Hot on the heels of his new song “Black Eye,” VERNON is the focus of the third release in the photobook series covering the members of SEVENTEEN, The Thirteen Tapes, or TTT for short. Weverse Magazine helped put TTT together and conducted an interview with VERNON in anticipation of its release. You can find 64 pages full of his photos and more in The Thirteen Tapes (TTT) vol. 3/13.

A lot of people were probably expecting your solo song to be hip hop, but “Black Eye” is a punk song.

VERNON: When I first went to make a song, I couldn’t really think of what I should do. But I have a friend named Robb Roy who worked on “Ash” off FACE THE SUN and thought I could work with him on the song. He’s a graphic designer by trade, so he made the album art for my single album. We also like a lot of the same music and talk a lot. He was with me when I was in the studio and writing my rap for “Ash” and giving me ideas. We ended up working together better than I expected so I said we should do something together for real. I had a few other songs but the people who listened to them all said this was the most suitable one so I ended up going with that one.

You’ve always been interested in punk, right? I heard you listened to it a lot when you were young too.

VERNON: I guess I was exposed to rock even as a kid. My parents are really into it, too. I heard it a lot when I was young, and I feel like pop punk started to get popular again over the past few years. I dabbled in it for the past two years but now I’m really getting into it.

I was really impressed by the character in your song, as far as being punk goes. He really seems like a punk—like how he gets lost in his own anger and is so averse to talking to other people that he calls himself his own friend.

VERNON: The song was inspired by a mutual friend of Robb and me. He’s sort of distracting. (laughs) And he feels lonely a lot of the time. Not everything in the song’s about him, of course, but we did take some inspiration from him when making it. He’s the one who suggested the title when I played it for him after we changed the original version with Korean and English all mixed together to be all English. That’s when he came up with the idea to call it “Black Eye.” I thought it was a really good fit for that rough-around-the-edges feel.

“Black Eye” refers to an injury, but in the context of this song, I feel like it could also mean emotional pain. He refuses other people’s attempts to get close to him, then it ends with, “Knock knock, Is there anybody out there?” So it feels more psychologically pressing.

VERNON: I decided that would be an appropriate ending. The ego of the character in the song sort of goes back and forth in the outro. He might suddenly have a lot of fun with someone and get too close, then push them away because he’s afraid of hurting them. But he pauses a little after saying that. Like he’s not sure whether he should really go away (laughs) and then, knock knock—that’s how it ends. I wrote that part and I agree that it works really well. Haha.

Do you yourself ever feel conflicted like that?

VERNON: I’m not quite that bad. (laughs) I’m definitely the kind of person who needs other people. I want to be able to rely on others.

There must be a lot of times when it’s hard to express how much you need people since you do work that a lot of people recognize you through. What do you do when you want to express that to someone but you can’t?

VERNON: It all comes down to differences in perception in the end. Eventually. I think for certain things, when I decide to see them one way or feel a certain way about them, that’s the only way I’m going to see or feel about them. So even though I might not be able to control my feelings, it’s down to the way I think about it, so I do think I have a certain amount of control.

Is that what you like about hip hop and rock, then—that it gives you a way to control and express your feelings? 

VERNON: I think that’s part of it. I think my tendency toward that also influences my tastes. I felt this great sense of relief when I made “Black Eye,” even. I was able to make it exactly how I wanted, and yelling and telling the story through lyrics was a major stress reliever and really fun.

Your vocals in “Black Eye” are amazing. You sing in low, husky tones on certain words and it makes your vocals impactful even when you sing more quietly during the chorus.

VERNON: As you say, some parts are a little husky and deepish, but I also feel I sound a bit childlike at parts. I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt that way. I didn’t really like that when I was younger, but as I got older I realized it gives me something unique. That’s why I wanted to do pop punk: to sing something that suits my voice.

I was really impressed how you just used your particular vocal tone to carry the chorus in a quiet voice rather than going for something big. It only serves to add to the feeling that you were screaming your lungs out beforehand.

VERNON: I wrote the melody for the chorus and Robb wrote the verses and outro. It really was a collaborative process. The whole song is basically me yelling, so I consciously told myself to ease up a bit when I was recording the vocals. Since I’m already shouting, I thought it would be overkill if I shouted even louder, so I tried to have a light touch when we were mixing it, keeping it relatively clean and not trying to beautify it too much with reverb or anything and keeping that to a minimum.

You say you tried to minimize the amount of reverb, but it seems like the recording picked up a natural amount of echo from the way you sang. Were you going for a live sound?

VERNON: I’ve been to that recording studio a number of times since debuting, so I’m really familiar with it and I’m close with the recording engineer, so I asked them to listen while I was recording and kept asking them for their feedback, too. I wanted it to sound clear and very pop punk.

Working on this was different from working on a SEVENTEEN album. Now that you can look back, how do you feel about it?

VERNON: I realized a lot of places I can improve while I was working on “Black Eye.” 

This was supposed to be my song, but I think I realized too late that there were things I should’ve been taking a more active leadership role in. When we’re working as SEVENTEEN, we make things together and the label helps us in various ways, but I think there were parts of “Black Eye” I didn’t direct properly because I was doing it with the mindset of a member of SEVENTEEN. So it was an opportunity to learn how to do better for next time.

I imagine you felt a little regretful about that inasmuch as you were also your own producer.

VERNON: You’re right. Exactly. With SEVENTEEN, there’s the other members and lots of professionals, so even when it’s my song, we’re making it together, but I was the only one who knew what I wanted in this case and was doing it all on my own, so I realized I should’ve been doing more to direct things. I used to feel like I was really trapped in a corner, and this time I was trying to be more receptive, but I was so focused on trying to hear out other people’s ideas and opinions that sometimes it was different from what I envisioned. It also taught me that it’s good to do everything in moderation.

You have to consider what other people say all the time when you’re working with SEVENTEEN. It can’t be easy for all of you to find a balance between making your ideas heard and listening to others.

VERNON: And there’s 13 of us (laughs) so we’re always trying to figure out what to do at any given moment. Sometimes I think my ideas were better or more logical but what people do isn’t always based on logic. Lots of unexpected things come up in a process like that but I think there’s no other answer to finding common ground than to keep the communication flowing. I find we’re actually more like a family because we were put together through a casting process. It’s similar to how you’re born and you get the brothers and sisters that you get. You keep talking and come to understandings and that makes it more like siblings in a family.

Does continuous communication work to solve problems?

VERNON: Sometimes it works better than other times, but it’s absolutely better to talk it out than not to. Absolutely.

How do those conversations lead to solutions? You must have to open up to one another.

VERNON: Going up to them… I mean, we see each other all the time. We have casual chats about whatever in the green room, so if there’s any source of conflict, we specifically bring it up and talk about it. Just directly. And I think even more important than talking is listening—being open and listening attentively.

It’s not always easy to hear people out and take their suggestions.

VERNON: The listening’s the easy part. For example, I don't like drinking that much. For example, I don’t like drinking that much, but there’s people who still like it even if it makes them sad or cry a lot. I can’t really understand people like that, but even though I might not understand them, that doesn’t make what they’re saying untrue. Just because they can’t explain it doesn’t mean they don’t like it. So I think I’m trying to accept things even if I can’t understand them. Just like that.

That reminds me of something you said in Weverse Magazine when you recommended the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once: “Let’s be kind. Let’s love each other. Right away.”

VERNON: Maybe I was in sort of a late-night mood (laughs) but the lesson in Everything Everywhere All at Once is quite simple. But I think actually managing to convey that message is an unbelievably big deal. Because you might know you should be friendly and loving, but actually becoming that kind of person is really hard.

It is hard, isn’t it?

VERNON: Sometimes it doesn’t work out, you know? At one point I was told that I hardly talked anymore so it was hard for people to talk to me. I was a little shocked when I heard that. I never try to make things difficult for people but I wonder if it’s my fault for being too cautious. Relationships between people—they’re never easy. The other members were able to tell me that because they’ve known me for so long. That’s helping me grow up more.

I bet you had a lot on your mind when you weren’t talking as much.

VERNON: I think it made me more introspective. And I’m still getting more so this year—about my character, my career, my attitude towards what I want to do in the future and towards the work I do, my attitude toward other people. I think that’s why I became more cautious at the same time. I always considered introspection important, but the pandemic gave me the chance to reflect more. With less promotion to do, I had more time to think.

Would you say that introspection is one way of finding yourself?

VERNON: I don’t really think it’s about finding myself. Rather, it's me who projects my environment and my spirit. I think it’s more about me being a reflection of my environment and my mind. I don’t really focus on finding myself.

I feel like you often describe yourself as wanting to come across as simple and real. Is this an extension of that other way of thinking?

VERNON: One time I asked my friend out of the blue what I’m like and he said he likes me because I’m that kind of person. I really liked that somehow because I never saw myself coming across that way before. But when I think about it, it seems accurate. Even when I was young I preferred things that are plain and simple and not over the top, so I think that makes up a big part of who I am.

What do you mean by “simple”?

VERNON: “Simple”? When you just ask like that, it’s really hard to answer. I guess there’s nothing in life that’s 100% true, but I guess you could say that something’s simple if it’s real and honest. When I was young, I was trying to be someone who I wasn’t, but it wasn’t really me. It hurt me to my core. And I was probably influenced by always seeing the way my parents were so unpretentious. I never want people to dislike me, but I think that if I’m like this and someone still doesn’t like me, I shouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m trying too hard to do things my own way—I’m just trying not to be someone I’m not.

You were homeschooled while you were a trainee and now as a member of SEVENTEEN you’re a celebrity, which is quite a different life than other people your age. It can’t be easy staying true to yourself and living unselfishly under those circumstances.

VERNON: Naturally my lifestyle is different from that of other people my age, but I don’t think there’s much of a difference beyond that. Sometimes I hang out with my friends and their friends and I think the reason it’s so chill is that it strips me of my celebrity status. I used to think there was something inexplicably different about celebrities when I was young, but once I started working I realized—and I know this is a cliché to say—that celebrities really are just normal people. It seems obvious but it’s pretty easy to lose sight of the fact.

When you say “lose sight of,” part of that must also be trying to stay aware that we’re all alike.

VERNON: Right. I think it’s really dangerous to forget that.

Is that way of life at all related to how you keep up with trends? It seems like you have a good grasp of pop culture, including movies, as well as your generation’s culture.

VERNON: I think the main reason is that I just find it interesting. If I feel like there’s something I need to learn about, I want to learn about it. It’s hard to really get into some things without having all the necessary background knowledge but I still try to know everything I can about those things because it’s in my nature to.

That seems to be your position: living differently from most people but still always taking an interest in what everyone knows and likes.

VERNON: Personally, I think that’s a good position to have—sort of being part of the audience. If you only see what’s right in front of you, you miss everything else. Like, more of a bird’s-eye view? That lets you see more of the big picture.

What kind of music do you want to make for other people in your age group, since you’re in that position? You’ve said before that you want to make music that the young people of your generation would listen to.

VERNON: As far as a message goes, I want to make music that listeners my age can relate to or that people who like the same things as me would enjoy. I’m also doing it because I like it, of course, but I think it’s best to make music that people who like the same things as me would like. I don’t think my tastes are that unusual.

You want to connect your own world with the world of others, but I guess it isn’t easy. A lot of people watch what you do. In your Mindset interview, you said that your greatest fear in life is “revealing my true feelings.”

VERNON: What I meant by that is that I’m afraid to reveal my true feelings publicly. We’re in a world now where it’s kind of dangerous to reveal your deepest thoughts, you know? People are too quick to judge.

I guess it’s no surprise that you can’t say everything you want about some things due to the nature of your job. The job of an entertainer is sort of a balancing act between wanting to fully express yourself and having to consider how others perceive you. Have you found a way to deal with that?

VERNON: No. How to deal with it? I don’t think there’s any way to solve that problem completely. I think the only thing you can do is keep trying until the day you die.

Until the day you die.

VERNON: Maybe it sounds melodramatic, but what I’m saying is … My mom told me something: She said that life is a process you go through until your dying day of trying to figure out who you are. Sort of a journey to ask, Who am I? People naturally change a little bit as the years go by. If you want to redeem yourself by always trying to be better, I don’t think there’s any other way but to keep trying until the day you die.