INDEX
Music: A Gift, Not a Solo Cultivation
-You often use words related to nature in your music, such as “gentle breeze,” “light,” and “cloud. The same is true of your jackets. Do you have a great respect for natural things?
Taehyung: That’s a great question (laughs). (laughs) That’s exactly right. The “sky” and “time” are closely related, and it is our overall concept for the album to express this in the lyrics and artwork, Set Free” is daytime, “Whim” is nighttime, and “Breeze” is morning. I put water on top of a picture of the sky and took a picture of it. We chose this method because the water reflecting the sky is us, HALLEY, and we recorded it from above.
Taehyung: You see the character “he” in the words “Whoso he (= dusk)” and “He who time (= dawn)”. The concept of “he” and “who” is a close existence, so I decided to make an album based on this concept. The concept of “who is he (= dusk)” and “who is he when (= dawn)” is the sky, so we decided to release three singles, an EP, and an album based on the image of the sky.
Taehyung: The jacket of the EP “Daze” looks like light. The jacket represents “the moment when time began” and “the big bang.
-In the song “Whim,” he sings, “Until the clouds in the east are lit on fire,” and he describes how he is making music from night to morning, and he says, “Don’t let the poem stop in front of the boring present. Don’t get lost. Don’t let go. ＞I think this song expresses what Taehyung and HALLEY want to emphasize in their music.
Taehyung: You are right. I wrote a song called “Dongun” before I started the band, and I like the time of daybreak. The first time we wrote a song at Halley after the showcase concert was from around 9 pm to 7 am, and when we took a break and went outside, that was the view we saw. So we decided to use that as our starting point.
-I see. How do you view music, Taehyung? I think that the elegance that comes from treating music as something very beautiful is expressed in the sound. I think this kind of music is created by the combination of music and the way we feel about nature. It may be an exaggeration to say that “music is something sublime.
Taehyung: Well, I guess so. I think that in a band, a new view of music is born through the five of us clashing relentlessly with each other without compromising our individual views of music.
In terms of how I personally view music, it is largely a gift. I don’t feel that it is something I have cultivated on my own. Of course I make efforts, study, and research, but I feel that it is a “gift” or “something borrowed. That is why I continue to work hard.
I can never think that the phenomenon of people saying, “Your voice is wonderful,” is something I was born with because I am a great person. I have a mother who bought me a guitar and a family who allowed me to go abroad, and I feel that I was given the opportunity by my environment. It is definitely not mine. People are moved by something that cannot be completed within me. Personally, I think it is sublime in that sense.
However, singing is a personal thing, and I don’t think the lyrics I write are sublime. I think I have the ability to convey a different message because my voice is different from others. But I’ve come to believe that it’s just that some people are better at English than others, some people are better at drawing pictures, and I’m better at singing and writing songs in different ways of expression, and I just have my own language. After all, we are human beings, so we can only write what we think on a daily basis anyway, right?
-I can only write what I am thinking on a daily basis.
Taehyung: Sometimes a song is created that people can relate to, that gives them courage, or that heals their wounds a little. By exposing my wounds, the people who listen to my songs can feel a little better about their own wounds. I think that these small daily happenings are the reason why music exists.
