Of Jeong Byeong-gi’s K-pop production styles, the most famous one is having unique systems. There were solo music projects and units before LOONA’s group debut, and now for tripleS, its unit system is a key point as well. Is there any particular reason for this method?
The LOONA solo releases were storytelling tools. As the company that the team was under was new, I needed a weapon like what David used to face Goliath with groups from big companies that quickly gain recognition, and for me that was making a universe. Nowadays “universe” is widely used in K-pop to much praise, but this wasn’t so common of a concept, even at that time. If you look at descriptions for LOONA on the actual music streaming platforms you’ll see a lot of repetition of terms involving the universe, and both solo and unit albums were part of that storytelling build-up. In other words, it wasn’t a story to fit a form, but a form to fit a story.
Having said that, the solos and units weren’t just parts of the process either. I thought that ODD EYE CIRCLE and yyxy should all promote on their own. With the first unit LOONA 1/3 as well, though in the end they only released two albums including the repackage, there were actually future plans as well.
You consistently give ballads a shot, such as tripleS Aria unit’s <Structure of Sadness>, and, though it was never released officially, LOONA’s <La Maison LOONA>. If you were to give a reason for this?
K-pop is performance music and visual music. Thus, if dance cannot be guaranteed, it’s as if it’s not K-pop. But for an old person like me, I think the ballad genre has a very powerful strength in Korea. It’s a very difficult world for ballads to become hits, without choreographies to capture fans abroad. But, being myself, I want to show a variety of music. In particular tripleS’ motto is “idol of all possibilities” but if they just only keep dancing, what sort of possibility is there? You have to keep trying new things to bring in new fans.
In many ways, you seem like someone who likes being unconventional.
I particularly dislike things that are no fun. Predictable gifts are always boring, and while dramas need some parts that go as expected, you need to have a few betrayals. This sort of reasoning is why LOONA 1/3 included Vivi instead of Yeojin. Yeojin being the / in 1/3, it was sort of a wild card. Choerry showing up at the video event “CINEMA THEORY: Up & Line”, or Kim Lip being revealed as ODD EYE CIRCLE’s first member, ahead of Jinsoul who had been greatly hinted at beforehand, this was all in the same line of thinking.
Previous LOONA members Heejin, Haseul, Kim Lip, Jinsoul, and Choerry have joined Modhaus to form ARTMS. At first that was just to be the project name, but it ended up being the group’s name. By chance, was there a different name planned? Or is this another unpredictable turn?
LOONA is only complete with 12 members, so if a group name was suddenly decided on, I thought that the members whose lawsuits hadn’t been concluded yet could’ve felt like there was no place for them. It was called a project because a title was needed, but as everything has now been settled, ARTMS became the group’s name.