The members recently sat down to an interview with Kyunghyang on the afternoon of March 4th, and they shared their throughts on their recent achievements, their future, as well as on the Korean music industry.
Q: Did you know that you had ranked on the Billboard chart?
G-Dragon: We had no idea. We just woke up a second ago and headed over. I’ve never thought about advancing into the U.S., but I think I should start thinking about that now. I hope to show the process it takes to transform from an idol into a musician.
Q: This achievement means that your talents were recognized overseas.
Taeyang: I think we only achieved it because the internet allows music to be heard all over the world. We listened to a lot of music outside of Korea and reflected that, which I think worked.
G-Dragon: There’s definitely a lot more pressure now.
Taeyang: There’s also the fact that K-pop is earning global popularity now.
Q: This album seems to have a nice mix of acoustic and electronic sounds.
Taeyang: We ourselves are tired of the electric sounds that seems to have such a strong hold over Korean music lately. We unanimously decided to present warmer music this time.
G-Dragon: Stylistically, you can consider our album a mesh of analog and emotional sounds. The sound is trendy, but we focused on bringing emotions into the melody line and lyrics.
Q: The members all had a lot of individual and unit promotions. What did you learn from that?
Taeyang: I found what buries me in group promotions.
Seungri: I learned how to grab hold of the stage and how to react quickly.
G-Dragon: I’m both proud and glad that we directed another pathway that male idols can walk down.
T.O.P: It was fun learning something new. I feel joy from expressing something through both music and acting.
Daesung: It was an opportunity for me to assure myself and fill myself with hope regarding the road I was to walk down in the future. I want to become someone who could positively give joy to others through music, someone who manages to wash away all of the worries of others whenever they look at me.
Q: There were rumors about disbandment and such. How did you overcome those?
Taeyang: Communication was the wisest option.
Daesung: Now that our group reached our sixth year, our individual colors have bcome a lot stronger, which consequently brings out such crises. But the more that happens, the more we try to band tighter together and talk things out. It helps us realize, ‘What I thought wasn’t right.’ Even though our opinions are different, as long as our meaning towards music remains the same, it resolves everything.
Q: Did you ever feel problems towards your agency or their system?
Taeyang: I wouldn’t specifically call it discord with our agency, but I think there are problems with Korea’s music industry as a whole. Copyrighting and distributions do not seem to be going in the right direction.
G-Dragon: As an artist, there are so many things we need to pay attention to. Japan has a great system that allows us to focus entirely on our music without outside distractions, but Korea isn’t the same. Since we’re idols, we have to go on variety programs… With a fatigued body and mind, the quality of our album inevitably drops, which disappoints our fans as well.
Q: You’re now six years into your idol careers. Any thoughts about your future?
G-Dragon: We don’t have plans about our future; we’ve never made specific goals. When you set something, that’s your limit. You can’t go further than that. Isn’t it better for us to just disregard what others think and love ourselves and continue pursuing music?
Taeyang: Around last year, our members did discuss something like that. We basically decided that you can never tell what will happen in a person’s future. We decided that we’d just like for our passions for our music and our careers to never change.
Q: Do you date? Don’t you receive restrictions on your personal lives?
Seungri: Idols these days seem to date on-screen. Of course, not me. More than anything, I try to think before I speak, but I do make mistakes. Before, I went through difficulties because of that…
T.O.P: It was difficult not having private time to ourselves, but we earned something else. Now I just think of it as giving up something you have to, nothing more and nothing less.
Posted by VITALSIGN @ Allkpop
Source: Kyunghyang via Nate
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