries in addition to acai. The producers heard it and asked, “What is this even about?” So we told them we’d been eating a lot of acai bowls lately, and they said why not just write a proper song about that, so we did. At first we were like, “What do we even write about?” Then someone said, “We like acai, so let’s just say we like it,” and SEONGHYEON wrote the line, “You know I like it lots, uh uh acai.” Then we thought, “With acai bowls, it’s not the toppings that matter, it’s the base. We gotta be more like that!” So then we wrote the line, “What a waste of taste, enough with the lame toppings.”
It’s poetic and philosophical in its own way, even if it’s about acai. (laughs)
KEONHO: There was this one acai place we kept ordering from, and at one point we finally said, “Let’s try somewhere new!” But then we did, and the base was such a letdown. So we were like, “Our place is clearly the best. They’ve got the best acai bowls.” We were working on the rhymes for the first verse when the topping thing came up, and the “enough with the lame toppings” line practically wrote itself. From there we decided to frame the whole thing around the idea that with acai bowls, it’s the base that should take center stage, and that’s how the rest of the lyrics came together.
When you sing lines like “Uh uh uh uh uh hundred acai” and “Down two glasses and get pumped, shake it till it’s samba,” there’s quite a bit of moving your shoulders, swinging your arms, and just moving freely. It was interesting to see each of you putting your own spin on the same choreography.
KEONHO: Our dances have a lot of free sections where we can just dance in our own way, as long as it fits the vibe. We all have a different sense of what we think is cool, and since we’re performing songs we wrote ourselves, it’s easier to bring out the vibe, so when we’re all dancing together, there’s a lot of variety but it all mixes together deliciously.
What do you think is cool? What’s your vibe like?
KEONHO: The part in “REDRED” where I come in right after MARTIN is probably the clearest display of what my vibe’s like. I like how I’m dancing a little playfully, not too serious. I think I’m better at pulling off something a little unhinged than something cool and composed. (laughs)
So, on the flip side, what makes CORTIS cool when you’re all together?
KEONHO: Something we and the visual branding team agreed on together was that we wanted to come across completely natural for the new album. Instead of trying to look as cool as possible, we wanted to capture our everyday selves with the sort of silly vibe we actually have, so visually, we tried to strip away any superficiality and come across as raw as possible. Instead of cool bootcut jeans, we went with Nike pants you could find at a thrift shop for just 20,000 won and Adidas track pants with the hems just falling naturally against the socks. And it wasn’t just the clothes. With the makeup, too, we wanted to show ourselves for who we really are, so we went with basically no makeup, really trying to capture things like complexion, eyebrows, and lashes all on camera.
Like with your selfies? You have a lot where you hold the camera really close or they’re blurry, and there’s a whole thing where it looks like you’re giving food to the camera.
KEONHO: I honestly would feel sort of embarrassed only posting selfies where I look good, so I just post whatever. And the fans seem to like that. (laughs)
What’s your day-to-day styling like?
KEONHO: I love wearing hats—sometimes not pulling it down all the way, sometimes turned sideways. Lately I’ve also been into band tees and clothes that look like they’re basically falling apart. This, that I’m wearing right now, I picked it up real cheap in the US. This was a nice leather jacket originally, but it’s completely wrecked. Still, I love just throwing it on anyway because it somehow still looks good. And I’ve started buying a lot of longish jackets that come down past the hips.
Why's that?
KEONHO: I was trying to dress like Liam Gallagher. I've been really into the band Oasis lately, listening to their music, picking up LPs in the US, watching documentaries. Those show you who someone really is, because they're capturing their life. There's this one where Liam Gallagher’s just there in jeans and a windbreaker. I just love that no-muss-no-fuss style. Seeing what he wears got me trying styles I used to feel like I could never pull off, like long jackets. I think that's why I feel a lot more free to try things out now, and my fashion sense has opened up too.
In an interview with “Rolling Stone”, you said you were curious about where you’d be in five or 10 years, but it sounds like your perspective has opened up so much that even five months from now could be impossible to predict.
KEONHO: I’ve had this image in my head lately where—I mean, yes, we live together now, but it still feels like company housing—so maybe 10 years down the line, when we’re older, I’d love for us all to live together in one of our own homes. And much further down the road, I’d like to give living all alone out in the woods a try. When we were shooting “FaSHioN” in New Zealand, there was this absolutely beautiful river stretching out alongside snow-capped mountains, and I thought I’d love to live somewhere like that one day.
You’re already living together, and you still want to keep living together later? You must have a lot of fun living with them. (laughs)
KEONHO: I share a room with MARTIN and SEONGHYEON. We stay up talking at night a lot, and sometimes there’s a burst of energy and it gets loud and chaotic. JAMES and JUHOON’s room, on the other hand, is calm the moment they get in at the end of the day. That’s when JAMES usually watches anime or orders delivery for himself, and JUHOON usually washes up and goes straight to bed. I had no idea at first how well we’d all fit together, but looking at it now, the two rooms just settled into their own energies on their own.
You’ve said before that you and MARTIN have similar personalities, and that SEONGHYEON has some overlap with you but is very different in other ways. What was it like adjusting to living with people who are simultaneously similar to and yet completely different from you?
KEONHO: SEONGHYEON and I were both pretty into keeping things tidy, but MARTIN has this habit of just taking off his pants and leaving them wherever. But instead of being like “Why didn’t you clean up?” or “You gotta be neater?” all three of us just naturally drifted away from tidiness altogether. (laughs) That said, I did scrub the bathroom down two days ago.
Was there a reason you were so determined to clean the bathroom?
KEONHO: When you’re writing lyrics and making music, having a repetitive routine actually gets in the way, so you have to refresh your surroundings by redecorating or coming up with a new routine to keep your perspective fresh.
Even cleaning is connected to music for you. That’s very “YOUNGCREATORCREW” of you. (laughs)
KEONHO: Honestly, there was just so much unused stuff in the bathroom. I kept telling myself I really needed to deal with it, and two days ago I finally did and got rid of everything. (laughs) We’ve been gradually changing up the decor and overall vibe. We got a PlayStation for the living room, then a rug, then a table, put in some lights, and now the bathroom’s all good too. All these little changes make me feel good. And MARTIN bought a candle, so now the place smells nice when we light it. Looking at it all together, I think the dorm just needed to feel more lived-in.
Has that helped you sleep any better?
KEONHO: Not yet. I get sleep paralysis, and I dream a lot. Sometimes I even write them down. One time in a dream, I was falling and woke up, but I didn’t just wake up normally—I woke up in the exact same position I was falling in. Waking up in that position while in bed was so weird I’ll never forget it. (laughs)
Not sleeping well means your days are a little longer than the average person’s. You have lines in “Wassup” that go “it’s been another long day” and “sick of this repetitive life, yeah we gotta go.” Where is it you’re going to at the end of that long day?
KEONHO: The stage. Repetition is key when you practice, repeating the same moves over and over, but when you finally get onstage, you can see the fiery passion in the crowd under the lights. Something wells up inside me just thinking about that moment.